Today's Stories

May 22-24, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
How Long Does It Take?

Michael Teitelman
Obama, Torture and John Walker Lindh

Sonia Cardenas /
Andrew Fibbert
Why We Love to Hate Pirates

Clive Hamilton
Biblical Prophesy and the Iraq War: Bush, God, Iraq and Gog

Conn Hallinan
Swine Flu Fallout

Fred Gardner
Sgt. Northcutt's Homecoming

Carlo Cristofori
The Latest AfPak War

Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah's 57-State Solution

Andy Worthington
A Message to Obama: No Military Commissions; No Preventive Detentions

David Macaray
Democrats Betray Labor: Card Check is Pronouced Dead

Nadia Hijab
What Kind of State?

David Ker Thomson
Joy (Or How Hope, the Thing With Feathers, Gets Plucked)

David Rosen
Porn Wars

Mark Weisbrot
Climate Change and Intellectual Property Rights?

Robert Fantina
Gitmo, Democrats and Business as Usual

Heather Gray
Some Positive Directions in Public Health?

May 21, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment

Paul Craig Roberts
Morphing Dick Cheney

Chris Floyd
In Defense of George W. Bush

Gerald Paoli
Inside Iraqi Kurdistan: Life and Death in the Qandil Mountains

Zach Mason
Something's Gotta Give: Obama and the Hustler

Uri Avnery
A Quarrel on the Titanic

Andy Worthington
Out of Guantánamo

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
India: Two Funerals and a Wedding

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Escalation

Dave Lindorff
A Corporate Crime Wave of Labor Law Violations

Website of the Day
Swine Flu: The Panic That Wasn't

May 20, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Toll Booth Economy

Gary Leupp
Courting Hekmatyar: Obama and the Warlord

Michael D. Yates
Work is Hell

Jonathan Cook
Netanyahu Adviser Steps Out of the Shadows

Peter Lee
The World Doesn't Have a Pakistan Nukes Problem ... It Has a David Albright Problem

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Tamil Tigers?

Peter Zinn
Eulogizing Lawyers

William Loren Katz
Tortured Reasoning; Tortured Results

Gary Lapon
Why Women Need Single Payer

Trudy Bond
Torture, Shrinks and a Groundhog's Day Moment

Website of the Day
Meet the Climate Change Lobby

May 19, 2009

Kristoffer Rehder
Check Point Iraq: a Soldier's Tale

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of the Financial Crisis

Ray McGovern
How Colin Powell Got Duped by the CIA

Vijay Prashad
The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?

Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam
Intimidation and Interrogation in Tel Aviv

Mustafa Barghouthi
Is Obama Up to the Challenge of Dealing with Netanyahu?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo: A Prison Built on Lies

Binoy Kampmark
Britain's Speaker Crisis

John Walsh
John Kerry vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Alcohol as Metaphor: Zero Tolerance in the Workplace

Website of the Day
So You Think That Veggie Burger is Organic...

May 18, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The US is Using White Phosporous in Afghanistan

Abdul Malik Mujahid
Thirty Years of Tragedy in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have?

Ben Rosenfeld
Police Violence: How Many Kicks to the Head Does It Take?

Patrick Cockburn
These Killings Will Only Strengthen the Taliban

Ralph Nader
They Want It All: New Tricks From the Old Energy Lobby

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Bryce Lefever Clarifies Defense of Torture

Eugenia Tsao
On the Devaluation of Labor

Walter Brasch
Cheney's Magical Mystery Media Tour

Roberto Rodriguez
War and Torture

Charlotte Laws
Politics and American Idol

Website of the Day
Disbar the Torture Lawyers

May 15-17, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
King of the Hate Business

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb

David Rosen
Sexual Torture: What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown

Mike Whitney
From My Lai to Bala Baluk: Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off

Bruce Page
A Real History of Rupert Murdoch

Jeremy Scahill
The Black Shirts of Guantánamo

Fred Gardner
Tortured Reasoning: Judge Bybee Rules Against Brian Epis

Tom Barry
Fighting the Drug War at Homeland Security

Mats Svensson
On the Beach in Tel Aviv

Ramzy Baroud
The Drones Are Coming

Mark Engler
Science Fiction From Below

Mark Weisbrot
Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate

Farzana Versey
Of Scapegoats and Separatists

Ron Jacobs
It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

Hannah Wolfe
What to Tell the Children

Cal Winslow
Fresno, the New Ground Zero in the Battle Between the SEIU and NUHW

David Macaray
Labor Needs a Southern Strategy

Christopher Brauchli
Involuntary Baptism

Mark Seth Lender
The Lion Tamer's Story

Robert Fantina
Lapel Pins, Arugula and Mustard

David Ker Thomson
Last Man Walking

Stephen Martin
Lipstick Nightmare for Spin Merchant

Charles R. Larson
Double Exile

Chase Madar
"Angels & Demons" and the Extraordinary Power of Imaginary Heretics

Kim Nicolini
Vaginas From Outer Space! Boldly Sitting Through Star Trek

David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost

Lorenzo Wolff
Killer Virtues

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Jordan and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Catch F-22

May 14, 2009

Michael Hudson
Where Russia Went Wrong

Andy Worthington
The Poisoned Mosaic: Judge Condemns Guantánamo Evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotent President

Jonathan Cook
The Pope's Pilgrimage: Legitimizing Netanyahu?

Ray McGovern
See No Evil: Ugly Questions for General Myers

Lance Selfa
The Limits of Liberalism

David Green
The Deportation of Demjanjuk

Dave Lindorff
Obama Channels Cheney

Frida Berrigan
Nuclear Options

Sue Udry
The Bybee Question

Website of the Day
Our Bombs: Tracking US Air Strikes

May 13, 2009

Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq

Gareth Porter
Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan

Robert Sandels
Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel

Ricardo Alarcón
Cuba: Measure of a Revolution

Eric Walberg
NATO in Georgia: Fun and Games

Dave Lindorff
The Sinking of GM: When Captains of Industry Don't Go Down with the Ship

Deepak Tripathi
A Culture of Abuse

William S. Lind
Back to the Balkans: Hillary and the Sleeping Dragon

Kevin Zeese
A Populist Health Care Rebellion

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?

Website of the Day
Beth McIntosh: The Wild Ride

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload

Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship

Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts

Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman

Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill

Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?

David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots

Website of the Day
Electronic Police States

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

Weekend Edition
May 22-24, 2009

Biden in Beirut

How Not to Win Votes for Team USA

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Baabda Palace, Beirut

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Beirut with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman aboard a U.S. military helicopter at 11:50 am Friday morning. Biden was greeted at Beirut’s airport by Hezbollah supporter Fawsi Salloukh, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister and one of the key back channels for US-Hezbollah communications. At 12:14 pm Biden arrived at Baabda Palace and went straight to meet President Michel Suleiman. Biden’s Salloukh meeting is likely the extent of any dialogue between Biden and Hezbollah this trip. Biden’s first words, shouted to some journalists outside the Baabda Presidential Palace were, “I am happy to be in Libya…I mean Lebanon…this morning!”

If Biden was having a good morning, many Beirutis were not. Many woke up furious as they learned they will be on “lockdown” from 11 am to 6:30 pm for Vice President Joe Biden’s quick visit. It will be the 14th visit by a US official over the past six months to assure the people of Lebanon that the US will not interfere in the June 7 elections. In fact, US interference has now reached a near fever pitch just sixteen days before the voting.

Some Lebanese newspapers sarcastically reported Biden’s visit this morning. Even some pro-US backed March 14 papers like the Daily Star announced: “Biden to voice US determination ‘to assist Lebanon’: VP will ‘reject interference in polls’.”

What has upset many in Lebanon’s capital this spring morning is that the US Embassy has demanded “tight security” including the closure of Airport Road-Hafez Al-Assad Avenue, Camille Chamoun Avenue, Salim Salam Street, Ahmad Mukhtar Beyhum Street, Fouad Shehab Avenue, Beirut Port entrance, Charles Helou Avenue, Emile Lahoud Avenue, Sayyad Roundabout, Presidential Palace Road, Alfred Nakkache Street, Tahwita Highway, Wafiq Sinno Street, Mina al-Hosn Street, Paris Avenue, General Deguaulle Avenue, Ain al-Tineh, Hrawi Bridge, Saeb Salam Boulevard, Wegan Street, Al-Masaref Road, Grand Serail Road, Riad al-Solh Square, Mir Bashir Street, Cap Center, Al-Risala school bifurcation, Charles Malek Avenue, Kuliyat al-Qiyada wa al-Arkan bifurcation, Shafiq Wazan Street, Port Road, Mir Majid Erslan road, and Fakhreddine Street. These closures shut down all the main routes and much of Beirut’s commerce. The shutdowns will also prevent many from attending Friday noon prayers in more than 50 mosques.

