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Today's Stories October 16, 2006 Gary Leupp North Korea as a Religious State October 14/15, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery Gaza as Laboratory: the Great Experiment John Walsh How Rahm Emmanuel Has Rigged a Pro-War Congress Jean Bricmont A Fable About Palestine Jennifer Van Bergen Bush's Military Commissions Act and the Future of America Ralph Nader Wilted Yankees: the Fruits of Checkbook Baseball Floyd Rudmin The Logic of Proliferation: How Bush's Belligerence Prompted N. Korea to Pursue Nuclear Weapons Mark Weisbrot Correcting the Facts on US/Venezuela Relations Laura Carlsen Building a Future in the Mixteca Hani Shukrallah A Stroll Through the Cairo Mall: Shopping as Cultural Pursuit Dr. Susan Block The Spent Milk of Human Foley John Chuckman North Korea's Bomb: Still 1,126 Nuke Tests Behind the US Lucinda Marshall Is Betty Ugly?: the Profits of Denigration Don Monkerud The Case Against Depleted Uranium Missy Comley Beattie What Bush Means By Tolerable Violence in Iraq Ron Jacobs Shouting "No One is Illegal" in a Crowded Theater Website of the Weekend Ratfink Raunchfest   October 13, 2006 Jorge Mariscal PowerPoint Racism: How Military Recruiters Pitch to Latinos Stephen Philion The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets: an Interview with Jerry Lembcke John Blair Strip Mining Wildlife Preserves: Black Beauty's Filthy Lucre Col. Dan Smith Oil, Atoms and War Alastair Crooke / Mark Perry How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: Part Two, Winning the Ground War Stephen Fleischman Journalism Then and Now Charles Perroud The Death Penalty's Invisible Victims Anne E. Brodsky Return to Afghanistan: Where the Rhetoric Doesn't Match the Reality Website of the Day Underwater Nuke Test   October 12, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran Norman Solomon The Pundit Path to Death in Iraq M. Shahid Alam On Colonialism and Colleagues Paul Craig Roberts Can We Call It Genocide Now? Meredith Schafer / Chris Kutalik Is a General Transportation Strike Looming for 2008? Can Labor Seize the Moment? Carl Gelderloos Images of Occupation: Teaching in Nablus Alastair Crooke / Mark Perry How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: Part One, Winning the Intelligence War Charles Sullivan Assassins of Truth William S. Lind Why Do We Still Fight a Lost War? CP News Service The South Turns Against the War Website of the Day There's a Riot Goin' On   October 11, 2006 John Feffer Pyongyang 1, Bush 0 Dave Lindorff A Killing Occupation Jackson Katz Gunning Down Women: Coverage of "School Shootings" Misses Central Issue April Howard / Ben Dangl The Tin War in Bolivia Michael Carmichael World War W Ken Couesbouc The New Witchcraft: Marvin Harris on the War on Terror Gregory Afghani Sleepless on Skid Row: Guilty of Being Homeless in America Alexander Cockburn 600,000 Dead in Iraq: Chortles in the New Yorker for Slaughter's Cheerleader, C. Hitchens Website of the Day Petition: Defend Columbia Students Who Confronted the Minutemen   October 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Lost Wars and a Lost Economy Robert Robideau The Myth Keepers of Columbus Joshua Frank The Democrats and the War on Civil Liberties Dave Lindorff Free the Press! Free Linda Greenhouse! Dave Zirin Brother of the Fist Heather Gray Where Votes Matter: My Experience in South Africa James Knotwell Big Ag in the Heartland: the Future of Nebraska's Family Farms Missy Beattie The Return of James Baker, III Mike Whitney Bush and North Korea: Bumbling Toward Disaster David Rosen Sex Panic on Capitol Hill: Mark Foley and the Politics of Sex in America Website of the Day Eno / Byrne: Music to Enjoy the Foley Scandal By   October 9. 2006 Robert Fisk The Age of Terror Norman Solomon Welcome to the Nuclear Club Ron Jacobs The Boom Heard Around the World Gideon Levy The Mystery of America Walter Brasch Their Back Pages: Sex, Lies and Family Values Mickey Z. Who Killed Michael Moore? John Holt Grizzlies in Our Midst: Can Humans and Bears Coexist? Lucinda Marshall Not So Pretty in Pink: Profits and Breast Cancer Saul Landau Post-Castro Cuba Website of the Day War, Inc.     