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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter JAMES WEBB: IF THE DEMOCRATS WANT A POPULIST, IT'S HIM, FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE JoAnn Wypijewski on how Webb really talks on his home turf in Virginia and on the two faces of populism, dark and lite. The New Yorker helped sell the war in Iraq. Now see how it shills for the drug companies at home. Fred Gardner finds Malcolm Gladwell, at the bottom of the New Yorker's deep barrel. David Petraeus is the favorite general of Bush and the New York Times. Alexander Cockburn on how the salesman of surge sold himself. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories February 7, 2007 Tony Swindell The Looming Shadow of Nuremberg Jeff Cohen Jonah Goldberg's Gambling Debt February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Frenzy in France Over Iranian Threat Gregory Wilpert Did Chavez Over-reach?: Venezuela's Enabling Law Could Enable Opposition Norman Solomon A Kangaroo Court Martial: Making an Example of Ehren Watada Dave Lindorff Borat Goes to Washington: Don't Experiment with the Economy? William Blum Space Cowboys: Full Spectrum Dominance Mike Ferner War Opponents Occupy Congressional Offices CP News Service Nader's CNN Interview: "Hillary's a Panderer and a Flatterer" Evelyn Pringle Eli Lilly and Zyprexa: Even the Insurance Companies are Bailing Christopher Brauchli Corporate Advice from the Office of Detainee Affairs Alan Cabal How Charles Manson Kept Me Out of Vietnam Website of the Day Free Josh Wolf: the Longest Jailed Journalist in US History February 5, 2007 Dave Zirin Super Bore: When Hawks Cry Uri Avnery The Fatal Kiss: Wars and Scandals Ron Jacobs The Looming War on Iran: It's Not About Democracy Paul Craig Roberts The Real Failed States Newton Garver Bush and the Old Hands: Decider vs. Negotiator Bruce Anderson The Genocidal Namesake of the Hastings School of Law Saul Landau The Golden Globes After a Mud Bath Ralph Nader The Good Fight of Molly Ivins James T. Phillips Road Outrageous: Tailgating and Iraq Mike Whitney Quarantine USA: Bird Flu Panic and Profiteering Kenneth Rexroth Clowns and Blood-Drinking Perverts: Imperial History According to Tacitus Website of the Day Richard Thompson's Anti-War Song: "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me" February 3 /4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who Can Stop the War? Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Censorship and Liberation Jeffrey St. Clair The Thrill is Gone: the Withering of the American Environmental Movement Patrick Cockburn Iraqis on the Run P. Sainath They Take the Early Train Sen. Russell Feingold A Symbol of a Timid Congress Diane Christian Dying Well: Why Killing Saddam Backfired on Bush Brian Cloughley Space Missiles Away!: the Irony of Bush's Indignation Diana Barahona How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal: US Reporting on the Coup in Haiti Timothy J. Freeman The Iraq War Hits Hawai'i: the Stryker Brigade and the Watada Case Conn Hallinan The Vishnu Strategy John Ross Felipe's First Fifty Days Greg Moses The Government Blinks: Freedom for the Ibrahim Family Missy Beattie No More Rebukes or Non-Binding Resolutions Joshua Frank Unsafe in Any Seas: Cruising with Ralph Nader? Evelyn Pringle "These Drugs are Poison to Some People" Stephen Fleischman Let's Hear It for Chuck Hagel! Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Iraq in Fragments Poets' Basement Holt, Engel, Ford and Saavedra Website of the Day Flamenco Dali February 2, 2007 Chris Kutalik The Meanest Industry R. Gibson / E. W. Ross Cutting the Schools-to-War Pipeline Pam Martens America's "Money Honey" as Corporate Matchmaker: Maria Bartiromo and the Co-Branding of CNBC and Citigroup John Feffer Picturing the President Daryll E. Ray Why the Family Farm is Good for Rural America Ronald Bruce St. John Apartheid By Any Other Name Mitchel Cohen Listen Gore: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Politics of Environmental Crisis Website of the Day The Real Issue is Empire February 1, 2007 Diane Farsetta An Army Thousands More: How PR Firms and Major Media Military Recruiters Marjorie Cohn Bush Targets Iran: Cruise Missile Diplomacy Mark Scaramella Our Founding War Profiteers Ranni Amiri Senator Prejudice: the Day Joe Biden Threatened to Kick My Ass Christopher Ketcham Die, TV! Winston Warfield Art Panic Hits Boston! Corporate Crime Reporter Jailing the Artists, Not the Executives: the Great Boston Art Panic, Turner Broadcasting and the AG Who Won't Pursue Corporate Crime Thomas P. Healy Adios Molly Ivins: Populist Journalism and Never Dull Website of the Dau The Ordeal of Gary Tyler   January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Waco of Iraq?: US "Victory" Cult Leader was a "Massacre" Jean Bricmont What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time? Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Politics and Liberation James T. Phillips Flashbacks de Jour: Photographing War William Johnson Worker Reistance at Smithfield Foods Tim Wilkinson A Hawk in Drag: Dershowitz and the Iraq War Evelyn Pringle The Judge, the Reporter and the Secret Zyprexa Documents Joshua Frank What America Really Needs to Hear Ramzy Baroud Shameless in Gaza Mickey Z. Nader Still in the Crosshairs Website of the Day What's Goin' On? January 30, 2007 Werther Slapstick on Jenkins Hill: DC's Botoxed Golems Kathy Kelly Engagement with War Uri Avnery "If Arafat Were Alive" Franklin Spinney Embedded Without Blending: Humvees and Tactical Madness in Iraq William S. Lind The Real Game in Iraq Pariah An Iron Curtain is Descending--and Most Americans Don't Know Mike Whitney The Mother of All Bubbles Rev. William E. Alberts Hiding America's Surging Militarism Behind Children Fran Shor Shadow of a Resistance: Can the Anti-War Mvt. Dismantle the War Machine? Anthony Arnove The Logic of Withdrawal: There's Nothing Precipitous About It Website of the Day Our Boys in Iraq January 29, 2007 Nurit Peled-Elhanan "We Are All Victims of the Occupation" Patrick Cockburn Raid on the Soldiers of Heaven JoAnn Wypijewski The Demo in DC: Chirpy Slogans, Empty City Ron Jacobs Our Fire, Congress's Feet Dave Lindorff The Missing Word at the Anti-War Demo Kevin Zeese A Republican Peace Candidate?: Chuck Hagel's Challenge to America Reza Fiyouzat Iran, Bush and the Banging of the Ironsmiths Pat Williams Turnout and Same-Day Voting: Did It Sink Conrad Burns? Website of the Day Galloway's Indictment of Blair   January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Do We Really Need an International Criminal Court? Eliza Ernshire Exiled from Palestine Patrick Cockburn Slaughter in Baghdad's Bird Market David Rosen Pay-to-Play: the Double Life of Prostitution in America Greg Moses Children Without a Country: Maryam Ibrahim Remains in a Texas Jail Bernard Chazelle Bush the Empire Slayer Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Video Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair, Part Two Hermán Uribe Murdering Journalists in Latin America Ralph Nader Democracy in Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Why Can't Americans See What's Coming? Fred Gardner The Suppression of Collective Joy: Barbara Ehrenreich at the Commonwealth Club Brian Cloughley Dying for Lies James Abourezk The High Cost of Congressional Trips to Israel John V. Whitbeck The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers Seth Sandronsky Peace-In Politics: Localizing the Anti-War Movement Alan Cabal Mayday from the Circus Tent Pam Martens America's Money Honey Does Davos Website of the Weekend Gil Scott-Heron: Winter in America January 26, 2007 Charlotte Laws Are You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare Mike Ely / Linda Flores The Workers at Smithfield Joe DeRaymond Paying for Health Care and Not Getting It Phil Donahue Get Sarah Olson! Zia Mian The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers Jeb Sprague Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice Evelyn Pringle Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender Missy Beattie Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore, It is So Martha Rosenberg Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig Website of the Day Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam! January 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Going on in Baghdad John Ross Mexico Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right Jeremy Scahill Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's War Machine Frida Berrigan "Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo Paul Craig Roberts Bush's State of Deception Jason Yossef Ben-Meir Iraq Reconstruction Failure Christopher Brauchli Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil War Holger W. Henke Cuba at the Crossroads? Dave Lindorff Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies Julia Landau From Your Young Cousin Website of the Day The Mighty Edwards Sisters   January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry Lt. Gen. William Odom What Can be Done in Iraq? Sharon Smith Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry Brian M. Downing Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers Heather Gray Surviving War Ron Jacobs SOTUS Quo James Brooks Out of Europe, Out of Time Robert Day Translating Snow Website of the Day Defend Sarah Olsen January 23, 2007 Trish Schuh Lebanon on the Brink of Civil War, Again Robert Bryce The Politics of Cheap Oil Stephen Soldz Aliens in an Alien Land John Blair King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean Gloria La Riva Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists Joshua Frank Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby Patrick Cockburn In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets Ralph Nader Questions for Bush on Iraq Dave Lindorff Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason? Uri Avnery Israel and Apartheid Website of the Day Down By the River   January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia, Jr. China's New Chip in Space War Poker Jen Marlowe Trapped in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous George McGovern War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War Norman Solomon The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom Amira Hass Life Under Prohibition in Palestine Mike Whitney A Fool's Errand in Baghdad Ramzy Baroud The Things We Take for Granted John Walsh Support Jimmy Carter in Boston! Website of the Day The Hagelian Dialectic   January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran! Gail Dines I Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn Newton Garver Evo Morales' First Year Gilad Atzmon 100 Years of Jewish Solitude Seth Sandronksy New Push For Social Security "Reform" Raphaelle Bail Where Nicaraguans Go to Work Jim Goodman Round Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day Larry Portis Chouraki's Oh Jerusalem Website of the Weekend Press Poodles Play it Safe January 19, 2007 Jonathan Cook Jimmy Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It Glen Ford Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage Dave Lindorff Bush Blinks on Illegal Spying--Don't let him off the hook Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part Two Website of the Day For Whistleblowers January 18, 2007 William Peace Protest From a Bad Cripple Virginia Tilley The Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It