“This is getting too ridiculous. Why don’t the Americans just run a TV ad telling us what they have repeated so many times? Nobody cares that Biden is coming here except that it affects our daily lives”, Abed, an AUB security guard fumed. “I had plans to go to the Bekaa for the weekend after my shift ends and now I can’t leave until tonight. For sure they won’t get my vote!”

During his rat-a-tat news conference with President Michel Sulieman, Biden asserted that that Lebanon must have a “fair, free and transparent elections” (1:40 pm),  that Lebanese sovereignty cannot and will not be traded away (1:41 pm), that the U.S. looks forward to the shape and composition of the next Lebanese government which is for the Lebanese to decide (1:43 pm), that “I have every confidence that Lebanon is moving in the right direction (1:44 pm), that the Obama administration is committed to a comprehensive peace for the region that benefits all people in the region, including the Lebanese(1:46 pm), called for “a sovereign and democratic Lebanon to be stronger than it is today” (1:46 pm), that Washington is committed to ensuring the strength of the military institutions in Lebanon (1:47 pm), promised that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon “will bring justice to those financing, planning and carrying out” Hariri’s assassination and that ”I cannot imagine peace in the region without Lebanon (1:49pm).

It is hard not to feel empathy with US Ambassador Michele Sison who has had to put together the Vice President’s schedule. And one understands her anguish at being treated as a pesky little sister by some tribal Lebanese male politicians this week who inherited their positions via primogeniture while she earned hers the hard way at school and by competence (presumably her wonderful smile did not hurt).

The reason is that, quite separately, the American Ambassador and this observer have been working hard the past few days on similar projects of setting up appointments for a visiting American delegation. We both know only too well the time constraints, last minute schedule changes, frustrations, unexpected ‘pop up’ events which sometimes mess up best-laid plans during fast- moving back to back briefings.

“My” delegation, which departed this morning for Washington (Al Hamdulila) after 18 days in the Middle East meeting officials from Egypt to Gaza to Beirut via Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria was from a remarkable advocacy group in Washington DC, the Council for the National Interest (CNI).

“Her” delegation, Vice-President Joe Biden and entourage, arrived this morning after days of schedule preparation for a Condi-Hilary style ‘fly-in’.

Because CNI is well known in the Middle East, and actually sometimes sought after during its twice yearly “political pilgrimages” for dialogue, by both the Majority and the Hezbollah-led Opposition, my job is somewhat easier than Michelle Sison’s, even though she has a huge staff to assist her. I rely on connected friends to assist. We have many well informed people to choose from and the quality of the discussions are usually excellent with the likes of Hezbollah’s Naim Qassim, Nawaf Ammar, or Ibrahim Mousawi, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Sheik Abed al Karem Obeid (15 years in Israeli prisons), Michel Aoun, former President Lahoud, and many others from the Opposition who Michele can’t touch since they either remain on the US Political Terrorism list or, in Lahoud’s and Aoun’s case, the US unofficial persona non grata list.

We in Beirut try to give CNI a balanced program from the Majority and the Opposition and as red blooded Americans we would never, never, ever forget to include a visit to the American Embassy for a briefing with our Ambassador. That would probably be unpatriotic. Michele did a good job on Wednesday briefing “My” delegation, taking time away from working on “Her” delegation. All of us appreciated her cooperation and American values of fair play.

So what do we do with Joe?

Michele’s got it tough fixing a worthwhile schedule in Lebanon. During her short tenure here, she has had no fewer than a dozen ‘drop ins’. Her problem is much like the one which confronted the late Saudi King’s 7th, 8th and 9th wives on their wedding nights. The Ambassador knows what she is supposed to do but she is not sure how to make it special for Joe.

This is because Michele cannot ‘book’ many of the most intelligent, interesting (except Walid Jumblatt who is sui generis), or many of those likely to have key roles in Lebanon after the coming election. Michele is severely limited since her strict orders from Foggy Bottom preclude dialogue with so many in Lebanon and the wider Middle East.

One example for illustrative purposes. The American delegation (cnionline.org) met with Hizbullah’s brilliant International Relations Officer Ammar Moussawi who served in Parliament for eight years. We were followed the next day by the European Union Ambassador Patrick Laurent (representing 27 European countries). The two sides stressed the need to hold the parliamentary elections in a calm and secure political atmosphere and discussed many other issues which aided mutual understanding and no doubt increased respect between Europe and Hezbollah. Neither Sison nor Biden can have such meetings but are mired in the ’same ol same ol’ “winning team” cast of characters, visit after visit after visit. According to US Embassy staffers, it gets real boring. “We know beforehand what everyone will say, what every question will be, and what every answer will be. Some of us don’t know why we even do this. There is no substance to most of these visits”, according to a good fellow in the Embassy Consular section.

