home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! The Lesser of Two Evils: Bill or Hillary? Alexander Cockburn profiles the couple, as they battle to recapture the Oval Office PLUS Why You Can't Discuss Immigration without Dealing with "Free Trade". Alexandra Early on why 42 per cent of ALL Salvadorans would leave for the U.S. if they had a chance. PLUS Israel and Palestine: One State or Two? Kathleen Christison makes the case for One State. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !

Today's Stories February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden Dave Zirin Instep Intifada Saul Landau The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln Susie Day Our Blob in the White House Website of the Day George Carlin on Voting   February 6, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Super Tuesday's Vote for Chaos Ben Rosenfeld Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters Vijay Prashad An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out Joe Bageant Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned Michael Donnelly What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths Allan Nairn Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion? Kathryn Gray Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit Ray McGovern Powell's UN Fiasco Sheldon Richman The Whining Empire Paul Cantor / Roger Sparks A Presidential Aptitude Examination John Chuckman Political Bits and Pieces Website of the Day Save the Albatross February 5, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget Tariq Ali Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair Stephen Soldz The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes? Chris Floyd Strange Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War William S. Lind Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win Martha Rosenberg Live From the Killing Floor Heather Gray Conversations with Georgia Voters Ayesha Ijaz Khan Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics David Macaray Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice Eliza Ernshire Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run Brenda Norrell Hated Nation Website of the Day The Things I Used to Do     February 4, 2008 Marc Levy Winter in America Patrick Cockburn The Bird Market Bombings Saree Makdisi Strangling Gaza Uri Avnery From Stalingrad to Winograd Alan Farago Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer Ben Tripp Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter Paul Wolf Civil Wars North and South Paul Craig Roberts Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed? Joshua Frank MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change John Halle Whither Progressive Democrats? Website of the Day How to Cheat in School   February 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Hot Democratic Properties Pam Martens Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense Ralph Nader The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked John Ross Hilaria vs. "El Moreno" Wajahat Ali Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir Robert Fantina A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire B. R. Gowani Not All Veils and Guns James L. Secor China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow John V. Walsh The Invisible Green Primary Niranjan Ramakrishnan Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble Dave Zirin Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul? Jeremy Scahill Blackwater and Blood Fidel Castro Reflections on Lula Joe Allen Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War Stephen Lendman Life in Occupied Gaza Patrick Irelan What Happened to the Streetcars? Andrej Grubacic Ziga Vodovnik Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo Josh Karpoff Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement Ron Jacobs Carl Oglesby's War Paul Krassner Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel Website of the Weekend Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart   February 1, 2008 Ray McGovern The Iniquities and Inequalities of War Diane Farsetta The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists Tariq Ali Et Tu, New York Times? Allan Nairn Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti Rannie Amiri Collective Punishment in Beirut Ramzy Baroud People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It Kenneth Couesbouc The Mother of All Snowballs Peter Morici Recession Looms Mumia Abu-Jamal Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro Rosemary Jackowski 27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President Scott Campbell Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges Website of the Day Betes et Hommes   January 31, 2008 Saul Landau Return to Afghanistan Andy Worthington Horror at Guantánamo Mike Whitney Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System Jeff Ballinger Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the "Suharto of the Steppe" Tiffany Ten Eyck The Saga of the Freightliner Five William Loren Katz Waterboarding: Torure or Mystery? Alan Farago Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble Col. Dan Smith Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget? China Hand Slouching Toward Islamabad Dave Lindorff The Usual Suspects Once Again Wadner Pierre Fake Democracy in Haiti Website of the Day One Big Union   January 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair McCain vs. Clinton? Christopher Ketcham The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex Robert Weissman America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union Neve Gordon An Experiment in Famine Paul Craig Roberts Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse? Joanne Mariner How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech David Macaray Labor's Only Real Weapon Liaquat Ali Khan Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan? Raymond J. Lawrence Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication Dan Bacher The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon Website of the Day Onward Through the Fog   January 29, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off Mike Whitney The Great Credit Unwind of 2008 Alan Farago Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders Association Patrick Cockburn "The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction" Gary Leupp "We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel Edmonds Timeline R. F. Blader A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania Ahmad Faruqui Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect Fran Shor Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In" Jeremy Scahill Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater Protesters Allan Nairn Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All Website of the Day The Ghost of Rambo   January 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Return to Fallujah Paul Craig Roberts The End of American Liberty Allan Nairn The Breaking of the Gaza Wall Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza Martha Rosenberg Obit for the "Front Page" City Corporate Crime Reporter How They Rip Us Off David Michael Green Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War Jennifer Van Bergen What's Left? Nancy Oden Survival Tips for Hard Times Divya Karnad Saving India's Sea Turtles James L. Secor Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp Website of the Day Yellow Journalism?   January 26 / 27, 2008 Uri Avnery Worse Than a Crime JoAnn Wypijewski How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina Ralph Nader Ambition, Power and the Clintons Paul Craig Roberts How Bush Destroyed the Dollar Paul Watson I'm Proud to be a Pirate! John Ross Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico Fred Gardner Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred by California Supreme Court Allan Nairn Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death Joshua Frank Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey Binoy Kampmark Société Générale and the Economic Meltdown James T. Phillips America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home Stan Cox The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants Eamonn McCann Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland" Ron Jacobs The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia Seth Sandronsky California's Health Care Crisis Ben Terrall The Future is Unwritten Poets' Basement Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies Website of the Weekend City of Immigrants     January 25, 2008 Douglas Valentine Operation Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA Patrick Cockburn US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari JoAnn Wypijewski Down to the Wire in South Carolina Heather Gray Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with South Carolina Voters Marjorie Cohn Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA Erica Rosenberg Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration Alan Farago Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear Robert Weissman Reclaiming Economic Freedom Laura Carlsen Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada Stephen Lendman Israeli Repression in the Hebron Website of the Day The FIX is In   January 24, 2008 JoAnn Wypijewski Obama as Anthologist of Uplift Paul Craig Roberts President Hillary Alexander Cockburn Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her Nursing Home Scam? Kathleen Christison One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus Jeff Halper Power to the (Palestinian) People! Stanley Heller The Siege of Gaza is Broken George Wuerthner The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands Patrick Cockburn Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium Jeff Sher Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance? Patrick Irelan Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally? Charles Modiano Restoring the Anti-War King Website of the Day An Illustrated History of Trepanation   January 23, 2008 David Rosen The Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics of Sex David Isenberg Is It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons Program? Farzana Versey Hillary's Harem Paul Craig Roberts The Empire That Must Be Obeyed Alan Farago Where Did All the Good Times Go? Allan Nairn Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights Activist Kenneth Couesbouc Another Turn of the Screw Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West was Re-Sold Michael Donnelly Obama Strikes Back Norman Solomon The Power of Love Website of the Day Rafah Today   January 22, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Farewell to Old Economic Nostrums JoAnn Wypijewski King Day in Columbia, South Carolina Al Giordano Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada Felice Pace Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon Paul Wolf Bolívar's Sword Robert Weissman Deregulation and the Financial Crisis Dave Lindorff The Bush Dollar Trap Marjorie Cohn Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction Richard Neville Keeping Shakespeare in a Box Don Fitz / Zaki Baruti St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform Ben Terrall Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness Sam Husseini Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr. Website of the Day Defend the Mapuche!     January 21, 2008 Kevin Alexander Gray Playing the Race Card Linn Washington, Jr. Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy Pam Martens How Wall Street Blew Itself Up David Macaray Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party? Uri Avnery Look Who's Talking Omar Barghouti Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide Joe DeRaymond Protest and Trial in D.C. B.R. Gowani Why Islam Should Tolerate Images Shepherd Bliss The False U.S. Economy Jean-Guy Allard Philip Agee Versus the CIA Dan Bacher Leaping Steelhead! Website of the Day Destroyed By a Rising Flood January 19 / 20, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Campaign in Black and White Saul Landau Good Time Charlie's War China Hand Endgame for Pakistan? Conn Hallinan Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About? Ron Jacobs No Retreat Dave Lindorff A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess Andy Worthington Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture Paul Armentano What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think Seth Sandronsky High Crimes and Economics Michael Donnelly Dodging Ecocide Patrick Irelan The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki Martha Rosenberg The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit Sherwood Ross Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade David Michael Green So You Want to be My President, Eh? James Rothenberg Unimpeachable: Under House Protection Daniel Gross Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King Peter N. Carroll In Memory of Milton Wolff Susie Day Croakin' on Hudson Paul Krassner Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu Poets' Basement Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski Website of the Day Rocky Mountain Blues   January 18, 2008 Allan Nairn Killing Civilians, Carefully Ralph Nader When the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill? Joanne Mariner Terrorism and Preventative Detention Alan Farago The Stimulus and the Meltdown P. Sainath Pity the Brahmins R.F. Blader Beyond Steinem's Feminism Andy Worthington A Letter from Guantánamo John Jonik Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health Brian McKenna Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan Women's Prison Daoud Kuttab This Time Next Year? Website of the Day Those South Carolina Voting Machines   January 17, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Leader and Vassal Christopher Brauchli The FBI's Bills Come Due Robert Fantina Leadership, Bush and the New York Times Patrick Irelan Eternal War Paul A. Moore When the Rich Pay No Taxes Stephen Lendman Institutionalized Spying on Americans Beena Sarwar Bhutto and the "State Within a State" Walter Brasch Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment Brenda Norrell Bush Legacy in Texas Sours Adam Federman End of the Left? Website of the Day Democrats for Romney   January 16, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Return of the Native Franklin Lamb The Bombing at Qarantina Julian Sanchez David Weigel Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters? Sharon Smith Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope? Allan Nairn Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market Ayesha Ijaz Khan How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation Andy Worthington A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo Richard Behan Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach! Website of the Day Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!   January 15, 2008 Andrea Peacock Breach of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing Poison Into Libby's Wounds Wajahat Ali An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy and the Prospects of War with Iran Joe Bageant Getting Out the Bling Vote Ralph Nader The Candidate Taboos John Ross Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse Elaine Cassel Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified? Peter Morici The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy Beena Sarwar Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade Robert Weissman Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought Binoy Kampmark Going Tata in India Dave Zirin Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame Website of the Day David Lynch on the iPhone   January 14, 2008 Ishmael Reed Ma and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man Roger Morris Burials in the Sind Uri Avnery The Hands of Esau Mike Whitney Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package Allan Nairn General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses William Blum Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us Alan Farago A Subprime Wake Up Call David Macaray Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time? Eva Liddell Getting Drunk with Obama Zoe Blunt Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons Website of the Day Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies   January 12 / 13, 2008 Andrew Cockburn How the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian Deaths Saul Landau 60 Years of Empire Corey D. B. Walker Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual Col. Dan Smith Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot Eric Toussaint The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global Ron Jacobs Television, Murder and Vietnam Fred Gardner The People vs. Christopher James Chakos Stan Cox Don't Take That Pill! Jacob G. Hornberger The Warfare State Ramzy Baroud The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Joseph Grosso The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites David Díaz-Arias Imagining An/Other Latin American Left Stacey Warde Before We Move On ... Dan Bacher Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt Michael Dickinson Georgie in Jesusland Website of Weekend CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices   January 11, 2008 Dave Lindorff Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold Voting Machines Paul Craig Roberts No Escape from War and Unemployment Andy Worthington Six Years of Guantánamo Kenneth Couesbouc Banking on Thin Ice Jeff Ballinger Inside the Vienna Consensus Christopher Brauchli Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China Manuel Garcia, Jr. Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns Andrew Silverstein Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem Marwan Bishara Bush in the Middle East Robert Weissman The First Amendment Gone Wild Patrick Irelan Damn the Small Boats! Website of the Day Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She Loses     January 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Now Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards Bob Wing Marqueece Harris-Dawson Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom Bradley Michael Donnelly White Women Gone Wild? David Macaray Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions China Hand Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe Ayesha Ijaz Khan Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries? Rannie Amiri Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya? Website of the Day Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident   January 9, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair The Empire Strikes Back Dave Lindorff The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation John Chuckman Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada James Bovard Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006 Alan Farago As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic Russell Mokhiber Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday? William S. Lind Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq Peter Morici Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters Josh Reubner Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment Mike Roselle The Pursuit of Happiness Website of the Day Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH       Subscribe Online

February 11, 2008 The Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Obama and Torture By LILIANA SEGURA As endorsements poured in at the end of January for Barack Obama to become the next Democratic president of the United States, one in particular stood out: a call of support from a group of attorneys who have been defending Guantanamo detainees pro bono and who call themselves "Habeas Lawyers for Obama." "Some politicians are all talk and no action," read their written statement, which they posted online. "But we know from firsthand experience that Sen. Obama has demonstrated extraordinary leadership on this critical and controversial issue. When others stood back, Sen. Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the administration's efforts in the fall of 2006 ... and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough senators to beat back the administration's bill, Sen. Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us." It was a reference to the highly fraught passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which, among other things, gutted the centuries-old right of habeas corpus and gave the president the power to define what qualifies as torture. The law is a devastating assault on due process, and Obama was an outspoken critic; in a speech delivered on the Senate floor, Obama rebuked the Bush administration for its blatant and shortsighted maneuvering to get the legislation passed before the midterm elections: "I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here," he said. "I realize that soon we will adjourn for the fall and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we (the Democrats) will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans." "The problem with this bill is not that it's too tough on terrorists," Obama said. "The problem with this bill is that it's sloppy. And the reason it's sloppy is because we rushed it to serve political purposes instead of taking the time to do the job right." Pleading for support of a co-sponsored amendment that would have given the law a five-year expiration date, Obama said: "At bare minimum, I hope we can at least pass this provision, so that cooler heads can prevail after the silly season of politics is over." In the end, the amendment failed, and Obama voted against the bill. (Whether Obama would have voted for a five-year suspension of habeas corpus is not clear.) Now, with his election campaign in full swing, Obama has positioned himself as just that: a level-headed candidate who can transcend political pettiness and bring people together in order to get things done. To his credit, he has promised he will restore habeas corpus and declares that it is "never OK" to torture. He has called for closing Guantanamo (all the leading candidates have, in fact, with the exception of the recently departed Mitt Romney, who would have famously "doubled" it). For anyone opposed to the Bush administration's stampede on human rights, such promises are reassuring. But they are also a sad indication how dismally low our political standards have become. Opposition to torture is not a brave stance. You're supposed to be against it. The habeas attorneys' support is a significant endorsement of a candidate who has often invoked his expertise in constitutional law in criticizing the abusive behavior of the Bush administration. But given Obama's emphasis on -- and history of -- reaching across the aisle in order to make compromises in the name of change, a dose of skepticism is in order. Whoever inherits the so-called War on Terror must be ready for an uncompromising confrontation of its most grievous excesses. Beyond his stance on habeas corpus and torture, in many ways Obama has been as tempered in his rhetoric against the War on Terror as he has been cautious in discussing how he will address the U.S. occupation of Iraq. And his speeches before various audiences over the past year have made it clear that, despite his vote against invading Iraq, he is capable of being nearly as hawkish as Hillary Clinton. Closing Gitmo When Clinton called, in April of last year at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for closing Guantanamo, she based her opinion in large part on statements by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had suggested that the prison was no longer an effective tool in the War on Terror. "Rather than keeping us more secure, keeping Guantanamo open is harming our national interests," she said. "It compromises our long-term military and strategic interests, and it impairs our standing overseas." Clinton concluded, vaguely, that "we should address any security issues on what to do with the remaining detainees, and then close it once and for all." "There is a lot of land in this country that the federal government owns," she added. "There is certainly no shortage of capacity to build a special detention or prison or to use one of the maximum security facilities that already exist." A few months later, at the Yearly Kos convention in