Today's Stories

December 15, 2008

Andy Worthington
Hit Me Baby One More Time: a History of Music Torture in War on Terror

Brian Cloughley
Land of the Free (To Torture and Imprison Without Trial)

December 12 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Michael Hudson /
Jeffrey Sommers
The End of the Washington Consensus

David Price
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nukes Up the Hudson

Frank Barat
An Israeli in Gaza: an Interview with Jeff Halper

John Ross
Writing a Thesis in Blood

Binoy Kampmark
Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force

David Macaray
Killing the Auto Bailout: a Dagger to the Heart of Organized Labor

Ralph Nader
Antidotes to Plunder: a Holiday Reading List

Eamonn Fingleton
Whatever Happened to Iris Chang?

Lawrence Velvel
Why Blagojevich Might Be Acquitted

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Housing Crisis: a Timebomb China Can't Defuse

Sam Husseini
Putting the Pro in Protest

Tom Barry
Incentives to Detain: How Immigrants Drive Prison Profits

Howard Lisnoff
Why I Went to Jail

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Immigration Problem

Raj Patel
The WTO and Other Fairy Tales

Ron Jacobs
The Manufacturing of History

Paul Watson
Risky Business Down Under

David Yearsley
They Also Serve Who Only Pull or Tread

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Want Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star...

Kim Nicolini
Finally, a Vampire Movie You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Susie Day
Proposition 1984: the Problem with Heterosexuals

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Lerch and Crete

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Energy Justice

December 11, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

P. Sainath
After Mumbai

Vicken Cheterian
The Zarqawi Generation

Ray McGovern
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

Dedrick Muhammad
Post-Racial Racism at the Post: the Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Lee Sustar
Victory at Republic

Peter Morici
The Big Drag

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Must They Hate Us So?

George Wuerthner
Another Subsidy to Big Timber?

Christopher Brauchli
Mr. Berg's Strange Obsession

Worthy Group of the Day
Animal Balance

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Question

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

Joshua Frank
Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage

Jack Ely
Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads: a Message to the Music Industry from the Lead Singer of the Kingsmen

Steve Conn
An Obama Public Works Program?

Lee Sustar
Republic Workers Target Bank of America

Glen Ford
The Die is Cast

Stephen Lendman
The Persecution of Syed Fahad Hashmi

Nadia Hijab
The Face of America

Dave Lindorff
We All Need a Union

Website of the Day
This One's For You, Senator Dodd

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

November 27, 2008

Tariq Ali
The Assault on Mumbai

Steve Hendricks
Thanksgiving We Can Believe In: Justice in Indian Country

Ralph Nader
Open Up Those Corporate Tax Returns

John Walsh
The Root Cause of the Crisis of 2008

Dave Lindorff
The Department of Homeland Lunacy

Christopher Brauchli
Thanks A Lot, Mr. Meese: How Alberto Gonzales Learned to Get You to Pay for His Legal Bills

Matthew Koehler
Giving Thanks for Burned Forests

Website of the Day
John Trudell: "Crazy Horse We Hear What You Say"

November 26, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Obama Letdown

Alan Farago
Bailouts and the New Math

Stanley Heller
Don't Bail Them Out, Take Them Over

Kevin Zeese
The Real Cost of the Bailout

Steve Conn
Now It Can Be Told (Except in North Carolina)

Ray McGovern
Kafka and Uighurs at Guantánamo

Ron Jacobs
King George is Gone: Now It's Time to Organize

Eric Walberg
Obama's Odious Entourage

Martha Rosenberg
Pay No Attention to That Turkey Being Slaughtered (Or How Sarah Palin Created a Whole New Generation of Vegetarians)

Matt Siegfried
Back to the Future With Barack

Website of the Day
"Every Time I've Compromised, I've Lost"

November 25, 2008

James Abourezk
Of Arrogance, Bailouts and the Big Three

Ralph Nader
Don't Suppress Carter

Patrick Irelan
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela

John Ross
Obama in Bedlam

Fred Gardner
Dr. Goodwin and the Infinite Con

Dan LaBotz
The Auto Crisis: a Big Caravan to Washington?