October 7 / 8, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Wargasms and Orgasms Peter Kwong The Chinese Face of Neoliberalism Ralph Nader Revolt of the Generals Mark Donham What Cynthia McKinney Means to Me Dave Lindorff Philly's Police Snoops Peter Bosshard World Bank Shuts Out Dissident Voices: Big Dams, Huge Profits & Political Corruption Ron Jacobs Evil Hour in Colombia Lawrence R. Velvel Governmental Derelicts: Moral Meltdown in America Fred Gardner Arnold Vetoes Hemp Bill David Green The US, Israel and the Invasion of Lebanon Jim B. Activism, Incorporated: Outsourcing Grassroots Politics? Missy Beattie Prayers for Peace at the Edge of the Abyss Michael Donnelly Blame the Page: Grand Old Perverts Go on Offensive Jackson Thoreau Enter Newt Jon Hung Revisiting Korematsu: Denying Civil Rights Based on National Origin CounterPunch News Service Why We Confronted the Minutemen at Columbia Tom D'Antoni Playlist Poets' Basement Orloski, Davies, Tirado, Gaffney and Ford Website of the Weekend Reagan Gone Wild   October 6, 2006 Alison Weir Just Another Mother Murdered Tiffany Ten Eyck / Mark Brenner Made in (DeUnionized) America Corporate Crime Reporter Look Who's Behind "37 Reasons" to Vote for Big Business: Former Clinton PR Flak Mike McCurry Juan Antonio Montecino Cleaving a False Divide in Latin America Walden Bello A Siamese Tragedy Christopher Brauchli Rank Invitations: Dining with Bush Brynne Keith-Jennings Dan Burton in Nicaragua: the Congressman, His Stick and the Elections Jonathan Cook The Struggle for Palestine's Soul Website of the Day Fighting Hog Farms and Clearcuts in the Heartland   October 5, 2006 John Walsh Turn the Page Carol Norris The Radical Right, the Myth of the Gay Child Abuser and You: a Psychotherapist on the Hysteria Over Foley Paul Craig Roberts Will November Bring Hope or Another Stolen Election? Ricardo Alarcón The Truth About the Embargo of Cuba James Abourezk Waterboarding the Constitution: After Torture, What's Next? Nicola Nasser Removing Hamas: Brinksmanship or Coup d'Etat? Kirkpatrick Sale Breaking Away: the First North American Secessionist Conference Uri Avnery Peace with Syria: Lunch in Damascus Website of the Day More Naughty GOP Messages October 4, 2006 Elizabeth Terzakis The Walls That Racism Built: Blood Revenge, the Death Penalty and Kevin Cooper Paul Wolf The Mushy Rebellion: Pakistan Under Musharraf Sean Penn The Arrogant, the Misguided and the Cowards Dave Lindorff Outrage as Misdirection: The Real Scandal isn't Foley Diane Farsetta For Sale: Iraqi Kurdistan Sharon Smith Democrats: Yes to War, No to Pedophilia Felice Pace Revoking 1776 Sara Roy The Economy of Gaza Website of the Day Alexander Cockburn: the Video Interview (Part Two) October 3, 2006 Jennifer Van Bergen Compassionate Conservative Pedophiles Greg Moses The Infallible Empire: Junking Habeas Corpus Stan Cox Real Bad ID: a National Driver's License and the Fading Right of Anonymity Niranjan Ramakrishnan How Empires Die Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma Takes a Hit: Alaska's Supreme Court Outlaws Forced Drugging Fred Wilhelms SoundExchange and Unpaid Music Artists: Help Us Find These Musicians and Get Them Paid! Michael Abelman Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food: the Risks of Convenience and Consolidation Gary Leupp The Foley Follies Website of the Day Bush and Blair: Endless Love   October 2, 2006 Eric Hazan Roadmap to Nowhere: an Interview with Tanya Reinhart on Israel/Palestine Since 2003 Mike Whitney Bloodbath on 60 Minutes: Court Stenographer Finally Comes Clean Norman Solomon American Narcissism and Iraq Assaf Kfoury Meeting Nasrallah Missy Beattie The Meaning of "ummmm": Speaker Hasert and the Over-Friendly Congressman Arthur Neslen Lie Less in Gaza Paula J. Caplan How the Supreme Court Mangled My Research Website of the Day Predator Drones Target Bechtel   Sept. 30 / 0ct. 1, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts The New Face of Class War Marjorie Cohn Rounding Up US Citizens: a Consitutional Shredding Ben Tripp Deviant Conservative Males: an Analysis