Chicago, Hillary was asked when she would rescind the Military Commissions Act and when "can we expect Guantanamo to be closed." "We're going to try to reinstate habeas corpus and reform the military tribunals/commissions procedures in the next few months," she said, citing the difficulty of passing such legislation. "We should start getting out," she said of Guantanamo. "If we don't get changes in the military commissions act and the reinstatement of habeas corpus, if we're not on the road to closing Guantanamo, when I'm president, I will start doing both those things." There's something that reeks familiar about this rhetoric, an apparent refusal to say, in no uncertain terms, that unlawful detention is wrong and that addressing it is a major political priority. Perhaps that's one reason the Habeas Lawyers included a not-so-subtle jab at Hillary Clinton: "The administration's attack on habeas corpus rights is dangerous and wrong. America needs a president who will not triangulate this issue." But what about Obama? Has he made it clear what he would do with the prisoners at Guantanamo? In his speech on the Senate floor, Obama said, "I've heard ... the argument that it should be military courts, and not federal judges, who should make decisions on these detainees. I actually agree with that." Expressing concern over the innocent men being held in legal limbo -- "We've already had reports ... saying that many of the detainees at Guantanamo shouldn't have been there" -- and invoking the case of Maher Arar, "the Canadian man ... detained in New York, sent to Syria, and tortured, only to find out later that it was all a case of mistaken identity" -- Obama stressed the need to be able to separate the innocent from the guilty. The problem with the commissions, he said "is that the structure of the military proceedings has been poorly thought through." But for years, critics of the military commissions have not limited their concerns to the way they've been "thought through." When the Bush administration established its system of military tribunals following 9/11, civil rights attorneys balked, arguing that federal courts are an appropriate venue for prosecuting terrorism cases. In fact, as the New York Times reported in 2004, there were arguments even within the administration itself about the tribunals. One year after the arrival of detainees at Gitmo, with "no trials yet in sight": "... some officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration began privately venting their frustration about both the slow pace of the Pentagon's new courts and the soundness of their rules. Attorney General John Ashcroft was especially vocal. "'Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history,'" Mr. Ashcroft said at one meeting of senior officials, according to two of those present. "'But at least we had fair procedures for him.'" Or as one colonel (who now, bizarrely, is a commissions judge) wrote at the time: "Even a good military tribunal is a bad idea. The existing United States criminal justice system does not have to be put aside simply because the potential defendants have scary friends." The question of what to do with the detainees or their "scary friends" goes to the heart of the problem of an endless and (deliberately) ill-defined "war on terror." By agreeing that a military trial is the right place to try such defendants, Obama has given credence to one of its most dangerous premises: that the "battleground" spans across borders, giving the U.S. military ultimate latitude in prosecuting its captives. "The threats we face at the dawn of the 21st century can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries," Obama said in a speech last April. And in a separate speech a few months later, he said, "Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists." But can prosecutions really be tried transparently in a court run by the same force that detained, interrogated and, in many cases, tortured the defendant? The unprecedented nature of the Bush administration's consolidation of power in the War on Terror makes it hard to speculate as to what a new administration would do to cede these powers. Whatever clues exist are likely to come from the advisors who surround them. Although Hillary's are more in step with a belligerent foreign policy, it's not news that Obama has surrounded himself largely with her husband's former advisors. (The Washington Post even ran a story last January that featured former Clintonites wringing their hands over their dueling loyalties.) Among them is former Clinton National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, who, as the journalist Allan Nairn recently reminded viewers of Democracy Now!, "was the main force behind the U.S. invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years." Lake is on the advisory board of the Partnership for a Secure America ("dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy"), along with another Obama backer, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzeninski, who was National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, has been an outspoken critic of the War on Terror, everywhere from "The Daily Show" to Der Spiegel. But he also was one of the most aggressively vocal supporters of the bombing of Yugoslavia. ("I believe that the mass media ought to be more patient," he told Jim Lehrer as the air strikes continued in April 1999. " ... It seems to me that leadership, political leadership, requires setting the tone and setting the direction, and not following public opinion polls.") Another advisor in Obama's camp, Sarah Sewall, penned the introduction to the new counterinsurgency handbook written by Gen. David Petraeus. "If anyone can save Iraq, it's David H. Petraeus," she wrote, not-so prophetically in the Washington Post last winter. (Or as one Vietnam major famously put it, "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.") Obama has an army of advisers, of course, with varying histories. But his continued funding of the war in Iraq, his hawkish lines on Pakistan -- which he has called "the right battlefield ... in the war on