Tom Barry
Napolitano and Immigration Policy

Norman Solomon
The Ideology of No Ideology

Richard Morse
Memo From Haiti: Where the Culture of Corruption Meets the Corruption of Culture

Chris Strohm
The Missing Rules of Engagement in Cyberwar

Website of the Day
Green vs. Green?

November 24, 2008

Mike Whitney
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Pam Martens
The Rise and Fall of Citigroup

Laray Polk
Bush's Library: the Kurds, Oil and Missing Records

David Ker Thomson
American Friends: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Canadians?

Uri Avnery
Likud Rising

Joe Mowrey
Deprivation and Desperation in Gaza

Ramzi Kysia
An Administration in Search of a Progressive: the Team Obama Should Have Picked

Kevin Zeese
The Causes of the Auto Crisis

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing the Blob: Idiots and Bailouts

David Macaray
Seven Reasons You Should Join a Union

Howard Lisnoff
Inaugurations Past and Present

Website of the Day
I Hate the Beatles

November 21 / 23, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan

Michael Hudson
Paulson's Cascade of Lies

Mike Whitney
Time to Move to Plan B ... If There is One

Barbara Rose Johnston /
Holly M. Barker
Cautionary Tales From a Nuclear War Zone

Serge Halimi
The Gloom of Empire: Downhill All the Way

Alan Farago
The Suburbs March On

Ralph Nader
Changing With Retreads: the Third Clinton Administration

Saul Landau
When Old Axioms Don't Apply

Robert Bryce
From LBJ to Obama: the End of Texas Dominance

Shannon May
Ecological Crisis and Eco-Villages in China

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Yugo

Jack Ely
The Fate of the West's Wild Horses

Ramzy Baroud
The Rights of Women in War Zones

Missy Beattie
Why Vote, Anyway?

Larry Portis
Women Soldiers Serving in (and Barely Surviving) the Israeli Army

James McEnteer
Colombia's Laboratory of Failure

Christopher Brauchli
A Tale of Two Whales

David Yearsley
Real Swords, Fire and Don Giovanni

Adam Engel
Power Down

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Saga of the White Album

Lorenzo Wolff
Honky Tonk Heroes: When Country Got Real

Poets' Basement
Raza Ali Hasan

Website of the Weekend
Lips and Fingers

November 20, 2008

P. Sainath
The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park

Brian McKenna
How Dow Chemical Defies Homeland Security and Risks Another 9/11

Paul Craig Roberts
What Uncle Sam Has to Say to His Creditors

Andy Worthington
How Guanántamo Can be Closed

Peter Lee
India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe

Dr. Eyad al-Serraj
At the Erez Crossing

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bush Pardons

Lance Selfa
Who Made the New Deal?

Ray McGovern
Keeping Gates

Benjamin G. Davis
Ending Torture; Prosecuting the Torturers

Tracy McLellan
Obama's Crony Democracy: the Return of Tom Daschle

Website of the Day
Finally, a Victory for Palestinians

November 19, 2008

M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

Mario A. Murillo
Holder, Chiquita and Colombian Death Squads

Martine Boulard
Escaping the Dollar's Shadow

Robin D. G. Kelley
Will Obama be the First "Freedom" Democrat?

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Obama and the Iron Cage

Jonathan Cook
Who Will Stop the Settlers?

Steve Conn
Spare Change or No Change at All

George Wuerthner
The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction

Michael Winship
This Just in From Middle Earth

Stephen Martin
The Other Side of the Pleasure-Dome

Website of the Day
An Important Holiday Message From Kristen Johnston

November 18, 2008

Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley

George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?

Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State

Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales

John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico

Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script

Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime

Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?

Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con

Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?

November 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20

Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM

Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington

Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes

Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"

Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama

David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers

David Michael Green
Twelve Victories

Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?

Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble

November 14 / 16, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama

Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler

Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008

Moshe Adler
Keynes: China's Greatest Export?

Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?

Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism

Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"

Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!

Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border

Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration

Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez

Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State

Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times

Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People

Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?

Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con

Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics

Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times

Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot

Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy

Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter: the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March

Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis

Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber

David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"

Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It

November 13, 2008

Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole

Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?

Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy

Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime

Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology

Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three

Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products

Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun

Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate

Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us

Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?

November 12, 2008

Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska

Patrick Bond
Against Volcker

Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America

Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman

Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank

David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?

George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests

Susie Day
Heavy Weather

Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen

December 15, 2008

Was It "Housekeeping" or Personal?

Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Beirut

Truth be told, this observer, along with one suspects plenty of others, was miffed at Hezbollah this past Wednesday morning.

As I looked up at sunrise at Sammin Mountain above Beirut on the Western chain of Lebanon's dramatic range to see if the rumor was true that the preceding night would welcome the season's first snowfall, I was disappointed that there was not one centimeter of the white stuff, knowing that when it does arrive, it’s one the most beautiful sights in the Levant.

My disgruntlement got seriously worse as I answered my phone and was advised that Hezbollah had turned down a meeting with former President Jimmy Carter which this observer, and others, had been trying to arrange.

Carter came to Lebanon with a team from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, part of a fact finding visit during which he sought a permit from the Lebanese Ministry of Interior to bring around 70 monitors from the US to observe up close the dramatically tightening Lebanese election, likely (but not sure!) to be held between April and June, 2009.
Israel and the Bush administration oppose Carter monitoring (read: meddling in) Lebanon's coming election because one way or the other, if they can't buy the election, they need to be able to declare the results "undemocratic, flawed, hijacked or illegal" if Hezbollah wins. If Carter gives his 'seal of approval' to the conduct of Lebanon's voting, both realize that they can't continue aborting free elections like the Hamas victory in 2006, if Carter keeps showing up and providing legitimacy.

"Why can't that old man just go back to his former life as a peanut and worm farmer and let us take care of business", one strapping, earnest pro-Lebanese Forces, student, wearing a Samir Geagea button, explained to friends leaving Issam Faris Hall, as the Carter entourage, with its heavily armed US Secret Service deployment, exited stage right for departure to Damascus.

The myriad Lebanese Confessions (a French colonial euphemism for Lebanese Tribes) seem to agree that Carter monitoring its elections is a good thing and support for his request is also found in Article 20 of the Lebanese election laws which explicitly allows for "International monitoring of the elections."

If Carter's plan goes forward, he told us last night at the American University of Beirut, it would be the 73rd election the Carter Center has observed. The main result of the monitoring he explained is that it prevents many strong arm tactics and incidents of blatant electoral fraud. One wonders if Carter's team can curtail those still moist ink $100 bills, being passed out by the 'green fingers' guys on motor bikes.

Carter told his standing room only audience, which gave him a long standing ovation as he entered the lecture hall; exactly 34 years to the day after Carter announced his candidacy for the US Presidency, on December 12, 1974, that of all the 72 elections he had monitored, "The most perfect three were the ones conducted by the Palestinians". He added that the parliamentary polls in 2006, which Hamas won, "were a completely open, honest and fair contest, aborted by Israel and the US".

I could not help noticing that the vivacious smile worn by Carter and my lovely new Ambassador to Lebanon, Michele Sison, who was sitting in the center seat of the front row, (probably unaware that three Hezbollah guys were, by chance, sitting two rows behind her), turned downward into a dark frown as Carter spoke these words.

Before Carter entered the hall, our radiant Ambassador shook my hand, spoke warmly, and melted my heart with her charm even though I am advised that she hates me more than her predecessor Jeff Feltman does. I can handle Feltman's ire (and David Welch's for that matter) but I get all weak kneed before those big dark smiling eyes and the natural Philipina warmth of Michele Sison, particularly since I left my heart years ago to her look-alike in the town of Muntinglupa southeast of Manila.

