Today's Stories

April 26 / 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Nothing Will Get Hillary Out of the Race

Harvey Wasserman
Making You Pay for the Next Chernobyl--in Advance!

Franklin Lamb
Will U.S. Policy in Lebanon and the Middle East Ever Change?

Wajahat Ali
Fisk Fighting: an Exclusive Interview with Robert Fisk

Mike Whitney
Food Riots and Speculators

Andrew Wimmer
Obliterate Them!

Greg Moses
Chicago: the Stupid Experiment

Paul Krassner
Remembering Ruben Salazar

April 25, 2008

George Ciccariello-Maher
Embedded with the Tupamaros

Dave Lindorff
The Bitter and the Biased: How Clinton Courted Racists in Pennsylvania

Franklin Lamb
The Israeli Project Has Failed in Lebanon

Alan Farago
Hacking the Development Code: the Politics of Zoning in Florida

John W. Farley
Syiran Nukes: the Phantom Menace

Kathleen M. Barry
Some Questions for "Femininists for Clinton:" Is There Really Any Difference Between Hillary and Condi?

Mohammed Alireza
Cowboys and Iranians

Nick Dearden
Haiti and the Black Hole of Debt

Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
Why Biotech is Betting on Biofuels

Bruce Springsteen
Farewell to Danny

Website of the Day
It's Bigger Than Hip Hop

April 24, 2008

Linn Washington, Jr.
Duplicity Demeans Clinton Campaign (or When Bill Praised Farrakhan)

Franklin Lamb
Bush to Nasrallah: an Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Jennifer Van Bergen
The High Crimes of John Yoo: the President's Executioner

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Hypocrisy and the Malaysian Guantánamo

Mark Engler
Trade Politics and the Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party

Dave Lindorff
The Politics of Obliteration: Hillary's Monstrous Threat

John Blair
Obama's Missed Opportunities in Evansville: Did He Even Know It Was Earth Day?

De Clarke / Stan Goff
Politics is Food is Politics

Binoy Kampmark
Bowling for Boris: the Tories, Red Ken and the London Mayoral Race

Philippe Marlière
Sarkozy and the Specter of May 68

Peter Morici
The Bank of England Misses the Point

Website of the Day
Fair Food Nation

April 23, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
Straggling to Denver

Vijay Prashad
McCain's Mask

Paul Craig Roberts
What the Iraq War is About

Stephen Soldz
The Involuntary Drugging of U.S. Detainees

Laura Santina
Hillary: Another Feminist Perspective

John Stauber /
Sheldon Rampton
Pentagon News Networks

Dave Lindorff
What Double Digit Win? Media Round Up in PA

George Ciccariello-Maher
Radical Chavismo Growls a Challenge

Ralph Nader
Andy Stern's Rackets

John Weisheit
Rearranging Deck Chairs at Glen Canyon Dam

Website of the Day
Wal-Mart's "Cost of Admission"

April 22, 2008

David Isenberg
Spinning Saddam's Linkages

Stan Cox
The Political Economics of Greenwashing

David Macaray
Memo to the Clinton Campaign: They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia

Jeff Birkenstein
Playing the Opposite Game: Or Why Can't I Sell Out?

Mike Whitney
Memo to Bernanke: Enough With the Rate Cuts, Already!

Nikolas Kozloff
Bush's Paraguayan Fiasco

Floyd Rudmin
From Lhasa to Bilbao: Journey of a Double Standard

Carlos Villarreal
Why John Yoo Should be Dismissed From Boalt Law School--And Prosecuted

Ray McGovern
What About the War, Pope Benedict?

Michael Gould-Wartofsky
El Barrio Fights Back Against Globalized Gentrification

Robert Ovetz
A Fish Tale

Pat Wolff
Rightwing Power Grab in Cornhusker State

Website of the Day
Defend the Rutgers 3!

April 21, 2008

Bill Quigley
The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots

Uri Avnery
The Lion and the Gazelle

Dave Lindorff
The U.S. Economy and the Costs of War

Wajahat Ali
Finding Osama Bin Laden with Morgan Spurlock

Andy Worthington
Hollow Gestures at Guantánamo

Robert Jensen
The Sorrows of Race and Gender

Ron Jacobs
Clampdown at Evergreen

Dan Bacher
The Great Salmon Closure

Harvey Wasserman
Where's George?