Ron Jacobs A Dismal and Chaotic Place: Iraq According to Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Torturer-in-Chief Mike Whitney Iraq: The Breaking Point Christopher Reed It Pays to Raise a Ruckus Seth Sandronsky The Housing Bust: Excess Investment and Its Discontents Fred Gardner The Chancellor's Wife Mokhiber / Weissman Hewlett Packard and the Erosion of Privacy Michael Dickinson My Escape Attempt from Prison Transfer: Extract from a Diary in Turkish Police Custody Alan Gregory Fake Green: Top 10 Ways Politicians Pretend to be Environmentalists Poets' Basement Gardner, Landau, Lindorff, Davies,& Buknatski     September 29, 2006 Bruce Jackson Chavez's Reading, Bush's Reading Michael J. Smith The Lobby Debate Does Manhattan Emira Woods Oil Trip: Record Profits for Exxon, Deprivation for Africa William S. Lind The Sanctuary Illusion: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq as Theme Parks for 4GW David Swanson Mommy, What's Waterboarding? Jonathan Cook Bad Faith and the Destruction of Palestine Website of the Day Jesus: the Recruitment Tapes September 28, 2006 Sen. Russ Feingold The Flaws in the Military Commissions Act Ron Jacobs The Generals, the Democrats and Iraq: One Policy, Two Parties Mokhiber / Weissman Scenes from Laura's Book Festival: Elmo Will Not Save You Lee Sustar A Left Challenge to Lula Robert Jensen Finding My Way Back to Church--and Getting Kicked Out John Chuckman America Has Just Lost Two More Wars Evelyn Pringle Inside America's Nursing Homes: a Hidden Tragedy of Neglect and Abuse Nicola Nasser Bush and Islam: Words vs. Deeds Uri Avnery Political Corruption in Israel Website of the Day Art Against the Empire September 27, 2006 Patrick Cockburn A Final Explosion Looms in Mosul Camilo Mejia Blowback From Iraq: Giving Terrorism a Reason to Exist Pat Williams Tax Burdens and Cheaters in the Rockies: Send Those IRS Mercenaries in Search of Montana's Land Barons and Oil Drillers Ben Terrall Failing Haiti: Another Bungled UN Mission Ridgeway / Ng Paul Weyrich Explaines His Opposition to the Patriot Act: a Short Film Joe Allen Where are the Mass Protests? Andrew Wimmer Don't Disappear Into a Black Hole Franklin C. Spinney Rumsfeld's AutoCarterization: Skullduggery in the Pentagon's Budget Website of the Day Model Nukes: the Photo Contest September 26, 2006 Hani Shukrallah The American Mind: When Historical Analysis is Reduced to Whim William Blum If It's Election Season, It Must Be Time for a Terror Alert Niranjan Ramakrishnan Torturing the Obvious Barbara Becnel Witness to an Execution: a Slow and Very Painful Death Paul Rockwell Judicial Complicity in US War Crimes: the Watada Case Dave Lindorff Bush and Iran: Going to War to Save His Own Ass? Rich Gibson Lessons from the Detroit Teachers' Strike Anthony Papa The Danger of Meth Registries: "Have a Cold? Prove It, Then Sign Here" Nate Mezmer New Orleans is Back ... Without Blacks: Monday Night Football at the Superdome Uri Avnery Mohammed's Sword Website of the Day Only YOU Can Stop the Sale of Public Lands to Mining, Timber and Real Estate Corporations September 25, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Place in the World: a Journey to Iraq's "Taliban Republic" Jonathan Cook Human Rights Watch: Still Missing the Point on Lebanon Joshua Frank Did Maria Cantwell's Campaign Try to Buy Off Aaron Dixon? Paul Craig Roberts Is the Bush Administration Itching to Nuke Iran? Robert Jensen Defending Chavez on FoxNews Dave Lindorff Horowitz on Campus: This Mouth for Hire Norman Solomon Media Tall Tales for Next War Dr. Charles Jonkel Save a Grizzly, Visit a Library: "People like the Croc Hunter are Worse Than the Most Bloodthirsty Slob Hunter Michael Dickinson "The King's New Clothes:" a Play Written in a Turkish Jail Alexander Cockburn Flying Saucers and the Decline of the Left Website of the Day Great Bear Foundation   September 23 / 24, 2006 Weekend Edition Jonathan Cook How Israel is Engineering the "Clash of Civilizations" Jeffrey St. Clair Star Wars Goes Online ... Crashes Dr. Anon A Doctor's Life in Baghdad Tom Barry Oil and Political Opportunism Carl G. Estabrook The Darfur Smokescreen