Speaking of Feltman and Welch, while Carter was holding discussions in Beirut about the Lebanese election, this duo was busy seven times zones west, on the same day and the same subject, doing what they do best, threatening and trying to scare the Lebanese with dire consequences if Hezbollah wins the Lebanese election.

Feltman, participating in the one-day Washington Conference entitled: Lebanon: Swing State of a New Levant (the erstwhile “New Middle East” language has been discredited but the meaning remains the same) warned of "bad ramifications on Lebanon if Hezbollah wins the next legislative elections in a manner that allows the party to control the government, (what does Feltman think elections are supposed to do?) because, U.S. aid to Lebanon will be threatened. There must be no illusions about that," he said.

Feltman's former boss and longtime mentor, Martin Indyk was even blunter, threatening that "the United States will not allow Lebanon to become a failed state". Some have interpreted Indyk's words to mean that if Hezbollah wins the election US forces will be shifted from Iraq and Afghanistan into Lebanon.

While Feltman and Indyk were was playing 'bad cops' their partner on the "A-Team of Zionist Operatives", David Welsh was playing the 'good cop’, telling the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, that while "Syria is seeking to influence Lebanese internal affairs, the United States will not attempt to influence Lebanon's election and the future of Lebanon lies in the hands of the Lebanese more than any time before." (!)

Hezbollah refuses Carter's offer of dialogue

Hezbollah says it has no problem with the Carter Center monitoring next year's election, which given the US threats sounds increasingly like a good idea, but the Party still refused to meet with him.

Indeed, the widely respected leader of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammad Raad, told AFP that his Party "does not meet with anyone from a US administration which supports Zionist terrorism."
Upon hearing this statement, my first thought was, "this is utter nonsense! What is Raad talking about? Somebody at HHQ messed up!" I looked back up at the mountains and waited for a correction from Hezbollah's Media Office. Silence.

Hezbollah is very sophisticated and knows well that Carter has not been "from a US administration" for 28 years and not only does not "support Zionist terrorism" but has been critical of Israel ( albeit usually privately until recently) for longer than Hezbollah has been in existence.

Carter and Hezbollah agree that the Bush Administration 'terrorism list" is by and large nothing more than a "political list" and Carter has been as critical of some aspects of Bush's criminal crusade in Iraq and Afghanistan as Hezbollah. Hezbollah calls being on the Bush list a "Badge of honor" and former US Senator Jim Abourezk refers to it as an "Honor roll".

Days ago, Carter called Israeli policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza an international crime. He favors, along with American Professor Richard Falk, the Special UN Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, the ICAI HOKOK (International Coalition against Impunity) filing against Israel this week before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for its continuing International Crimes in Gaza. The HOKOK Petition urges the ICC to convene in Gaza to take evidence, as allowed by the Rome Statue.

Moreover, Hezbollah is no stranger to meeting with former US officials, including ex-American Ambassadors Robert Dillon, Richard Viets, Robert Keeling, and Edward Peck, all just since 2006, visits arranged by the Washington-based Council for the National Interest (directed by former long-term members of Congress including Paul Findlay and Pete McCloskey and long serving diplomats like Eugene Bird). I was present in several of those meetings and Hezbollah clearly values the dialogue as much as the Americans. Mutual respect and friendships form, a result of the frank dialogue and Q and A's from both sides.

It is no secret that Hezbollah also crosses paths regularly with various, American academics, religious leaders, ex-politicians and human rights activists.

Moreover, Carter has met over the past couple of days with most of Hezbollah's main allies, including another five hours with Hamas on Sunday --except one!

So Raad’s announcement did not make sense…when it was first issued.
Foreign and domestic political observers in Lebanon searched for explanations. Some no doubt thought Hezbollah unwittingly joined some sleazy company in deciding to boycott Carter.

Granted, Carter was partially responsible for bribing Egypt 30 years ago at Camp David to turn its back on the Palestinian and Arab cause, effectively ending Egypt's resistance to the Zionist project across its Sinai. One Hezbollah contact suggested that Camp David could be the reason Carter was boycotted. Yet, Camp David alone as the reason was not convincing, being 30 years ago and, anyhow, Hezbollah is all about redemption and would have been interested in Carter's explanations.