“My” delegation was treated to a rare insight into “Her” delegation’s schedule on Wednesday May 20, 2009 at exactly 7 pm. The CNI members were all sitting with Walid Jumblatt and patting two of his big beautiful orange gentle dogs and a cute puppy on his patio. We formed a small circle of lawn chairs at Walid’s Beirut Clemenceau neighborhood home which he told us he bought 15 years ago.

The phone rings. Being polite Americans we try hard not to eavesdrop but when Walid rolls his eyes (with a facial expression that telegraphs to us: “why do my friends get me involved in these things when all I really want to do is finish reading that article in Foreign Affairs” from which Walid was taking notes when we arrived. Walid speaks English to the person on the other end of the phone so we can’t help over hearing: “Please, no… let’s do it at your place, that will be better.”

Then we got the idea that whoever was on the line was insisting—even bugging Walid– to host an event of some kind. That’s all we knew at that point. Again, Walid says, “no, it will be better at your place. Please can’t we do it there and there will be fewer political complications”.

Walid closes the phone and continues his discussion of why the “land swapping” proposal of Netanyahu is a scam and should be rejected immediately by the Palestinians. He also criticizes some Druze in Palestine who serve as border guards and in the Israeli army. As leader of the Druze in Lebanon he is not happy about his people working for the occupation of Palestine and according to an aide of his considers them as “uncle toms”.

Walid, like all Lebanese politicians who briefed CNI this week, spoke genuinely emotional words about the plight of the 400,000 plus Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. He described the needless destruction at Nahr al Bared Refugee Camp two summers ago, the sub-human conditions in Lebanon’s 12 camps, the essential, full and non-negotiable Right of Return, the worthless Arab ‘leaders’ selling out Nasserism and the Palestinians, ‘the regional plots’ against the Refugees and his own father’s 25 year effort to end Lebanon’s Confessional system.

Walid also tried to answer one guests questions about why Lebanon brings in more than half a million foreign workers from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Syria, Egypt and other countries for jobs most Lebanese do not want (including underage sex workers from Russia and Eastern Europe and Asia who are given special considerations by Lebanese General Security). Lebanon gives them all civil rights, work permits, social security, educational opportunities but continues to deny any of these same basic civil rights to Palestinian Refugees. By Lebanese law.

We were a bit rough on Walid but he can take it. Walid demurs and acknowledges it’s a tough question to answer. Finally he does one of his signature shoulder shrugs, leans forward in his chair, turns up his palms, drops his jaw and opens wide his big Druze eyes.

When he receives follow-up questions and we zero in and squeeze him at bit more with statistics and enumeration of some of the heinous Lebanese laws, he appears surprised that we know a little about the subject. Still, he offers no convincing answer other than “local Lebanese sensitiveness”. When we continue to press him, Walid blurted out the probable truth: “No confessional leaders like the Palestinians in Lebanon.”

The phone rings again. Walid holds his small mobile phone in his right hand and extends his arm and moves his hand back and forward until he can focus on the number of the caller. He grimaces before answering and if this observer read his lips correctly he mouthed a four letter expletive. “No, its not a good idea Michele. I don’t want to do this. Better to meet at your place”. He repeats ‘your place’, apparently not wanting to identify what ‘your place’ meant on his no doubt multi-tapped phone line.

Walid hangs up.

Clearly exasperated, he explains to his guests, “That was your ambassador wanting me to fix a meeting with Biden. They should do it at your Embassy!” He explains how Biden’s visit to Lebanon was all the brain-child of pro-US Deputy Nayla Moawad (she has given up her safe seat to her son Michel as a birthday present for the June election) to have Biden come to Lebanon. Walid clearly communicates that he would rather not have any part of the latest ‘drop in’ (as events turned out, Walid rejected the charms of Michele who he calls ‘little sister’ and Nayla Moawad will have to host Joe at her home since the visit was her bright idea in the first place).

Has Joe dumped Zionism?