Laura Carlsen Mexico's Two Presidents Todd Chretien The Axis of Lesser Evilism Dr. Charles Jonkel From Grizzly Man to the Croc Hunter: the Global Media and the Death of Bears Debbie Nathan I Was Disappeared By Salon Fred Gardner Dustin Costa Struggles Against Invisibility Fred Wilhelms The Money Belongs to the Artists Who Created the Music Seth Sandronsky The Cruel Economics of Health Care in America Ralph Nader Mavericks at Work Rev. William Alberts "Specks" and "Logs" and 9/11 Jon Van Camp Who is Hezbollah? Heather Gray Conservatives and Technology David Vest Jerry Lightfoot, RIP Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listenting to This Week Poets' Basement Landau / Davies Website of the Weekend Meet Me In The Morning: C. Wonderland & J. Lightfoot Video of the Weekend Is It a Bird? A Missile? Or, Just Perhaps, a Friggin' Plane?   September 22, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Republic of Fear: Torture in Bush's Iraq, Worse Than Under Saddam Michael Donnelly It's the Manipulated Economy, Stupid! Ramzy Baroud The Next Palestinian Struggle Evo Morales "We Need Partners, Not Bosses": Address to the United Nations Stanley Howard Torture and Justice in Chicago Sarah Leah Whitson Hezbollah's Rockets and Civilian Casualties: a Reply to Jonathan Cook JoAnn Wypijewski Conservations at Ground Zero Website of the Day Cockburn in Atlanta: the Video Interview September 21, 2006 Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad "No Nation Should Have Superiority Over Others:" UN Address Justin E. H. Smith Ending the Death Penalty: Outline of an Abolitionist Program Rick Kuhn Australian Government Steps Up Attacks on Muslims: "I Certainly Don't Want That Type of People in Australia" Mike Roselle Ed Wiley's Long March: the Elementary School vs. the Strip Mine Amira Hass In the Name of Security: What Israeli Police Files Reveal About the Occupation of Palestine Deborah Rich From the Kitchen of Dr. Frankenstein: the Consumption of Gene-Engineeered Foods Mickey Z. 10 Reasons Cars Suck Saul Landau Terrorism at Sheridan Circle Website of the Day Stop the Decapitation of Mountains! September 20, 2006 Sharon Smith Elections, Detentions and Deportations Christopher Reed Goodbye Koizumi, Hello Abe John Ross Mexico: Does AMLO Have a Future? Joshua Frank A Wasted Campaign: How Jonathan Tasini Helped Hillary Clinton and Distracted the Antiwar Movement Arthur Neslen The Clenched Fist of the Phoenix: What Made Israel Burn Lebanon, Again? Norman Solomon The Hollow Promise of Digital Technology Michael Carmichael The Vatican's Tyrant Evelyn Pringle The Merck Vioxx Litigation: a Scorecard Hugo Chavez Rise Up Against the Empire: Address to the United Nations Website of the Day Before You Enlist: Watch This Video! September 19, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Deadly Harvest: Lebanese Fields Sown with Israeli Cluster Bombs Jeff Leys Economic Warfare: Iraq and the IMF Brian M. Downing War, Taxes and Democracy Col. Dan Smith Dispelling Brutality Liaquat Ali Khan Presidential Incitements: Did Bush's Speech Violate Geneva Conventions on Genocide? Ron Jacobs Just Sign on the Dotted Line: Iraqi Oil and Production Sharing Agreements Nik Barry-Shaw / Yves Engler Canada in Haiti: Torture, Murder and Complicity Lucinda Marshall Air Paranoia: the Great Toothpaste and Hair Gel Scare Saul Landau The Pinochet Syndicate Photo of the Day Hold That Bridge! Website of the Day Scenarios for an Iranian War September 18, 2006 Carl Boggs Crimes of Empire Uri Avnery Peace Panic Mike Stark / Jim Bullington Ann Richards, the Original Texacutioner Joshua Frank Corporate E. Coli John Murphy The Price of Free Speech Ramzy Baroud Murdoch Almighty Dave Lindorff On Constitution Day Bill Quigley Showing Conviction at Echo 9 Website of the Day Tutorial: How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine   September 16 / 17, 2006 Weekend Edition Tariq Ali A Bavarian Provocation Eliza Ernshire Death and Tears in Nablus Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part 7): To Tilted Park Mairead Corrigan Maguire A Nobel Laureate Visits with Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Brian Cloughley "Let Them Drink Coke!": Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan Ben Tripp November Prognostication: Republicans Sweep! Laura Carlsen Bush and Latin America: War on Terrorism or Fight for Social Justice Ralph Nader Terror on the Road Ron Jacobs Shooting Sgrena John Chuckman Imperial Entropy Robert Fisk The American Military's Cult of Cruelty Gary Leupp The Pope's New Crusade: Defender of the West, Scourge of Islam Lawrence R. Velvel The Pretexter in Chief: Learning About Bush from Hewlett-Packard Missy Comley Beattie The Insecurity of Immorality Adrienne Johnstone Deporting Widows: the Nightmare of a Kenyan Immigrant Mickey Z. Why I Hate America Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Kearney, Orloski, Engel, Louise and Davies Website of the Weekend Still Life with Killpecker September 15, 2006 Diana Johnstone In Defense of Conspiracy: 9/11, in Theory and in Fact Diane Christian On Retaliation William S. Lind General Puffery: When the Military Brass Deceives Lee Sustar Bosses Take Aim at Undocument Workers Dave Lindorff Retroactive Immunity for Bush? Ramzy Baroud Presidential PR: Lost in the Bush Spin Cycle Mokhiber / Weissman The Cesspool Jeffrey St. Clair Glow, River, Glow: Radioactive Leaks and Plumbers at Hanford Website of the Day F-22: The Most Expensive Piece of Junk Ever Built? September 14, 2006 Franklin Lamb Israel's Use of American Cluster Bombs: a Walk Through the Rubble Tim Wilkinson Alan Dershowitz's Sinister Scheme Dick J. Reavis Mexico's Time of Troubles: Who Benefits? Sam Husseini 9/11 Five Years Later: a Conspiracy to Silence Doug Giebel Democracies of Death: Why John Adams Wouldn't Recognize His Own Country Bill Berkowitz The Messaging Strategy of the Iraq War Diane Farsetta What Media Democracy Looks Like Mary Turck Targeting Refugees and Human Rights Workers in Colombia Patrick Cockburn Amnesty Intl Accuses Hizbollah of War Crimes, But Katyusha Damage "Much Less" Than Israel Claimed J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Ah, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? Website of the Day The Shocking Truth About Inequality September 13, 2006 Jack Bratich Eyes Put a Spell on You: Signs of Surveillance in the Public Secret Sphere John Ross Welcome to the Nightmare: Al Qaeda de Mexico? Christopher Brauchli "You Had to Have Been There": Teaching Iraq and Iran Dave Lindorff Mourning in America: Bush Weeps? Who are They Kidding? Antony Loewenstein My Israel Question Al Krebs The Gates Foundation and African Agriculture Leonard Peltier Crazy Horse in Chains Jim Bensman My Adventures with the FBI: How I Was Targeted as a Terrorist Website of the Day FreedomWalk: Take a Moment for Leonard Peltier September 12, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism Seth Sandronsky The War on Nurses John Walsh Khatami Comes to Harvard Alan Maass "Islamic Fascism": the New Hysteria David Krieger Troubling Questions About Missile Defense Nate Mezmer September 12th, America Kathleen Christison The Coming Collapse of Zionism September 11, 2006 Uri Avnery State of Chutzpah Patrick Cockburn Palestinians Forced to Scavenge Rubbish Dumps for Food Col Dan Smith The Centrality of War in the Presidency of George W. Bush Dr. Susan Block Beyond Terror Anthony Alessandrini Forgetting 9/11 Dave Lindorff Bush After 9/11: Five Years of High Crimes and Misdemeanors Niranjan Ramakrishnan What Happened? Joshua Frank Proving Nothing: How the 9/11 "Truth" Movement Helps Bush & Cheney Jean Bricmont The End of the "End of History" Sprague / Emesberger "You Are a Dog. You Should Die": Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Investigator Website of the Day Web Piracy   September 9/10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Off the Hook Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: In the Footsteps of Vladimir Putin (Part Six) Greg Grandin Good Christ, Bad Christ: Testament of the Death Squads Peter Stone Brown Bob Dylan's Swing Time Waltz in the Face of the Apocalypse Ralph Nader X-Raying Greed Brian Cloughley Rumsfeld at the American Legion: Dead Babies and Nazi Propaganda Col. Chet Richards Crossroads