Michael Donnelly The Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama B.R. Gowani Democracy: Everywhere and Nowhere Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part One Jason Hribal A Horse is Worth More than Riches Website of the Day Baghdad Clampdown January 17, 2007 Franklin Spinney Why Time is not on Bush's Side John Ross Oaxaca's Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls Susan George Can World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes! Paul Craig Roberts Attacking Iran: What's In It For Bush Joshua Frank Obama and the Middle East David Lindorff Towards Oil at $200 a Barrel January 16, 2007 Col. Sam Gardiner Escalation Against Iran Marjorie Cohn Stimson's Outrageous Threat Saul Landau Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2 Ron Jacobs Welcome Back to 1965 Susan Block From Snowjob to Blowjob Ken Couesbouck Year of the Pig Website of the Day Amazon's Hit on Jimmy Carter January 15, 2007 Roger Morris Another War the Voters Hoped to End Paul Craig Roberts Bush Must Go Kathy Kelly Umm Heyder's Story William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Ralph Nader The Class War's New Map Saul Landau Gore Vidal In Havana January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn "21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq? David Rosen Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade William S. Lind Less Than Zero Laith al-Saud The Ironies of Bush and Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said John Ross Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas George Ciccariello-Maher The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech Christopher Brauchli How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire! Robert Buzzanco Rogue State, Redux Evelyn Pringle The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet Peter Rost, MD. Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation Mike Whitney Baghdad Crackdown Yifat Susskind Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars Saul Cohen Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig Missy Beattie A Day of Action and Questions Stephen Lendman Holiday Hypocrisy Website of the Weekend Bruegel on Bush War Plan   January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh The Profits of Escalation Paul Craig Roberts Carter's Inconvenient Truths Kathy Kelly Refugee Dreams Dave Lindorff Blood for Face Jeff Leys The War Widens Richard W. Behan Barrels and Bodies Col. Douglas MacGregor Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands Website of the Day An Explanation from Google Speech of the Day Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech? January 10, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A Walk in Oaxaca Robert Fantina Punishing Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution? Patrick Cockburn Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran Col. Dan Smith Why U.S. Policy is Failing Ben Tripp The Politics of Bad Karma Evelyn Pringle How the FDA Protects Big Pharma Ron Jacobs Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War Mike Ferner If Not Now, When? Dave Zirin Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall of Fame Website of the Day Revolting Students! Bootleg of the Day Bob Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place January 9, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Somalian Labyrinth Jonathan Cook Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians Mike Ely and Linda Flores The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Joshua Frank The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush Norman Solomon The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse Sen. Russell Feingold An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through Our Mail? Joe Allen Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO in the Heartland James T. Phillips "Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell That is Iraq Brian Concannon Resolutions for Haiti Leonard Peltier When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct Website of the Day Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC   January 8, 2007 Werther Why We Fight Jeff Leys The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End Iraq War Funding Paul Craig Roberts Nuking Iran Shulamit Aloni Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only Dave Lindorff The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form Sunsara Taylor The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was Seth Sandronsky Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage Dr. Susan Block Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film Website of the Day Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly! January 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The War and the NYT Franklin C. Spinney Stalingrad on the Tigris Paul Craig Roberts The Urge to Surge Ralph Nader Democrats in the Spotlight Walden Bello Globalization in Retreat? Marleen Martin The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber Brian Cloughley We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ... Uri Avnery The Kiss of Death Saul Landau Fidel Castro in the Fields Ron Jacobs From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture Joseph Nevins Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam William S. Lind A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW Gary Leupp Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President! Elisa Salasin Bringing Life to Numbers George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders Michael Leonardi Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Richard Rhames Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Barbara LaMorticella Two Poems Website