Danny Alexander
Remembering Danny Federici

Website of the Day
Save Our Taco Trucks!

April 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
McCain: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?

Patrick Cockburn
A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq

Wajahat Ali
Zinn Speaks

Andrew Wimmer
Papal Benedictions

Rev. William E. Alberts
Jeremiah Wright and America's Continuing "Separate and Unequal" Societies

David Rosen
Texas Two-Step: The Polygamy Raid and the Regulation of Sexual Life

Robert Fantina
McCain Detests War?

Ramzy Baroud
The Politics of Armageddon: McCain's Pastors and the Middle East

Saul Landau
The No Escape Clause on Iraq

Dr. Susan Block
Raelians, Aliens and Evolution

David Yearsley
Suitcase Arias and Ithacan Jazz

Phyllis Pollack
On the Red Carpet with the Rolling Stones

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Hartz, Newberry and Khaiyat

April 18, 2008

John Ross
The Bush Legacy: Losing Latin America

Dave Lindorff
Courage and Conviction: In Praise of Bill Ayers

Dan Glazebrook
An Interview with Robert Fisk

Carl Finamore
A Look Inside the Hangars

Rannie Amiri
J Street: Do We Really Need Another Pro-Israel Lobby?

Richard Morse
A Creepy Roadblock at Midnight

Ko Young-dae
CONPLAN 8022: Inside Bush's Nuclear War Plan for the Korean Peninsula

Farooq Sulehria
A Himalayan Surprise

April 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Hillary Joins the Vast Rightwing Financial Conspiracy

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Apologists

Kathy Kelly
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate

Madis Senner
The Carrion Feeders' Ball: How Hedge Funds Reap Billions Off Economic Misery

Peter Morici
The G7, the Banks and GE

Ron Jacobs
Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias

William S. Lind
A Confirming Moment in Basra

James Murren
Obama's Disconnect with Small Town America

Ben Terrall
Losing Haiti

Walter Brasch
Political Log Rolling in Clinton County, PA

Website of the Day
Stealth Attack: Homegrown "Terrorism" Bill

April 16, 2008

Bill Kauffman
The Candidates from Nowhere

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Colonization and Massacres

Saul Landau
How to Leave Iraq

Peter Morici
McCain's Economic Plan: GOP Out of Ideas (But So are the Democrats)

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Bankers Saved, Human Rights Sacrificed

Jeff Ballinger
Inside Nike's Asian Sweatshops: Squeezed Vietnamese Workers Strike Back

David Macaray
Union Strikes and Replacement Workers

Gary Leupp
Electoral Revolution in Nepal

Richard Morse
The Food Riots in Haiti

George Ciccariello-Maher
Einstein Turns in His Grave

Dave Lindorff
Letters from the Bitter Belt

Website of the Day
Surviving Prozac

April 15, 2008

Ralph Nader
The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism

Uri Avnery
Manifest Destiny and Israel

Brian Cloughley
Arrogant Lies

David Price
Outrageous Pre-Tour de France Ban

Joe Bageant
Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality

Steve Early
The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn

Mats Svensson
To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian State

Michael Donnelly
Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist

April Howard /
Benjamin Dangl
Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's Next President

Laray Polk
Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble

Charles Modiano
What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated?

Website of the Day
The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree

April 14, 2008

Carl Finamore
Airline Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing

Michael Hudson
A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers

M. Shahid Alam
Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match?

Patrick Cockburn
A Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior

Paul Craig Roberts
Petraeus Sets Up Iran

Joanne Mariner
Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide and Cymbalta

Dave Lindorff
The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader

P. Sainath
Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal

John V. Whitbeck
On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection

Website of the Day
Spying on Environmental Groups

April 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Olympic Torch Toasts US Candidates

Patrick Cockburn
Warlord: the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr

Mike Whitney
Want to Save the Economy?

David Yearsley
Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire

Robert Fantina
Bush's Brand of Morality

Conn Hallinan
Another Defining Moment in Iraq

Bill Hatch
In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture

Ramzy Baroud
The Basra Battles

George S. Hishmeh
Back to Square One

Ron Jacobs
The New New Left in Latin America

Nikolas Kozloff
Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires

Charles Thomson
The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit

Alexander Billet
The Disney-fication of CBGB

Missy Beattie
Huffing and Puffing to Failure

David Michael Green
America's Jones for War

Seth Sandronsky
Education Entrepreneurs

Prairie Miller
Meeting David Wilson

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves

Website of the Weekend
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

April 11, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy

Wajahat Ali
Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot Diaz

Sharon Smith
Let Them Eat Ethanol!