at the Litani David Model Tailoring the Case Against Iran: Cut from the Same Old Pattern Dave Himmelstein From Bil'in to Birmingham Ron Jacobs War and the Power of Words Fred Gardner Is Medical Pot Image a Turn-Off to Teens? Mike Whitney America's Economic Meltdown Josh Gryniewicz In the Belly of the Bentonville Beast: Working for Wal-Mart Daniel Gross / Joe Tessone An IWW Story at Starbucks Joe Bageant Inside the Iron Theater Nicole Colson The Colbert Factor: Some Truthiness, At Last Alexander Billet Thirty Years of "White Riot": Long Live The Clash! Poets' Basement Engel, Louise, Buknatski, Davies, & Orloski   September 8, 2006 Uri Avnery "I'm a Leftist, But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon Paul Craig Roberts Books Are Our Salvation Bill Quigley Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!" Robert Jensen Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom in Iran and the US Norman Solomon Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It Keith Bolin   September 8, 2006 Uri Avnery "I'm a Leftist, But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon Paul Craig Roberts Books Are Our Salvation Bill Quigley Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!" Robert Jensen Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom in Iran and the US Norman Solomon Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It Keith Bolin The Future of the Family Farm Kristin S. Schafer The Global Trade in Deadly Pesticides Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Five) Patrick Cockburn Gaza is Dying Website of the Day Help the Bismark 3! September 7, 206 Marjorie Cohn Why Bush Really Came Clean About the CIA's Secret Torture Prisons Sharon Smith Downward Mobility: No Recovery for Workers René Drucker Colín The Fraud in Mexico Michael Donnelly Bush Family Values: About Those Nazi Appeasers John Borowski Scholastic Peddles a Fictitious Path to 9/11 to Kids Lucinda Marshall Bombing Indiana Charles Sullivan Katrina and the New Jim Crow: Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part Four Jonathan Cook How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon Website of the Day Rasta! Reggae's Joe Hill   September 6, 2006 Stephen Soldz Protecting the Torturers: Bad Faith and Distortions frm the American Psychological Assocation Dave Zirin Cops vs. Jocks: the Shooting of Steve Foley Ramzy Baroud The Gaza Maze: Who Gained Most from the Fox Reporters' Kidnapping Noel Ignatiev Democrats, Pwogs and the Lesser Evil Folly Dave Lindorff Bombing Without Regrets: The US and Cluster Bombs Norman Solomon Spinning Troop Levels in Iraq Binoy Kampmark The Death of Steve Irwin and the Politics of the Zoo Jeffrey St. Clair A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Three) John Ross The Death of Mexican Presidency Website of the Day Flaming Arrows   September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? Time For A Champion of Truth to Speak Up Patrick Cockburn Better Not Meet at the Casbah Mike Whitney The Worst Secretary of Defense in U.S. History? You Be the Judge Roland Sheppard The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party James Petras As Bush Regime Faces Twilight Slide, How Much Havoc Can Paulson Wreak? Alexander Cockburn Will Bush Bomb Teheran?   September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal The Women Who Gave Us Labor Day Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part 2 Anthony Alessandrini The Great Debate about Aroma Coffee: Why I Boycott Dennis Perrin The Great Debate in Tarrytown: Straight Zion, No Chaser Daniel Cassidy 'S lom to Slum Paul Craig Roberts The War Is Lost   September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery When Napoleon Won at Waterloo Jeffrey St. Clair A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon Ralph Nader The No-Fault White House Noam Chomsky Viewing the World from a Bombsight Allan Lichtman Arrested Democracy: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail Stanley Heller When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic" Rana el-Khatib Invasion's Child: the Making of Issa Peter Montague Taking on the Pentagon: Chemical Weapons to Burn Laura Carlsen Mexico on a Collision Course Dr. Susan Block Bush Hate Rising Joe Bageant Roy's People: Why Progressives Need to Listen to Orbison, Not Policy Wonks Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf A New Generation of Landmines? Gary Leupp The Emperor Has Been Exposed Stephen Fleischman The Great American Oligarchy Paul Balles Has Ahmadinejad Already Checkmated Bush? Ingmar Lee Canada's $450 Million Gift to Bush: the Softwood Lumber Slush Fund Jane Stillwater Burning Man: the Good, the Bad and the Evil Twin Ron Jacobs Dylan Faces the Apocalypse, Again St. Clair / Bossert Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Grima, Engel, Orloski and Davies Website of the Weekend To New Orleans: a Photo Journal   September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Olmert Agonistes Paul Craig Roberts Of Wolves and Men (and Impotent Democrats) Bill Ayers Exclusionary Signs of the Times Kevin Zeese The Best War Ever Xochitl Bervera The Forgotten Children of New Orleans Norman Solomon Bush vs. Ahmadinejad: a TV Debate We'll Never See Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah Denounces Nasrallah Interview as a Fake Richard Neville Rupert Murdoch's Victims Website of the Day The Uranium Flood             Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition October 14-15, 2006 "Get Ourselves Out" of Iraq Soon, Says Top British General General Mutinies Against Blair By PATRICK COCKBURN Last Thursday, October 12, Britain's new army chief, Gen. Richard Dannatt, provoked a political storm by calling in a newspaper interview with the Daily Mail for a withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, warning that the British military should "get ourselves out some time soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems". Gen. Dannatt described British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Iraq policies as "naive," declaring that while Iraqis might have welcomed coalition forces following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the good will has since evaporated after years of violence. Gen. Dannatt also said, "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance". The only problem about Sir Richard Dannatt's comments on Iraq is that they did not go far enough. He rightly said that our presence exacerbates the security problem. In other words foreign military occupation provokes armed resistance in Iraq as it would in most countries. But it is seldom realised that the US and Britain have largely provoked the civil war now raging across central Iraq. The fact that there is a civil war in Iraq should no longer be in doubt with the UN saying that 3,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every month and the dramatic claim last week by American and Iraqi health researchers that the true figure goes as high as 15,000 a month. Baghdad has broken up into a dozen different hostile cities in each of which Sunni and Shia are killing or expelling each other. The city is like Beirut at the height of the Lebanese civil war. The wrong identity card, car number plate or even picture on a mobile phone is enough to get a driver dragged out of his car and killed. Militias are taking over. Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods that lived peaceably together for decades now exchange mortar fire every night. The last time I drove from Baghdad airport to the centre of the city the journey took three times as long as usual because we took a peculiarly serpentine route. The reason was that my Sunni driver was trying to avoid any checkpoints manned by the largely Shia police commandos or police who might take him away, torture and kill him. It is as bad in the provinces around Baghdad where many of the deaths go unrecorded. Last month I was in Diyala, a mixed Sunni-Shia province of 1.5 million people north of Baghdad, where a weary looking federal police commander threw up his hands when I asked him if there was a civil war. "Of course there is", he said. "What else do you call it when 60 or people are being killed in Diyala alone every week." In fact the true figure for this one