of the Weekend FBI Witch Hunts Song of the Weekend End Times: a Soundtrack January 5, 2007 Jorge Mariscal Growing the Military: Who Will Serve? John Walsh Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons! Christopher Brauchli The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations Travis Sharpe No More New Nukes, Please Tom Barry Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down? Tiffany Ten Eyck Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance Mahmoud El-Yousseph A Challenge to Pelosi Lucinda Marshall 3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!" Website of the Day Van the Man: Warm Love January 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein Winslow T. Wheeler A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending? M. Shahid Alam Has Regime Change Boomeranged? Raed Jarrar So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters Bert Sacks Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court Kathy Rentenbach Report from Oaxaca Stephen Fleischman The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now George Bisharat Carter's Truths Peter Rost, MD Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman! Evelyn Pringle Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa? Website of the Day Courage to Resist   January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Wrapped Around a Bullet Paul Craig Roberts His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason William Johnson No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration Stan Cox Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon Trita Parsi A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran Declan McKenna Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba Joe Bageant Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill Nicola Nasser Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism Missy Beattie Dead Wrong Website of the Day Pharmed Out January 2, 2007 Michael Watts Oil Inferno Amina Mire Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis James Brooks Pushing the Wedge in Palestine Alevtina Rea The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ? Al Krebs Global Food Security: a Call to Action Peter Rost Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Deadly December John Stanton Appetites for Destruction Website of the Day Out Now: Petition   January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein Uri Avnery What Makes Sammy Run? Joshua Frank Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act         Subscribe Online

February 7, 2007 It's Time for Creative Anger Not Diplomacy with Democrats Why Protest Matters By SHARON SMITH Hundreds of thousands of antiwar protesters amassed on the streets of Washington, D.C. on January 27, emboldened by the optimism of an antiwar majority that has finally found its voice. To be sure, skeptics were quick to point out that members of Congress had vacated their offices for the weekend, as if their physical presence was necessary to notice the throngs of protesters. Other cynics remind us that even the enormous February 15, 2003 antiwar demonstrations failed to halt the U.S.' drive to war on Iraq, as if protest is a futile exercise. It is politically naïve, however, to expect that a single demonstration of any size would be enough to persuade the world's lone military superpower to reverse its bloodthirsty course. A demonstration is not a protest movement. Such a movement requires an ongoing commitment to grassroots struggle. The large turnout on January 27 represents the potential to revive the antiwar movement, after an extended period of dormancy. For the last few years, torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the invasions of Fallujah, repeated massacres of Iraqi civilians, and the rising death toll of U.S. troops seemed to demoralize rather than embolden movement activists in the heart of the imperialist beast. In contrast, many activists returned to their communities invigorated by the experience of January 27, committed to building a struggle to end the war. Rep. Henry Waxman discovered this combative mood while addressing a meeting of the Palisades Democratic Club in Los Angeles on January 28. Protesters confronted him with a banner reading "Liberals do not fund occupation" and heckled him while he explained that, despite his alleged opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, he would not commit to de-funding it. The hecklers appeared dissatisfied with Waxman's recital of Democratic Party talking points, shouting angrily, "What about the U.S. Constitution?" when he announced his opposition to impeachment proceedings against Bush. But movements are also based on strategies, and antiwar activists must now decide the most effective strategy for coalescing renewed grassroots opposition into a sustained protest movement. This must include an honest assessment of the very strategies that contributed to the antiwar movement's malaise for the better part of the last four years. Protest and lobbying: conventional wisdom? Author Liza Featherstone commented in The Nation on February 2, "But much of the antiwar movement now agrees that there is no contradiction, or conflict, between chanting in the streets and lobbying in the halls of Congress," adding, "protests would be meaningless without additional pressure on politicians." Featherstone's argument sounds like conventional wisdom. Certainly, movements must seek to pressure politicians. The question is how most effectively to do so. United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), which has helmed U.S. the antiwar movement since 2003, has routinely coupled antiwar protest with lobbying. It can reasonably be argued, however, that lobbying undermines the potential