Also, the 'supporter of Zionist Terrorism' charge against Carter seemed weak since Carter's recent activities and writings including his volume, Palestine, Peace, not Apartheid, are viciously attacked by extremist Zionists hate groups including the Zionist Organization of America, Jewish Defense League, and the Anti Defamation League, among others. They regularly accuse the Nobel-prize winning Carter of (what else?) "Overt anti-Semitism" in the words of the resident Islamophobe Mad Hatter at Harvard Law School, Alan Dershowitz, who claims, without a scintilla of evidence, that the Carter Center is "bought and paid for by the Arabs!"

Numerous Israeli officials and the Israel lobby, no friends of Hezbollah, also boycott Carter and as one Hezbollah member who favored a meeting advised, Hezbollah could lose more than Carter since he is popular and has electoral shirt tails in Lebanon. His teams' presence outside the poll locations may remind voters than Hezbollah 'dissed' him.

According to an editorial in Beirut's Daily Star: "Carter's critics were enraged that he had so courageously condemned "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land" - and had done so openly in the most honest and unequivocal of terms. Some of his detractors launched an all-out smear campaign calling for protests against the former president and boycotts against stores that dared to sell or advertise his book. Carter's subsequent decision earlier this year to meet with leaders of Hamas provoked similar ire, and prompted Olmert to snub an offer for a visit with the US president."

So what's the problem between Carter and Hezbollah?

I do not think there is one and believes we must look elsewhere for the answer to Hezbollah's 'refusal' to sit with Carter.

As hypothesized below, that unheld non-Hezbollah first meeting is the key to solving the mystery of the unheld Hezbollah meeting.

There are some major differences between the views of the Sunday school teacher from Plains and the Sheiks and Sayeeds who studied in Najaf and Qom but that would seem to be all the more reason for dialogue, and according to party members, differing views have rarely stopped Hezbollah from talking with anyone.

Moreover, Carter, (deeply religious), and Hezbollah, (deeply religious), presumably share a similar thirst for others insights and dialogue on a panoply of questions on man's existence and society including the importance of religion in regulating one's impulses and behavior, the role of the Prophets, the sanctity of life, existence of heaven, the origins and shared values of Islam and Christianity, human rights and any manner of subjects.

One Hezbollah supporter commented while waiting in line to go thru security before Carter's AUB lecture, "I'm tired of Lebanese politics but I would love to hear a Carter/Hezbollah dialogue about Religion which increasingly is manipulated by politicians-in Lebanon and many parts of the World'.

Differences between Carter and Hezbollah

Among the differences between Carter and Hezbollah is the fact that Carter is willing to accept a religious Jewish State, in most of Palestine and Hezbollah is not.

Carter is also willing to finesse the core Right of Return issue by limiting the Palestinian claim to reacquire their stolen lands to the truncated West Bank and Gaza, with Israel deciding how many Palestinians, if any, can return to their lands behind the 1949 'greenline'.

Along with Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brezinski, (the latter Carter's National Security Advisor), neither of whom accept a full Right of Return for expelled Palestinians, and who stated as much last month in Op Eds, Carter favors a solution that would essentially constitute a 'buy out' of the Palestinians Right of Return. He would dollop out cash from a 'Super Fund' (guess who pays this 'bailout?), call it 'just, full and adequate compensation' (in truth it would be none of these) and let Israel keep most Palestinian land.

These schemes are anathema to Hezbollah and most Palestinians, especially the younger generation.

One Palestinian AUB student asked: "Mr. President, How can you or anyone honestly expect us to live in a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state when we know their State is on our stolen land"?

Carter expressed sympathy, pressed his lips together, nodded slowly, understood the question, but failed to cogently answer the young lady.
Hezbollah believes Palestine cannot be bought or sold, is to be held in perpetuity for the Arabs and their progeny who were violently dispossessed, and the Party has sworn to help the Palestinians liberate every inch, or in the Hezbollah lexicon, "every grain of sand!"

The Lebanese Resistance will, however, accept a compromise agreeable to the Palestinians, recognizing that it's Palestinians land after all and Hezbollah has no right to oppose a solution ratified by a majority of the Palestinians.

While it will take more time to ferret out all the details, I think we now have a fairly clear idea what actually occurred and why Hezbollah stiffed Carter this time, but may graciously invite him to dialogue with the Party of God when he returns to Lebanon in the spring.

But before CounterPunchers conclude that I have gone soft on Carter, his 62 years of marriage to the same woman, his four fine children, 11 grandchildren and any day now his second great grandchild, or the fact that he still teaches Bible Study every Sunday in his local parish, please consider this sinner’s earlier "unrequited love experience" with the 39th President.

Love and Loathing in 1976: Why I Hated Jimmy Carter

Early in 1976 living in England in those pre-Internet days, I had barely heard of "Jimmy Who?" Carter from Plains, Georgia, even though he had announced his candidacy for president nearly two years earlier.
I was not alone. After nearly two years of campaigning for the Democratic nomination, a January 3, 1976 Newsweek Poll showed only 4 per cent of Democrats favored Carter as the Democratic Party's nominee. I was down deep in the 96 per cent who preferred someone—nearly anyone-- else. Perhaps Birch Bayh, Sargent Shirver, Henry Jackson, Fred Harris, Morris Udall, Lloyd Bentsen, Frank Church, Jerry Brown, Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy (the last two not even candidates) and only Alabama's George Wallace chilled me more than 'Jimmy' did.

I became a charter member of the ABC (Anybody But Carter) cabal.

Returning home to Oregon, still a staunch Wayne Morse Democrat, and having won my second straight election, this time to represent Oregon on the Democratic National Committee. My first electoral success was running in Massachusetts with my neighbor Michael Dukakis. Michael bested me by 42 votes only because his very pretty wife Kitty was dynamite at going door to door for the 'gifted one' as we called Michael those days on Aspinwall Avenue and Perry Street where we were neighbors. But we both got elected as there were five open seats that year as Representatives to the Brookline, Massachusetts Town Meeting. Senator Birch Bayh from Indiana, asked me to chair his Oregon Presidential Campaign.

That job lasted maybe 120 days as Birch was winnowed rather quickly, and months before the May Oregon Primary, from the gaggle of would be Democratic nominees that year. All dozen or so were eager to take on Gerald Ford who had recently pardoned Richard Nixon and looked like a sure loser, in the words of former President Lyndon Johnson, 'having been tackled once too often playing college football at Michigan". Ford actually did narrowly win the general election in Oregon that year.

So I moved on to my next favorite candidate, California's Governor Jerry Brown. Jerry failed to meet the Democratic Party filing deadline (not my fault—he vacillated and jumped into the race late to stop Carter!) but we ran a strong write-in campaign and he came in a close Third to Second place Carter and the winner, Idaho's Frank Church. I still recall some enthusiastic Portland teenagers painting the walls of Portland's Union Hall (and their faces!) with Brown paint for our election eve Rally for our 'Moonbeam', Carter-dissing, Jesuit educated, Linda Ronstadt dating, tofu and brown rice chomping southern neighbor.

When Brown failed, I jumped onto the Frank Church bandwagon, but he too faded shortly after the Oregon Primary.

But Jimmy 'Who?' just kept coming…and winning… more than he lost, as Hezbollah likes to say "step by step".

I was aghast! After seven years of college in Boston, joining a bus cavalcade to Mississippi to deliver shoes donated by New England Shoe manufacturers (there still were still some in those days) in the Mississippi Delta with my heart throb from Wellesley College, Amanda 'Merryweather Post' Hawes ('Mandy' dumped this "hick Oregonian"-- as Carter's aide Tim Kraft later referred to me, and as her name implies she might do, for a Wall Street Banker), I not only didn't cotton to Carter or his candidacy, my problem was visceral—and no doubt psychological.

My disdain included his accent, his frozen grin, the fact that he was a 'born again' (pretty bizarre to this then staunch Episcopalian contemplating Divinity school) but beyond that was, frankly, the mere fact that he was a deep Southerner with all that it implied to me.

Carter was anathema to some of us elitist would-be abolitionist New Englanders in those post Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcom X, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, murdered civil rights workers days. I ignorantly laid the deaths of Viola Liuzzo, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Henry Schwerner, James Reeb, and 24 other murdered civil rights workers at the feet of "the whole racist South". ( And I have accused some Arabs of being tribal?)

As election realities had it that turbulent year, by the time of the Democratic Convention in New York I had become a tepid Carter delegate and remained loyal to him until fellow Democrat Edward Kennedy challenged him four years later.

Primary after primary, with a few exceptions, Carter beat us bad in the 1980 delegate count and his friends blamed Kennedy and political hacks like me for splitting the Party and electing Ronald Reagan.
There is some truth to that…but there was another reason Carter was denied a second term 28 years ago and that is linked to Hezbollah's refusal to meet with Carter today.

The reason for this background is that the reader should appreciate that it took a long while to appreciate Jimmy Carter but I eventually did do and my admiration for him grows with each human rights initiative he launches and champions.

And the answer is….

Hezbollah, my inquiries suggest, decided at the last minute not to meet with Jimmy Carter this trip at the request of Iran and out of respect for their Persian ally and the memory of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, still deeply revered in much of Lebanon among Hezbollah's rank and file as well as the wider Shia community.

It was a one-time message-sending rejection to clear the air, tidy up and perhaps settle some old scores and does not necessarily preclude a future meeting in Dahiyeh or Tehran.

Some in Lebanon are speculating that Tehran put the kibosh on Hezbollah meeting with Carter, remembering Carter's support for the Shah and the US embassy hostage crisis when, despite pleas from Carter operatives, Ayatollah Khomeini held the hostages until just after the 1980 US election, thus depriving Carter of reelection and throwing the contest to Ronald Reagan.

Like many of us, East and West, the Iranians have long memories. They recall that after taking office in 1977 Carter quickly visited Iran and toasted the Shah at a state dinner in Tehran, calling him "an island of stability in the troubled Middle East", while outside the Palace the Shah secret police were killing dissenters.

Some Iran's leadership are said to believe that Carter heeded the advice of his aggressive national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who wanted to encourage the Shah to brutally suppress the revolution and rejected the more cautious US State Department, which proposed reaching out to opposition elements in order to smooth the transition to a new government.

When the Shah was finally overthrown, Carter's refusal to give him up for trial in Iran led directly to the 444 day hostage crisis two days later.

Carter froze more than $8 billiona-worth of Iranian assets, cut off Iranian oil, ended US trade with Iran and clamped on heavy economic sanctions which were devastating to Iran's civilian population. According to Iran, Carter's administration secretly plotted with Saddam Hussein and others against the new government, targeting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his successor and current Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and others for assassination.

Twenty eight years later, Iran's leadership may have wanted this week to send a message to Carter -- and perhaps others -- much as they did to Clinton at the UN in 2000, when then Iranian President Ali Khamtai kept Clinton cooling his heels for a hoped-for meeting which Ali Khamenei scratched at the last minute.

"It's all about respect", an Iranian journalist, formally with the Iranian channel Press TV explained yesterday, "Had Carter first approached the Iranian Embassy he might have had no problem meeting this time with Hezbollah. Enshallah, next time all will go well. Neither Iran nor Hezbollah deny some of Carter's recent humanitarian work and I think the point has been made and perhaps the file is now closed. Let us see what happens in the spring."

Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer and researcher, currently based in Dahiyeh, South Beirut, drafted, for HOKOK, the International Coalition against Impunity, its Complaint/Submission filed, on December 12, 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Internationally Criminal Court in The Hague. The Case charges Israel with continuing Rome Statue International crimes in Gaza and throughout Occupied Palestine.
He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

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