province is probably higher. Many bodies are never found. I talk to one woman who fled the town she had lived all her life after her son, a taxi driver, had disappeared when he delivering a washing machine. Many bodies are thrown into the Tigris or its tributaries and float down river until the bodies are caught by the weirs south of Baghdad. In Mosul province in northern Iraq there is an impending civil war between Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Local officials said that 70,000 Kurds had fled so far this year and they expected the province to break up. I could only get to the centre of Mosul city by driving at break neck speed with two cars packed with armed Kurdish guards. They warned me against attracting the attention of the almost entirely Sunni Arab police. Was this civil war always inevitable? There was always going to be friction and possibly violence between the three main communities in Iraq -- Sunni, Shia and Kurd -- after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The Sunni were going to lose much of their power and the Shia and Kurds were going to gain it. But the occupation of Iraq by US and British armies over the last three years has deepened the divide between the communities. The Sunni Arab community fought back against the occupation in arms; the Kurds largely supported it; the Shia did not like it but used it to take power at the ballot box. Tony Blair's thesis that the insurrection in Iraq is the work of some Islamic Comintern operating across the Middle East was always nonsense. The guerrillas in Iraq are strong because they are popular. A leaked Pentagon poll last month showed that 75 per cent of the five million strong Sunni community support armed resistance. The present slaughter in Iraq is happening because existing ethnic and sectarian hostilities combined with animosities created by the occupation. For instance, a Sunni ex-army officer supporting the resistance now saw a Shia serving in the Iraqi army or police not just as the member of a different Islamic sect but as a traitor to his country collaborating with the hated invader. The last excuse for the occupation was that at least it prevented civil war, but this it very visibly is not doing. On the contrary it de-legitimises the Iraqi government, army and police who are seen by Iraqis as pawns of the occupier. When I've asked people in Baghdad what they think of their government they often reply: "What government? We never see it. It does nothing for us." In the eyes of Iraqis the occupation goes on despite the supposed hand over of power to Iraq in June 2004. Baghdad is full of signs of this. For instance the main government intelligence service, essential in fighting a guerrilla war, has no Iraqi budget because it is entirely funded by the CIA. One former Defense Ministry official plausibly defended himself from the allegation that he helped steal the entire military procurement budget of $1.3 billion by arguing that his ministry was in fact run by American officers without whose say so he could not move a machine gun from one side of the Tigris to the other. The White House and Downing Street have never recognized how the deep unpopularity of the occupation among Iraqis has generated resistance. This commonsensical but overwhelming important fact has now been pointed out by Sir Richard Dannatt, but there is little sign that Tony Blair has taken it on board despite his claim to be in full agreement with the forthright British army commander. The government's picture of Iraq is not so much a tissue of lies as a tissue of fantasies. It is absurd to say that American and British forces will stay until Iraqi security forces are trained to take their place. What soldiers and police lack is not training but loyalty to the Iraqi government. So far from establishing an independent Iraq or preventing a civil war the continued presence of American and British troops deeply destabilizes the country, de-legitimizes its government and deepens sectarian hatred. Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq' published by Verso.

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