power of angry protest. Lobbying involves an arduous effort to engage politicians in polite conversation. Protest, while no less arduous, is decidedly less friendly. Occupying a representative's office is not lobbying. In a typical memo, UFPJ instructed its 800-strong citizen-lobbyists who swarmed the Capitol during its September 26, 2005 lobby day, "Please take the time to fax (or e-mail) a thank you note to the staff person or Congressperson you met with You have begun to build a relationship with the office of your Representative and/or Senators ­ keep it up!" UFPJ's strategy is best described as lobbying interrupted by periodic outpourings of mass protest, not vice versa. Eighteen months later and no closer to ending the war, a similar number of activists joined in UFPJ's lobby day on January 29, as a follow up to the January 27 protest, in the hopes that Democratic Party majority in Congress would yield more substantial results. But as Aaron Glantz reported in the Inter Press Service on February 2, "Senior Congressional Democrats are brushing off questions about cutting off funding for the Iraq war, and indicate they will do little to forcefully stop President George W. Bush from sending 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush's troop surge "the one last chance" that the U.S. will "succeed" in Iraq, while Senate leader Harry Reid indicated his opposition would be limited to symbolic, bipartisan legislation, rather than de-funding the war. Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton did not grace the nation's Capitol with her presence from January 27-29. She ridiculed de-funding the war as a "soundbite" from Iowa, where she was busy honing her 2008 campaign machinery. It is also worth noting that, as Democrats have softened their support for the war on Iraq, they have hardened their stance against Iran-the next likely military target for both the U.S. and Israel. Presidential hopeful John Edwards-who has scathingly criticized Congress for inaction on the Iraq war from his perch safely outside the Beltway-traveled to Israel on January 22 to rattle his saber at Iran. With fist-thumping emphasis, Edwards declared his commitment "to ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table, let me reiterate-all options must remain on the table." On February 1, Clinton worked the crowd for donations at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee's dinner, assuring attendees, "Israel and the United States have shared values and an unbreakable bond. Qualities that will be necessary as they stand up to terrorism and Iran." Which strategy: "Face time" vs. "in your face" time? At best, UFPJ's allies in Congress must be described as fair weather friends. Rep. Jerrold Nadler spoke at UFPJ's January 27 protest but quickly turned on the organization, saying he was "very upset" upon learning that UFPJ plans to co-sponsor the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's call for a June 10-11 Washington mobilization against "ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories"-a tepid call, given the scale of Israel's atrocities. The age-old saying, "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar," does not apply to Washington's entrenched political class, whose campaign coffers depend on a steady influx of corporate dollars. A Chicago antiwar listserv report described a 20-minute meeting on January 22 between twenty local antiwar activists and Democratic Party powerbroker Rahm Emanuel: "Emanuel refused to take any position on any effort to cut off funding for continuation of the war past the current fiscal year." The meeting ended abruptly when Emanuel left to catch a flight. While Democrats have kept antiwar lobbyists at arms' length since November, they have given a much warmer reception to corporate lobbyists. The Los Angeles Times observed on January 22, "Surprising as it might seem in view of the Democrats' public rhetoric, business groups are getting their telephone calls returned. And they're getting plenty of face time with the new House and Senate leaders." Back in November, when Pelosi unveiled the Democratic majority's plans for its first 100 hours, she promised to "roll back the multibillion-dollar subsidies for Big Oil." When the bill left the House in mid-January, however, it sliced only $5.5 billion from the $32 billion in subsidies and tax breaks oil conglomerates will receive over the next five years-a small price to pay for the profit-soaked industry. Grassroots activists must decide whether the antiwar movement will seek polite engagement for "face time" with Washington powerbrokers or to embark on an admittedly less diplomatic strategy to get in their faces. The potential clearly exists for the latter. In a little-reported protest on January 27, 2,500 demonstrators shut down a military recruiting center in Seattle, led by the local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). One observer described, "Community members emerged from houses and joined the march as it snaked through the neighborhood. As the march drew near to the recruiting center the demonstrators began chanting, "Occupation is a crime, Ehren Watada should do no time!" and "You gotta resist, don't enlist!" Anger, not diplomacy, points the way forward for the antiwar movement at this pivotal moment, if it is to grow and prosper in the weeks and months ahead. Sharon Smith is the author of Women and Socialism and Subterranean Fire: a History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States. She can be reached at: sharon@internationalsocialist.org

Coming Soon from CounterPunch Books / AK Press The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair     CounterPunch Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"