terrorism" -- and his aggressive rhetoric over the past year (before certain audiences) have provided a chilling glimpse of what isn't "off the table" when it comes to his view of U.S. military power. In April of 2007, Obama gave a speech in Chicago at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in which he outlined five ways he would lead if he were elected to the White House. Restoring habeas corpus was not among them. Neither was eradicating torture in the War on Terror. Neither, for that matter, was closing Guantanamo. To be fair, this does not mean he wouldn't do these things. But his argument rested on a sort of benevolent militarism and an expansion of U.S. involvement across the world -- as Noam Chomsky called it, "the new military humanism." For a candidate whose defining refrains are "hope" and "change," Obama echoes the legacies of Democratic presidents, from Carter to Clinton, whose administrations shaped conventional doctrines of Democratic foreign policy. "There are five ways America will begin to lead again when I'm president," Obama said. The first way was by "building the first truly 21st century military ... and showing wisdom in how we deploy it." Such a military would "stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar." "No president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary -- to protect ourselves and our vital interests ..." Obama said. "But when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- the kind of burden-sharing and support President George H.W. Bush mustered before he launched Operation Desert Storm." He may have been making a point about diplomacy, but Obama's invocation of the 1991 Gulf War -- which leveled Iraq's civilian infrastructure and began the road to the occupation -- suggests that it's OK to destroy a country so long as you can cajole some other nations into supporting it. In another speech -- titled "A War We Need to Win" -- Obama did speak out forcibly against torture and promised to close Guantanamo. But he also spoke of the "need to integrate all aspects of American might, calling for "a broader set of capabilities, as outlined in the Army and Marine Corps's new counter-insurgency manual" -- the one written by Gen. Petraeus. "To succeed, we must improve our civilian capacity. The finest military in the world," he said, nevertheless "cannot counter insurgent and terrorist threats without civilian counterparts who can carry out economic and political reconstruction missions -- sometimes in dangerous places." Obama pledged to "strengthen these civilian capacities, recruiting our best and brightest" and "increase both the numbers and capabilities of our diplomats, development experts, and other civilians who can work alongside our military." Sounds a lot like those military contractors who have been in the news since Blackwater's killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square last September. To his credit, Obama was one of the few senators willing to address the issue before the massacre, but, as his speech suggests, his legislation sought to integrate mercenary forces into the war machine, rather than shut them down. It is an approach that has actually been endorsed by Blackwater and other mercenary firms. The domestic war on terror On the home front, one disquieting glimpse of what Obama's smarter, more sophisticated version of the War on Terror might look like is his position on the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. Referred to by some as a "thought crimes" law, the bill passed the House by a vote of 400 to six last October. As Scott Thill wrote for AlterNet recently, the law: " ... defines 'homegrown terrorism' and 'violent radicalization' nebulously; the former is merely 'the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives,' while the latter means "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change." Ideologically based violence, in turn, is defined as "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious or social beliefs." Sounds fair enough, until you start crunching the language and come to the realization that practically anyone, on any given day, could fit the description." Like the War on Terror, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is purposefully, impossibly vague. Yet, in December, members of Obama's official listserv received a message from the candidate that read: "The American people understand that new threats require flexible responses to keep them safe. They also insist that our responses to threats respect the Constitution and do not violate the basic tenets of our democracy. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act includes provisions prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security's efforts from violating civil rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents." Obama's campaign reps have since backpedaled, telling a reporter for the Indypendent (which helped break the story) that the senator "has not taken a position" on the legislation. "Should the bill be considered by the Homeland Security Committee, he will carefully evaluate it, as he does with all pieces of legislation." Obama has been silent on the issue since. As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, he is in a position to exert his influence. As a presidential candidate, however, it is to be expected that he would scuttle such a politically risky responsibility. Obama's equivocation on a no-brainer like the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is an unnerving illustration of precisely what his opponents have taken him to task for: an unwillingness to take a specific and uncomproming position when it counts. His opposition to the war on Iraq and his defense of habeas corpus are important. But, like his vote to reauthorize an amended Patriot Act, Obama has shown himself too willing to reform rather than fight against some of the worst policies of the Bush administration. Liliana Sequra writes for Alternet, where this column originally appeared.

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont     CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed