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Today's Stories July 29 / 30, 2006 Michael Neuman Humanitarian Intervention: The White Man's Burden July 28, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Lies Israel Tells Itself Uri Avnery Who is Winning? Questions and Answers About the War in Lebanon: Renee Bowyer When Condi Came to Ramallah Robert Fisk Smoke Signals from Bint Jbeil Patrick Cockburn Baghdad's Death Squads, Official and Otherwise Ramzy Baroud The War in Lebanon: More Than Meets the Eye Don Fitz Half-Hour Hurricanes: Where Were the Warnings About St. Louis's Ultra Storm? Elaine Cassel The Second Andrea Yates Verdict: Why the Jury Did the Right Thing David Price Much Ado About Landis: What Kind of Tour de France Was It? Mike Whitney Bull's Eye: Israel's Targeted Assassination of UN Peacekeepers Mickey Z. Power (Outage) to the People: Why Queens Went Dark Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Power of Arrogance in a World Without Deterrence Charles Glass Operation "Save Israel's High Command" Website of the Day Military Intelligence and You!   July 27, 2006 Tanya Reinhart Israel's New Middle East Saul Landau Castro at 80: History Absolved Him, Now What? Ramzi Kysia Watching Lebanon Burn: Notes From a Free Fire Zone Tom Barry John Bolton: Israel's Man at the UN Joseph Grosso Israel and Iraq: Hillary's White House Ticket Sharon Smith Lebanon and the Future of the Antiwar Movement Gale Courey Toensing 9/11 Nablus: First, Destroy the Archives Christopher Reed Hirohito's Ghost: Japan's New Militarists Werther Hoosier Hooey: Is Terre Haute the Peshawar of the Midwest? Yusuf Mansur Can the Crime Justify the Act? Richard Harth Squeezing the Last Drops from Palestine Website of the Day Who's Arming Israel? July 26, 2006 Norman Solomon Applauding While Lebanon Burns: Richard Cohen's Blood Lust Barbara Olshanksy Gitmo: Justice Denied is Murder, and a War Crime David Nally The Detention of Ghazi Walid Falah: Israel Arrests Geography Professor from University of Akron Jonathan Cook Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes Patrick Cockburn Beware Iraqi Leaders Bearing Good News William Blum They Simply Can't Stop Lying, Can They? Joshua Frank Israel's Invasion Pretext Under Fire Gabriel Kolko Bankers Fear World Economic Breakdown Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Dudes Michael Dickinson Arrested in Istanbul: "Sorry, We Thought You Were Israeli!" Robert Fisk Beirut as Munich Uri Avnery Is Beirut Burning? Website of the Day Free Ghazi Walid Falah   July 25, 2006 Harry Browne Acquittal!: Activists Found Not Guilty in Irish Ploughshares Case Marjorie Cohn Willful Blindness: Bush Greenlights War Crimes Robert Bryce Israel and the Irony of UN Resolutions Sharat G. Lin Chronology of the Latest Chrisis in the Middle East George Bisharat Most Lebanese Now Know Who Their Real Tormentor Is CounterPunch News Desk Class War in the Blathersphere Zena El-Khalil "Tell Them That I'm Not Leaving. We Love Lebanon" Larry Lack The Bottled Water Madness Mike Mejia The Secret Behind "State Secrets" Ashraf Isma'il Why Israel Is Losing Website of the Day Peace on Trial   July 24, 2006 Mark Levy The Whys and Wherefores of PTSD Robert Fisk Israelis Bomb Fleeing Villagers Maher Osseiran Beirut, 1982 Paul Craig Roberts Israel's Criminal Accomplice Patrick Cockburn More Than 100 Iraqis Being Killed Each Day Website of the Day sirnosir.com   July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Indiscriminate Onslaughts Paul Craig Roberts The Shame of Being an American Gilad Atzmon Israel's New Math Robert Fisk Elegy for Beirut Ralph Nader Here's How to Halt This Horror Fred Gardner The Double Standard on Depression Christopher Reed The Right's Use of Sexpot Schoolgirls Dr. Susan Block Bush's Fecal World Najla Said Do People Know How Much We Hurt? Uri Avnery "Stop that Shit" July 21, 2006 George Galloway John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic P. Sainath Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem Aseem Shrivastava The Iraq War is a Huge Success Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know Website of the Day FromIsraeltoLebanon July 20, 2006 William S. Lind Why Hezbollah is Winning Robert Jensen Florida Puts History on Probation John Ross AMLO Presidente! Tom Hayden I Was Israel's Dupe Paul Craig Roberts The Unfolding Horror Show July 19, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited Trish Schuh Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ Jonathan Cook Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields? Vicente Navarro The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide July 17 / 18 2006 Mike Whitney Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land     July 14 / 15, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn How Venice is Dying Tanya Reinhart The IDF is Hungry for War Robert Fisk Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key? Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Jazz Winslow Wheeler Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase Hugh O'Shaughnessy In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation M. Shahid Alam Israel, the US and the New Orientalism William S. Lind Two Signposts in Iraq Ramzy Baroud Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault Gilad Atzmon Echoes of the Wehrmacht Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Railroading Your Rights Samar Assad A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges Ron Jacobs Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There? Lee Ballinger A New Kind of Jim Crow? Walter Brasch A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police Dave Lindorff The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died Clifton Ross Up from Below in Oaxaca Tom Crumpacker Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba Ricardo Alarcon The Mad Annexationist William Hughes Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit Susie Day Bugging Hillary Farrah Hassen The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies   July 13, 2006 Rev. William Alberts Rationalizing War Crimes: Saying the Obvious to Conceal the Devious Ramzi Kysia Scenes from the Lebanese Front Rep. John P. Murtha What the Iraq War is Costing Us Radford / Santos Race, Class and the Battle for South Central Farm Stan Cox Marching Plague: the Critical Art Ensemble's Biological Defense Program Saul Landau Lies as Patriotism José Pertierra Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan? Website of the Day National Security Whistleblowers' Dirty Dozen Campaign   July 12, 2006 John Ross Mexico Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets John Stauber The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars Robert Boston Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right Wayne S. Smith Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots John Graham Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz Ed Kinane Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court Kevin