Quite by chance, on “my” delegation was Vice President’s Biden’s ophthalmologist from Wilmington, Delaware, a nice fellow with a dynamite Palestinian wife named “Mike”, a nickname for her real Arabic name which she never bothered to mention).  Joe’s eye doctor explained to Walid Jumblatt that Biden had changed from his “I’m a Zionist” campaign assurances to AIPAC.

“Well,” Walid replies skeptically, “I have met with Biden before. Why is he coming and can your government not understands that such visits are not helpful to the Majority but only help Hezbollah?”

No sooner than this observer returned to his apartment exhausted from three days of back-to-back briefings than the phone rang. It was from Issam, a friend and neighbor of Jumblatt’s from Ain Kani in the Chouf. Issam said Walid enjoyed the CNI visit and he invited me to brunch on Sunday and a tour of the Mukhtara area in the Chouf. I took the opportunity while on the phone to confirm what I thought Walid meant about Biden coming to Lebanon and his apparent preference that he not show up. Issam did confirm Walid’s thinking which in fact is common knowledge in Lebanon, as follows:

Michele is increasingly confined to the Embassy, as is her staff. One of the reasons is all these US officials coming to Lebanon to explain that the US is not interfering in their June 7 election whereas every 8 year old here knows the opposite is true. Lebanese are very sophisticated politically and increasingly feel they are being ‘played’. Recently, every time it is announced that the American Ambassador is making a stop somewhere outside Hariri areas, the likelihood increases that Michele will be met with Lebanese shaking their shoes at her a la the Iraqi journalist and Bush. This happened last week in South Lebanon and Michele was forced again to cancel a visit.

To ruin her day more, yesterday morning Michele was accused by Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad of playing a key role in the formation of March 14 coalition’s electoral tickets. Since every communication to and from the US Embassy is monitored by Hezbollah, the Embassy did not reply to media inquires, while technicians from Washington continue (since May 2008) to attempt to ‘fix the Embassy bugging problem’.

According to Hezbollah’s Raad: “The majority team has trouble in forming its lists. It cannot form them unless U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison interferes in the process of choosing” candidates, he told a gathering in Nabatiyeh on Thursday May 21. “This is what is happening in Kesrouan, Beirut 1, Zahle, Jbeil and what happened in Metn,” he said.

Issam continued to explain that the Lebanese are no longer much impressed with US officials coming and reciting, sometimes word for word, the pro-Israel, anti-Resistance mantra of “free and independent, democratic Lebanon, without armed militias” et cetera. If Hezbollah wins the election, one reason will be these “demeaning visits”, Issam concludes.

It’s not about the Bomb

“The Bush administration fought the battle of capabilities with Iran and lost. No countries but Israel and US puppets are terribly worried about Iran getting a nuclear device. In fact probably a majority in the Middle East would welcome an Iranian nuclear deterrent to Israel’s serial aggressions”, Issam stated.

Walid Jumblatt explained to CNI, “When, not if, Iran acquires a nuclear bomb, Iran won’t use it. Only the Americans did that during World War II”.

Again, Issam elaborated:

The reason Israel is trying to scare the American public is to draw the focus away from Israeli crimes in Gaza and Occupied Palestine. What Israel knows is that once it is stalemated by Iran a whole world of anti-Zionists and human rights supporters will rise up and join the growing rejection of Apartheid Israel. Many will join the Resistance. Not just in Palestine but worldwide. Including in America where it may be fierce and Zionism will likely fracture and crumble and some of the more rabid Zionists may be asked to declare, like Israeli Foreign Minister Liberman did to Arabs in Israel, where their loyalties really are. We believe here that the American public lives in fear that Zionists will accuse them of anti-Semitism and try to ruin their lives if they speak their real feelings and that support for Israel, while still wide in America is getting very thin. We appreciate regular American delegations coming here because we get to see real American and they are good decent people. From Lebanon it appears that pressure is building inside America to confront the Israel lobby even though 76 US Senators signed a pro-Israel, anti-Iran letter this week to your President. It this true from your understanding? Will the American people finally put America first?

Meanwhile, after meeting with Defense Minister Murr to photo-op some more military equipment for the Lebanese army, ‘smokin Joe’ Biden  will blast ‘up and outa’ Lebanon en route to Washington.

The Levant’s ‘fateful’ election: 16 days and counting. It’s getting interesting here in Lebanon. May the best team win.

Franklin Lamb works with the Sabra-Shatila Foundation in Beirut. He is reachable at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

Now Available from CounterPunch Books!

Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Buy!

The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

Buy End Times Now!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Order!

Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont