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Today's Stories February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? 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   January 8, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts No Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old) Russell Mokhiber The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative Robert Fantina The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz Dave Zirin Butts on Parade Shamako Nobel I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop John Ross Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves Brenda Norrell Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security Laura Carlsen Why Bolivia Matters Patrick Irelan Remember the Maine! Evelyn J. Pringle The Holes in Bush's FDA Jonathan M. Feldman After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace Movement Michael Dickinson Playing Soldier Website of the Day Sean Hannity on the Run!   January 7, 2008 Chris Floyd There Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities John Blair Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana Uri Avnery The Case of the White Bird Andy Worthington Who Are the Gitmo Saudis? Binoy Kampmark Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court David Macaray Women on Strike Ralph Nader Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood Michael Donnelly It's the War Vote(s), Stupid! Ron Jacobs Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough? Gideon Levy The Hostile President Dave Lindorff A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb Website of the Day Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea   January 5 / 6, 2008 Douglas Valentine Good Guys in Black Hoods Kevin Young The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq Richard Rhames Saddam Who? Saul Landau Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory Marc Lynch Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing Robert Fantina Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War Donna Volatile Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr. Jelle Bruinsma Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands Bob Sutcliffe Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist Harvey Wasserman Anti-Nuclear Renaissance Missy Beattie Why Obama Can't Save Us David Swanson Remembering the Separation of Powers Jacob Hornberger The Importance of the Padilla Case Shepherd Bliss Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms Ron Jacobs Bleeding Kansas Poets' Basement Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski Website of the Weekend Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint   January 4, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Good Night in Iowa Jonathan Cook War Crimes Airbrushed from History Paul Craig Roberts Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime Stan Goff Ron Paul's Monkeywrench Dave Lindorff Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds Niranjan Ramakrishnan To Pindi Station Allan Nairn U.S. Elections Over Before They Began Joshua Frank The Failures of Sectarianism Peter Morici Economy on the Skids Mary McInnis Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease Website of the Day The Return of Obama Girl   January 3, 2008 Fatima Bhutto Farewell to Wadi Bua Pam Martens The Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos Joanne Mariner The Presidential Candidates and Torture Zoltan Grossman Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the Web David Domke The Echoing Press and Huckabee Norman Solomon Edwards Reconsidered Nikolas Kozloff Return of the Faux Liberal Jacob G. Hornberger The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus Martha Rosenberg Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick Russell Means This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah Lands Website of the Day WolfQuest       Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition February 8 / 10, 2008 Ignorance is Death Growing Up Catholic By ANDREW WIMMER Itry in vain to comprehend the numbers. Oxfam and the UNHCR say that over eight million Iraqis are now in desperate need of emergency assistance. Fully one-third of the country's total population. This figure includes more than two million Iraqis who are displaced within their own country and more than two million others who have fled to neighboring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan, making this the "fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world." Of those who remain in their homes, Oxfam calls four million people "food-insecure" and in urgent need of various types of humanitarian assistance. Dahr Jamail reports that whole neighborhoods of Baghdad swim in sewage and go without water for days at a time, while electricity is rarely available for more than an hour or two a day. The reality is obscene-made even more so when we acknowledge that the utter decimation of Iraq is the direct result of our invasion and ongoing military, political and economic occupation. I had that image in my mind when I heard recently that Aquinas Institute, a Catholic graduate school of theology here in St. Louis, had quietly uninvited this year's Aquinas Lecturer, Peter Phan. Phan holds the Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University, is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and has a lengthy list of books and a distinguished teaching career to his credit. But it seems that Phan has run afoul of the Catholic hierarchy for his work on interreligious dialogue. This realm of theological inquiry is not for the faint of heart, being a literal minefield for those who fear for their orthodoxy. A non-Catholic or non-Christian reader may wonder at this point what difference any of this makes, viewing this as just another strange sectarian battle. I'd answer simply this. Phan, as a Catholic theologian, raises and grapples with the questions that one would hope any serious, thoughtful Catholic, or Christian, would want to, or need to, at the point in their life when they leave childhood and its certitudes behind. I might paraphrase Phan and ask, "What does my belief in Jesus-as savior-mean? And how can I live in peace on this planet with the billions of other human beings who do not share that belief." I can't imagine a more important question for people who call themselves Christians to be asking right now. In his 2004 book, Being Religious Interreligiously, Phan writes, "one may question the usefulness of words such as unique, absolute, and even universal to describe the role of Jesus as savior today," explaining that the "words are unavoidably embedded in socio-political and cultural contexts, and the contexts in which these words were used were, in many parts of the world, often tainted by colonialist imperialism, economic exploitation, political domination, and religious marginalization." As a result, the terms "have outlived their usefulness and should be jettisoned and replaced by other, theologically more adequate equivalents." It's this language that has put him at odds with Rome and the U.S. hierarchy. They like their Jesus unique, absolute and universal. Alas, so do many Christians. Phan's insights and questions grow out of his personal experience, himself a refugee of war. While still a young man, he fled Vietnam with his family in 1975. As a Vietnamese born in the middle of the last century, he knows something about colonialism. As a Vietnamese Catholic, he knows something about growing up schooled in the religion of the colonial power. The Aquinas Institute says on its website that "in the spirit of Aquinas, and because theology is inherently interdisciplinary and contextual," the annual Aquinas lecturer "may bring important cultural, political, intellectual or artistic currents into contact with theology and ministry." Peter Phan seems to fit the bill. In mid-January, however, the school's new president, Richard Peddicord, wrote to board members informing them that the lecture scheduled for February 3rd had been canceled. He said that Phan had been invited long before they learned that one of his books was under scrutiny, and that after several very amicable conversations with Raymond Burke, St. Louis's archbishop, Peddicord had decided it would be best to rescind the invitation. He was concerned that the press would make an issue of Phan's troubles with the Vatican and kick up a ruckus. The purpose of the lecture, Peddicord wrote, is to foster "irenic theological conversation," and having Phan talk about how we might all try to get along on this planet would not, it seems, serve that peaceful end. At this point, I, too, would like to dismiss this as tempest in teapot and move on. But there is too much at stake. Instead of championing an opportunity to engage Catholics and others in the city in some serious conversation, Aquinas Institute took the cowardly way out, and in an act of preemptive self-censorship reinforced the popular conception that Catholics are a bunch of nitwits, unable and unwilling to use their minds to think through the things that matter. The school's decision is particularly ironic given the fact that its namesake, Thomas Aquinas, fought his own battles with the church hierarchy in his day, largely over the same issue. While Aquinas was engaging the ancient Greeks as well as his contemporary Arab theologians and philosophers in fruitful dialogue, lesser minds were hunkering down in the bunker. The rest is history. Raymond Burke, who has gained some degree of notoriety for his refusal of communion to those who publicly support abortion, was able to shut down the Aquinas lecture without much of an effort. Peddicord said that he had not been asked to cancel the lecture, but after conversing with the bishop thought it best. Burke was concerned that Catholics would be led astray should they hear Phan talk about Jesus in a way that didn't hew close to the orthodox line. This conceptualist epistemology that sees the "deposit of faith" as some lumpen mass, to be safeguarded and passed on undigested, animates fundamentalists of all stripes. We've seen the horrors that are wrought when the faithful march to war on the flimsiest of pretexts to defend their faith against the heathen. Today I heard John McCain rallying the troops for the next great surge in the battle against Islamo-Fascism, and the remaining Democratic contenders don't seem to want to risk appearing any less gung-ho. It does matter when the popular mind cannot unpack what it might mean to believe in Jesus as the unique savior. Millions of people die. St. Louis has long been home to McDonnell Douglas and its military industry, and now Boeing. We build the fighter jets. We equip the cruise missiles with their "smarts." We run the big simulator where all the electronic gadgetry of the integrated battlefield of the future can be put through its paces. We staff the Phantom Works project where we design the likes of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the 30,000-pound bombs intended by its maker to seek out Iran's underground bunkers, dropped from the bays of B2 Stealth Bombers based just across the state. We've got it all, including a heavily Catholic population. And here's what Burke offered to Saint Louis Catholics last March at Easter time, after four years of silence about Iraq: "Frequently, I am asked about the Church's teaching on peace and war, and about our response as Catholics to the war in Iraq. I respond now to those questions, especially in the context of the strong grace of reconciliation, which God the Father gives us through our annual commemoration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time, I offer words of hope, securely rooted in Christ Who alone is our peace. "Some of the faithful have asked me: 'Why have the Holy Father or I not declared the war in Iraq to be unjust?' Neither the Holy Father nor I have made such a declaration because the Church's teaching recognizes that it belongs to "those who have responsibility for the common good" to make the prudential judgment regarding the justice of going to war (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2309). Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have been tireless in indicating to the leaders of governments the requirements of a just war and the grave consequences of going to war. They have made clear the immorality of certain positions and practices, but they respect the office of those who govern to decide whether war is necessary to protect the common good. You and I may disagree with the prudential judgment of those who govern us, but we must respect the fact that it is a prudential judgment and that those who govern us have the responsibility to make the judgment." Moral bankruptcy. It rivals statements from the Catholic hierarchy in Germany during the Third Reich. Meanwhile, I think of the million Iraqis who have died since our invasion and the eight million now living on the edge of extinction-and I find myself in a white rage. Well-educated Catholics in St. Louis often smile as they hear this kind of thing from the bishop, and give you the knowing glance as if to say, "why do you even pay any attention to it?" But, just as with the suppression of serious thought at Aquinas Institute, it has the effect of dumbing everyone down. We will lobotomize ourselves and look the other way. I'd like to tell you that Burke is out in right field, and, of course, that's true. But the willingness of those who are capable of thinking-those who are educated and trained to think-to shut down the intellectual process in the face of such nonsense is reprehensible. Burke concluded his Easter missive with this spiritual pablum: "As we approach the holiest days of the Church year, I am deeply conscious of the war in Iraq and of the suffering and death which it has brought to so many. I know, too, that the war and the most just way in which to bring it to conclusion is on our minds and in our hearts. As we prepare to celebrate the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus for our eternal salvation, let us unite the suffering and death of our Iraqi brothers and sisters and of our armed forces serving in Iraq and their families to those of our Lord, asking Him to grant peace in Iraq." [emphasis mine] Reading this pathological formulation, one can only ask whether our Iraqi brothers and sisters can find much solace in having their suffering and death bound to those of our Lord. I do, however, know quite a few Catholics who bristle at any attempt to talk about the war and Boeing in this company town. Peter Phan holds the Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown. Ignacio Ellacuría was a Spanish Jesuit who spent his entire adult life in El Salvador. He became a naturalized citizen and was instrumental in the creation of the Jesuit university in San Salvador in the 1960s. He has attained a certain iconic status on Jesuit campuses in the United States since his murder in 1989, along with five of his Jesuit confrères and two Salvadoran women. The veneration, however, rarely penetrates the superficial. That Ellacuría was a radical, even revolutionary, thinker committed to the restructuring of Latin American society is rarely mentioned, and even more rarely given any serious study. He committed his life to the belief that a university exists to serve the needs of the marginalized and the oppressed in all of its intellectual and practical endeavors. At the time of his death-a brutal nighttime hit by the Salvadoran military-his writings in liberation philosophy had not been assembled in any systematic compendium, yet his work had already had a profound effect on the thinking of a whole generation of liberation theologians and social activists. Within the controlled world of hegemonic Western thought, "try to find even a reference to the very important and courageous writings of Fr. Ellacuria and his associates," commented Noam Chomsky, "or other Central American dissidents who had to flee from slaughter or were simply tortured and killed by U.S.-run forces" and you'll come up short. I'm emboldened-and humbled-when reading of Ellacuría and his colleagues at the UCA. They had the courage, both intellectual and physical, to persevere in the middle of a civil war that was claiming the lives of students, friends, and co-workers. In the face of U.S. imperialism and a church hierarchy closely aligned with the same capitalist interests, they stood in solidarity with those who were being eaten alive. We're many years behind and not nearly as put together, but the emerging face of the new Latin America is pointing the way. Happily a group of Catholics and others in St. Louis extended an invitation to Peter Phan to speak on Friday evening, February 8, at the St. Louis Community College, and he willingly accepted. I'm hoping that Phan, whose own life and thinking were formed in the crucible of war, will provoke and prod the rest of us to enter into the serious, grown-up work that lies before us. I'm hoping, too, that he brings with him a bit of the courage and intelligence of the man whose chair he occupies. The choice before us is rather simple. We will either learn to use our minds in what Canadian philosopher Bernard Lonergan called that "bloody business" of trying to understand the world and one another, or we will find ourselves drowning in a vast sea of that same blood. Either way, there's a cost in blood. Andrew Wimmer is a member of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis, a grass-roots organization for social change located in the heart of St. Louis. CTSA has been involved most recently in education and direct action around the issue of torture and victims of war. He welcomes your comments and thoughts at awimmer@newcommunities.net.

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