Yigal Bronner / Neve Gordon
Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem

Alan Farago
Eating South Florida

Dave Lindorff
On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China

George Wuerthner
Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve Program

Christopher Brauchli
Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals

Website of the Day
Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video

April 10, 2008

Mathieu Vernerey
Tibet for the Tibetans!

Elizabeth Schulte
Slavery in the Fields

David Macaray
Labor Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake

Ashley Smith
The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr

Peter Morici
Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth

Jacob Hornberger
The Military's Distintegrating Family Life

Harold Austin
Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs

Website of the Day
Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos

April 9, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Fading American Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Congressional Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings

C. Hand
Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera

Paul Krassner
Sex and Violins

Paul Wolf
Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years

Wajahat Ali
Alien Invasion!

Karyn Strickler
Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox

Dan La Botz
Confronting the Economic Crisis

Eric Walberg
The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop

Robin Millenthal
Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy

Website of the Day
Conservative Nanny State

April 8, 2008

Mike Whitney
Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?

Nikolas Kozloff
Bush Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal

Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas

Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft

John Ross
Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS

Michael Donnelly
Hillary's Western Swing

John V. Walsh
Why Obama Lost Massachusetts

Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates

Bill Piper
Last Shot for a Bush Legacy?

Sen. Russ Feingold
Legal Representation and the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later

April 7, 2008

Ishmael Reed
The Irish Black Thing

Harry Browne
Irish Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported

Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine

Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy

Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free

Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role

Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests

Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War

April 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Did the Elites Want MLK Dead?

Ramzy Baroud
There are No Checkpoints in Heaven

Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts

David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down

Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America

Paul Craig Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show

Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot

Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig

John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students in Ecuador Bombing

Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values

David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad

Missy Beattie
McCan't

Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe

Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers

Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press

Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Diamand and St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop

Subscribe Online

The War President vs. the Nobel Peace Prize

Bush vs. Carter: Let History Judge

By ROBERT FANTINA

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week admonished former president Jimmy Carter for meeting with representatives of Hamas, the Palestinian organization that currently maintains a strong presence in the Gaza Strip. Regarding advancing the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Ms. Rice said: “We had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help.” She further stated that “the United States is not going to deal with Hamas.”

The irony of all this is almost more than one can bear. Mr. Rice serves President George Bush, the self-proclaimed ‘war president,’ the man who has started two wars under false pretenses, and now awaits forced retirement in nine months so that his successor can deal with the double quagmires he has created. She is criticizing a man who, in 2002, won the Nobel Peace Prize. One wonders why she feels that Mr. Carter’s meeting with Hamas will not be helpful, but that refusing to talk to a principle player in ongoing tensions will be. Better to invade Afghanistan, whose government was alleged to be harboring Osama bin Laden (unconfirmed), the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2002 attacks on the U.S. (unconfirmed), and then invade Iraq, alleged to be hiding weapons of mass destruction (false), and alleged to have some tie to the September 11 attacks (false). This would be too many ‘allegeds’ for most people, but not for Mr. Bush.

However, in giving this some thought, one cannot be surprised that Ms. Rice sees merit in Mr. Bush’s methods over Mr. Carter’s. It should be noted that Union Oil sought to lay a pipeline through Afghanistan, but the Taliban would not allow it. Union Oil was purchased in 2005 by Chevron, the company on whose public policy board Ms. Rice served. Her contribution was so significant that the company named an oil tanker the Condoleezza Rice (it was later renamed). With the Taliban out of the way, there was no longer any official impediment to the pipeline.

And while the Bush Administration is busy disdaining Mr. Carter’s peaceful overtures, it might as well continue to make menacing sounds about Iran. In March Mr. Bush made the bizarre statement that Iran “declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people,” suggesting at the same time that Iran could be involved secretly in a program to develop nuclear weapons.

How Mr. Bush arrived at this conclusion remains a mystery; certainly Iran has never stated it wants to obtain nuclear weapons. Leaders of that nation have consistently stated that its nuclear program is for power plants, not weapons. It is Mr. Bush, of course, who has access to the largest nuclear weapons stockpile on the planet: one can think of few more frightening thoughts.

While Iran more or less minds its own business, perhaps assisting its neighbor Iraq in attempting to repel foreign occupiers, Mr. Bush carries on his wars, bringing untold suffering to millions of people. Yet he can say with a straight face that Iran is “the world’s leading supporter of terrorism.” The man who ordered the bombing of population centers in Iraq; who is commander-in-chief of the military that has cruelly abused prisoners and that terrorizes Iraqi citizens; who denies prisoners in foreign-based, U.S. prisons basic dignity and rights, points his accusing finger at Iran as a terrorist state.

For Mr. Bush & Co., this is business as usual. The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group released its findings in December of 2006. Stating clearly that the president’s Iraq policy “is not working,” and that the situation is “grave and deteriorating,” they also made suggestions for improvement. One of them was to involve both Syria and Iran in negotiations regarding Iraq’s future. Yet Mr. Bush dismissed any such negotiations, stating through Ms. Rice that the ‘compensation’ required by either Syria or Iran might be too high. Notice that there was no thought of checking with those nations to determine if that ‘compensation’ (whatever that refers to) would in fact be too high. Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice made that assumption, so there is no need for any clarification. One could note here Mr. Bush’s total disregard for facts, but one hesitates to point out the obvious.

In further discussing the suggestion, absurd to Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice, of negotiations with Iraq’s nearest neighbors, she said the following: “If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway,” ‘it’ obviously referring to ignoring the blood-fueled inferno so close to them and allowing the U.S. free reign to continue terrorizing Iraqi citizens.

But one might ask: “Does not the U.S. have an interest in a stable Iraq?” In the war’s sixth year, mightn’t it appear that continued aggression simply isn’t working, and that an increasing death toll of both Iraqi and U.S. citizens is doing nothing to endear the U.S. to the hearts of anyone anywhere in the world? Might it not be reasonable to suggest that wars based on oil lust that decimate the U.S. economy while doing nothing to satisfy that lust require a close, second look? And shouldn’t wars be based on something loftier, perhaps national defense, than oil lust anyway? And if one answers affirmatively to those questions, might there then be some merit in conferring with Syria and Iran to seek a peaceful solution?

But wait! We have looked at facts, asked intelligent questions, logically pieced together a series of actions and arrived at a conclusion in a rational, thoughtful manner. How foolish of us! Let us go back and ask those same questions, but this time with different answers perhaps more typical of Mr. Bush:

Q. Does the U.S. have an interest in a stable Iraq?

A. It doesn’t matter as long as we can get the oil to flow to the U.S.

Q. Doesn’t continued aggression against Iraq damage the U.S.’s international reputation?

A. Who cares?

Q. As the war goes badly for everyone involved, and money needed within the U.S. is spent on the war, shouldn’t a new strategy be explored?

A. We have already initiated a ‘new way forward.’ We did more of the same, only more so.

Q. Is oil lust a valid reason to invade, overthrow and occupy a sovereign nation, and kill its citizens?

A. Yes.

Q. Isn’t it long past time to negotiate with Syria and Iran?

A. Jimmy Carter is no longer president.

So there; the world according to Bush. And if Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has his way, such a philosophy will continue for at least another four years.

Mr. Carter said he tried his best in his meeting with Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal, but to no avail. Perhaps that justifies Ms. Rice’s statement that a meeting with Hamas wouldn’t help. However, by meeting with Mr. Mashaal, Mr. Carter increased his own stature as a man of peace, a man who will make any effort, and go to any length, to try to achieve a peaceful solution to some of the world’s most perplexing problems. Compare that image to the Crawford Cowboy, whose ‘shoot-em-up’ mentality has brought untold suffering to the world. Which image is more favorable? One need not ask Mr. Bush his opinion.

How much more of this mentality the world can tolerate remains to be seen. Should the U.S. voters (or possibly the Supreme Court justices) insist on another four years of it by installing Mr. McCain as president, this mentality will manifest itself in more neglect of the U.S. and widespread international war. With an election already bitterly contested before the key players are even determined, one cannot predict the outcome with any degree of confidence. That in itself is a sad commentary on the state of the U.S. voter.

Robert Fantina is author of 'Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776--2006.