Prosen Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed Jonathan Cook Israel's Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity Website of the Day Addicted to Oil: Starring GW Bush   July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Does a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes? Dave Zirin Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey Mokhiber / Weissman Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual Amira Hass A War on Families Clare Hanrahan The Last Free Fourth of July? Brian Cloughey Stop Blaming Pakistan Felice Pace The US Media and the World Cup Raed Jarrar Iraq: Raped Website of the Day Bad Boy of Gitmo   July 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Courting Doom with North Korea Uri Avnery A One-Sided War Roger Burbach Democracy Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico Ron Jacobs The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement Joshua Frank Sectarian Flames in Iraq Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King Alexander Cockburn The War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake July 8 / 9, 2006 Weekend Edition Stephen Green When War Criminals Retire Paul Craig Roberts Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford Greg Moses Boots Down on the Rio Grande Ralph Nader The Wail of the Oceans Laura Carlsen Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility Conn Hallinan Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable? John Chuckman Afghanistan is No One's War Fred Gardner Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria? Dr. Tod Mikuriya Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders Pierre Tristam Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally? Lucinda Marshall Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq David Swanson Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift Heather Gray The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us Dave Zirin / John Cox French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs. Zindane and Henry Mark Engler Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo Michael Lettieri Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount Ron Jacobs 2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now Jamal Juma' Globalizing the Occupation Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel and Kirbach   July 7, 2006 John Ross Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind the War on Palestine John Stanton Nationalize the Defense Industry Ralph Nader The Politics of the Minimum Wage Laray Polk Cambodia Then; Gaza Now Saul Landau Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile? Joshua Frank Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney William S. Lind To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War Adelman / Lindorff Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA Jonathan Cook An Experiment in Human Despair Website of the Day Adulterers in Chief? July 5, 2006 Mike Whitney Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio Saul Landau False Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres Ramzy Baroud And Israel Shall Be Safe Again Missy Comley Beattie An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear Arthur Neslen A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis? Vincent Maruffi Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens Paul Cantor Aberrations: Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground Paul D. Johnson Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin David Price Shouting Down Nazis in Olympia July 4, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Iraq and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812 Chris Floyd American Power in Mahmudiyah Marjorie Cohn Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza James Brooks Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip Medea Benjamin "Dictatress of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare? Matt Reichel An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France Elisa Salasin Why I am Fasting Today Rick Wilhelm Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader? Paul Craig Roberts Rape, Lies and Murder Website of the Day A Mighty Handsome Family   July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Gaza in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless Dr. Bouthaina Shaban "I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians" Julia Olmstead The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil Dave Lindorff The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed War Crimes Andres Gomez A Mockery of Justice Alan Singer Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary, But Nastier Alexander Cockburn Temple of Mammon, Planet of Doom July 1/2, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him? Stephen T. Banko Echoes from Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy Gillespie) Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Class Behind the Muslim Jeff Taylor The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's View of Bush John Ross Mexico: There's a Riot Going On Greg Moses Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras Laura Carlsen Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change Justin E.H. Smith Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends Brian Cloughley Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression Anthony Papa Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden Mike Ferner Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt Jerry Tucker Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Remembering the Marshall Islands Phyllis Pollack Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town Poets' Basement Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel   June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Supreme Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case Heather Williams Will Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned? Burbach / Cantor Yellowback Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle) Nick Dearden Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine Michael J. Smith Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual Theft Brian Concannon The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide? Virginia Tilley Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark   June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Gutting New Orleans Ron Jacobs Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier Paul Craig Roberts The High Price of American Gullibility June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Mexican-American Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing Greg Moses Down in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us Mark Weisbrot Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis Ramzy Baroud Re-Interpreting Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign Dave Lindorff Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter William S. Lind Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World Mike Ferner 50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate Highway System Zoltan Grossman Military Resistance: a Brief History   June 27, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Playing Politics with Timetables Benjamin / Jarrar Leading Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan William Hughes Roadmap to Starvation Doug Giebel Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor Uri Avnery The World Cup and Middle East Peace Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"   June 26, 2006 Don Santina American Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies Ralph Nader Beyond Binary Politics Dave Lindorff CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death Jonathan Cook Israeli "Retaliation" and Double Standards   June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice   June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's       Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition July 29/30 2006 Shredded by Cluster Bombs Bush and Blair: "Keep It Up!" By ROBERT FISK Beirut. I dropped by the hospital in Marjayoun this week to find a young girl lying in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, her beauty scarred for ever by some familiar wounds; the telltale dark-red holes in her skin made by cluster bombs, the weapon we used in Iraq to such lethal effect and which the Israelis are now using to punish the civilians of southern Lebanon. And, of course, it occurred to me at once that if George Bush and Condoleezza Rice and our own sad and diminished Prime Minister had demanded a ceasefire when the Lebanese first pleaded for it, this young woman would not have to spend the rest of her life pitted with these vile scars. And having seen the cadavers of so many more men and women, I have to say--from my eyrie only three miles from the Israeli border--that the compliant, gutless, shameful refusal of Bush, Rice and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara to bring this bloodbath to an end sentenced many hundreds of innocent Lebanese to death. As I write this near the village of Blat, which has its own little list of civilian dead, it's quite clear that many more innocent Lebanese are being prepared for the slaughter--and will indeed die in the coming days. What was it Condoleezza Rice said? That "a hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing"? What was Blair's pathetic excuse at the G8 summit? That it was much better to have a ceasefire that would last than one which might break down? Yes, I entirely understand. Blair and his masters--we shall give Rice a generic title to avoid the obvious--regard ceasefires not as a humanitarian step to alleviate and prevent suffering but as a weapon, as a means to a political end. Let the war last longer and the suffering grow greater--let compassion be postponed--and the Lebanese (and, most laughably, the Hizbollah) will eventually sink to their knees and accept the West's ridiculous demands. And one of those famous American "opportunities" for change--ie for humbling Iran--will have been created. Hence, in the revolting words of Lord Blair's flunky yesterday, Blair will "increase the urgency" of diplomacy. Think about that for a moment. Diplomacy wasn't urgent at the beginning. Then I suppose it became fairly urgent and now this mendacious man is going to "increase" the urgency of diplomacy; after which, I suppose, it can become super-urgent or of "absolutely" paramount importance, the time decided--no doubt--by Israel's belief that it has won the war against Hizbollah or, more likely, because Israel realizes that it is an unwinnable war and wants us to take the casualties. Yet from the border of Pakistan to the Mediterranean--with the sole exception of the much-hated Syria and Iran, which might be smothered in blood later--we have turned a 2,500-mile swath of the Muslim world into a hell-disaster of unparalleled suffering and hatred. Our British "peacekeepers" in Afghanistan are fighting for their lives -- and apparently bombing the innocent, Israeli-style -- against an Islamist enemy which grows by the week. In Iraq, our soldiers--and those of the United States--hide in their concrete crusader fortresses while the people they so generously liberated and introduced to the benefits of western-style democracy slash each other to death. And now the US and UK--following Israeli policy to the letter--are allowing Israel to destroy Lebanon and call it peace. Blair and his ignorant Foreign Secretary have played along with Israel's savagery with blind trust in our own loss of memory. It is perfectly acceptable, it seems, after the Hizbollah staged its July 12 assault, to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon and the lives of more than 400 of its innocents. But hold on a moment. When the IRA used to cross the Irish border to kill British soldiers--which it did--did Blair and his cronies blame the Irish Republic's government in Dublin? Did Blair order the RAF to bomb Dublin power stations and factories? Did he send British troops crashing over the border in tanks to fire at will into the hill villages of Louth, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal? Did Blair then demand an international, NATO-led force to take over a buffer zone--on the Irish, not the Northern Ireland side, of the border? Of course not. But Israel has special privileges afforded to no other nation. It can do exactly what Blair would never have done--and still receive the British Government's approbation. It can trash the Geneva Conventions--because the Americans have done that in Iraq--and it can commit war crimes and murder UN soldiers like the four unarmed observers who refused to leave their post under fire. The idea that Nasrallah is going to kneel before a Nato general and hand over his sword--that this disciplined, ruthless, frightening guerrilla army is going to surrender to Nato--is a folly beyond self-delusion. But Blair and Bush want to send a combat force into southern Lebanon. Well, I shall be there, I suppose, to watch its swift destruction in an orgy of car and suicide bombings by the same organization that yesterday fired another new longer-than-ever range missile that landed near Afula in Israel. The Lebanese government--democratically elected and hailed by a US administration which threw roses at its prime minister after the US state department claimed a "cedar revolution"--has just caught the Americans off guard, producing a peace package to which the Hizbollah has reluctantly agreed, starting with an immediate ceasefire. Can Washington ignore the decision of a democratic government? Of course it can. It is encouraging Israel to continue its destruction of the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza and the West Bank. So stand by for an "increase" in the "urgency" of diplomacy--and for more women with their skin torn open by cluster bombs. Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.

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