Today's
Stories
March 29,
2007
Saul Landau
Comparing
Padillas
March 28,
2007
Nicole Colson
The
Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Harry Clark
Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine
Larry Everest
Another $100 Billion to Continue the War
Jonathan M.
Feldman
Citigroup,
Property and Theft
Dave Zirin
Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It)
Jane Stillwater
How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's Cry for Justice
Jim Wilfong
Who Owns Maine's Water?
Hawra Karama
An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom
Website of
the Day
Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians
March 27, 2007
Iain Boal /
Standard Schaefer
British
Petroleum and the New Greenmail
Patrick Cockburn
The Hostage Game
Monica Benderman
On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come
Home?
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Political
Players and Single Payer
Joshua Frank
Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies
Harvey Wasserman
Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia?
Sen. Russell Feingold
FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act
Tillman Family
Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps"
Patrick Bond
Zimbabwe's Descent
David Judd
Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia
Website of the Day
Why Work?
March 26, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Seven
Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads
Uri Avnery
Schoolbooks and Borders
Greg Moses
Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande
Bill Hatch
A Plague of Big Shots
John V. Walsh
The Democrats' War Funding Debacle
Diane Christian
God Does Not Love the Aggressor
Dan La Botz
The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads
Frederico Fuentes
Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!"
Sunsara Taylor
Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype
Website of the Day
DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy
March 24 / 25, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Where
are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby
David Rosen
An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation
of Nature
Ron Jacobs
The Political History of the Car Bomb
Robert Fantina
Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same
Alan Maass
Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand
Atul Gawande
On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread
in Hospitals
Marianne McDonald
Staging
Anti-Colonial Protest
China Hand
Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord
Kaz Dziamka
The Iroquois Way of Impeachment
Andrew Wimmer
The Nursemaid's Tale
Don Monkerud
World's Biggest Debtor Nation
Anthony Papa
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case
Matthew Provonsha
Return of the Black Bloc
Missy Beattie
Calling Youth and Young Adults
Stephen Fleischman
Confrontation, At Last
Poets' Basement
Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
An Interview with Ron Jacobs
Song of the Weekend
"Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
March 23,
2007
Saul Landau
Return
to Syria
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban
Greg Moses
Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley
Rep. Ron Paul
The War Funding Bill
Franklin Lamb
Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat?
Stephen Gowans
Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment
Roger Burbach
Leftist Victory in Ecuador
Dave Lindorff
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
William S. Lind
Candles in the Hurricane
Alan Mammoser
The New Rules of Food
Russell Hoffman
Al Gore's Nose is Glowing
Website of
the Day
Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class
March 22,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Oil-Rich
Kirkuk at the Melting Point
Robin Blackburn
Toxic
Waste in the Sub-Prime Market
Michael Donnelly
Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from
Al Gore
Uzma Aslam
Khan
Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue
Lee Sustar
Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program
Robert D. Skeels
LA's Vicious War on the Homeless
Rev. William Alberts
The Forbidden C-Word
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene
Mickey Z.
This is Your Brain on Meat
Website of
the Day
Raimondo Does Hitchens
March 21, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Robbie Conal
James Petras
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
Fred Gardner
A U.S. Army Pipe Dream
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street
Faisal Kutty
Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?
Robert Fantina
U.S. Imperialism in Action
Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach
Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords
Lucinda Marshall
Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact
of War on Women?
Winslow Wheeler
Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means!
Website of
the Day
Student Day of Action Against the War
March 20,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Blank Check War
Sharon Smith
Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher?
Uri Avnery
The New Palestinian Unity Government
Stan Cox
Down-to-a-Trickle Economics
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hating the Rich
Alan Farago
Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000
Richard W.
Behan
Impeachment and Patriotism
Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On
David Krieger
The Treaty of Tlatelolco
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise,
10,000 Fired Employees
Mickey Z.
A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall
Website of
the Day
Bringing the War Home
Webclip of
the Day
Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again
March 19,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Crime
Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Patrick Cockburn
Operation
Deepening Nightmare
Stauber / Rampton
Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?
Werther
Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost
of Joe McCarthy
Noam Chomsky
In Memory of Tanya Reinhart
Jeff Leys
Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War
Richard May
And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash
Ron Jacobs
Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons
of the Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Rove in the Dock
Website of
the Day
Ringtones That Roar
March 17
/ 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Here
Comes Another "Crime Wave"
John Scagliotti
A Sissy's Manifesto
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Confession Backfired
Greg Moses
Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso
Harry Clark
Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks
Brian Cloughley
In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths
in Afghanistan and Iraq
Mehran Ghassemi
An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran
William Loren Katz
A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
John Ross
Being a Zapatista Where You Live
Ralph Nader
Ban the Bomblets!
Walter Brasch
An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military
Samer Assad
The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy
Dave Zirin
Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary
Ron Jacobs
The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World
Missy Beattie
No to War and Pace
Don Santina
First, They Came for the Democrats
Sami Adwan
What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks
Dr. Susan Block
Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox
Poets' Basement
Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
God Save Helen Mirren
March 16,
2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Political Economy of Diamonds
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
Joshua Frank
Obama's Israel Problem
Diane Farsetta
How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front
Groups
Tom Barry
Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right
Stephen Lendman
Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition
to War
Al Krebs
Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death
Squads
Jackie Corr
Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture
Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
Reza Fiyouzat
The Chinese Way of Capitalism
Website of the Day
Introducing: the iRak
March 15,
2007
Alison Weir
Strip-Searching
Children at Israeli Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the
Bleeding
Franklin Spinney
Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld
Standard Schaefer
Biofuels
and the Green Resistance
Conn Hallinan
The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan
Maureen Webb
Another Patriot Act Abuse
Sonja Karkar
Rachel Corrie and Palestine
Margaret Kimberly
The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition
Katherine Hancy
Wheeler Bush's
Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost
Video of the Day
The Easiest Targets
Website of
the Day
Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who
February
28, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
An
Amazing Disgrace
Tao Ruspoli
A Conversation with Francisco Letelier
China Hand
The Shanghai Crash: Take the Money and Run
Marjorie Cohn
Why the Boumediene Case on Gitmo Detainees and Habeas Corpus
Was Wrongly Decided
Sarah Olson
Is Lt. Watada an Isolated Case of Military Dissent?
Susan Van Haitsma
Mark Wilkerson: Standing for a Soldier's Right to Conscience
Nicole Colson
License to Torture
Harvey Wasserman
The Sham of Nuclear Power
William S. Lind
The Non-Thinking Enemy
Nicola Nasser
US Turnabout?: Engagement and Confrontation in the Middle East
Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn on Rumsfeld
February
27, 2007
Tariq Ali
The
Khyber Impasse: the Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Tom Barry
America's
Crusaders: Santorum and Lieberman
Uri Avnery
The Next War
Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar
Oil Grab: the Secret Scheme to Split Iraq
Jeff Nygaard
Howard Hunt and the National Memory System
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Grenada: an Invasion Revisited
Mitchell Kaidy
Israel's Cluster Bombs: Made in USA, Ground-Tested in Lebanon
Carl Finamore
Airline Bankruptcies, Mergers and Profits
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Really Big Lie About Autism
Ramzy Baroud
Who is Really in Control?
Andrew Rouse
The Queen, Her Apothecary and the War on Iraq
Website of the Day
New York City Skyline
February
26, 2007
Franklin Lamb
US
Israel Lobby Targets Lebanon's Jihad al-Bina
Bill Quigley
The
Right to Return to New Orleans
Greg Moses
Suzi Hazahza in Haskell Hell
Col. Dan Smith
Calling All Carriers
Ralph Nader
The Bush Administration is a Threat to Our National Security
Paul Buchheit
The Income Gap
Jeff Leys
How Democrats Are Buying the Iraq War
Dave Zirin
Bojangling for Bigots: an Open Letter to Jason Whitlock
Mike Whitney
Doomsday Dick and the Plague of Frogs
Michael Dickinson
Free Kareem Amer!
Website of the Day
Beware the Chickenhawks!
February
24 / 25, 2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Frightening
Tales of Endangered Species
R. T. Naylor
Inside Islamic Charity
Gary Leupp
AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran
Saul Landau
Modern Day Miracle: Rev. Haggard Cured! Thank You, Jesus!
Ron Jacobs
Missile Defense Redux
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Debate on the Israel Lobby
Chris Sands
Afghanistan in Winter: Where Death Comes Cheap
Gary Freeman
The N-Word and Black History Month
Larry Portis
Zionism and the United States: the Cultural Connection
P. Sainath
Two Million People in "Maximum Distress"
Lee Sustar
What Next for the Immigrants' Rights Movement?
Kevin Wehr
Liberal vs. Radical Enviros: the Thrill isn't Gone, It's Just
Moved
Ken Couesbouc
The African Card
Soffiyah Elijah
FBI Hunting Dead Panthers: Can John Bowman Ever Rest in Peace?
Kathlyn Stone
Iraqi Labor vs. Big Oil
Dave Lindorff
Breaking the Dam in Olympia
Jason Kunin
Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry
Kevin Zeese
Can Hillary be Trusted?
Remi Kanazi
All Roads Lead to Checkpoints
Missy Beattie
Five Words That Change Lives
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt and Rodriguez
Website of the Weekend
Caught on Tape: an Anti-War Movement Finding Its Feet?
February
23, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Top
Gun vs. the Axis of Evil: Is This What We Have Become?
Jonathan Cook
Watching
the Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
The True Extent of Britain's Failure in Basra
Kathy Kelly
Do Something Good
Chris Dols
Islamophobia at Urban Outfiters: the Case for Keffiyehs
Evelyn Pringle
The Neurontin Suicides: Risks Kept Hidden for Years
Stephen Pearcy
If Bush is a War Criminal, What About the Troops?
Dan Brook
Making Poverty History
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Police Commit Rapes
Website of
the Day
A Citizens Arrest of Patty Murray
February
22, 2007
Robert Fantina
Repeating
History
Tariq Ali
Prodi's Soap Operatic Fall: Neoliberalism and War in Italy
Michael Shank
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, the Democrats and
Climate Change
John Ross
Calderon's War on Drugs
Christopher Brauchli
Stockcars on Dope: How NASCAR and the Tour de France are Bring
the World Together
Cindy Litman
Paying for the Damage Done to Iraq
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Mr. Jefferson's Inheritors: Caution, Calculation and Cold Feet
Kevin Zeese
Finally, a Populist Antiwar Candidate for President
Aseem Shrivastava
The New Indian Way?: a Developer's Model of Development
Reza Fiyouzat
A Letter to the Israeli People: We are All Led by Mad Men
Illinois Students Against the
War
Why We Protested at Obama's Speech
Website of
the Day
An Interview with Mike Gravel
February
21, 2007
Maass / St.
Clair
The
Clintons: the Art of Politics Without Conscience
Sharon Smith
Inside
the Imperial Budget
Greg Moses
Showdown Over Texas Immigrant Prisons
Margaret Kimberly
America the Stupid
Ralph Nader
Making Cancer Cool: Tobacco and Hollywood
Nicola Nasser
Evasive Diplomacy: Bush Adm. Shuns Middle East Peace Talks
Mike Whitney
The Second Great Depression
Tao Ruspoli
Revolutionary But Gangsta: a Conversation with Stic.Man of Dead
Prez
Byeong Jeongpil
Beyond the "Protection Facility",
Another Prison
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Why Hillary, Obama and Edwards Oppose Single-Payer Health Care
Josh Mahan
The Lost Art of Shattuck: a Good, Old-Fashioned Drinking Story
Website of
the Day
Time to Free the Puerto Rican Nationalists
February
20, 2007
Sgt. Martin
Smith
Structured
Cruelty: Learning to be a Lean, Mean Killing Machine
Werther
How
to be a Washington Expert
Corporate Crime Reporter
Exposing SAIC
Carl G. Estabrook
Common Sense About the Recent Past
China Hand
Setting Sun: The Diverging US-Japan Relationship
Joshua Frank
Cleaning Up Exxon's Greenpoint Oil Spill
Megan Boler
The Daily Show and Political Activism
John Feffer
People Power vs. Military Power in East Asia
Daryll E. Ray
What's Inside the New Farm Bill
Alan Gregory
Midwest Wolves Fall Prey to Slob Hunters' PR Scam
Website of the Day
"Not a Target Rich Environment?"
February
19, 2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Economists
in Denial: Blind to the Consequences of Offshoring
Gary Leupp
"A Genocidal, Suicidal Nation:" Mitt Romney Joins Iran's
Hysterical Accusers
Ron Jacobs
The Mecca Agreements: the Future Remains Bleak
Michael F.
Brown
The Peace Process Industry
Robert Jensen
Liberal Icons and War: Bi-Partisan Empire-Building
Roger Burbach
Ecuador Stands Up to US
Monica Benderman
America, Where Are You Now?
Sonja Karkar
Apocalyptic Archaeology: Israel's Provocations Threaten Jerusalem
John Walsh
Some Good News from Beantown
Talli Nauman
Colorado Delta Blues: Challenging the Law of the River
Website of the Day
"The Best Place to be in Town"
Feburary
17 / 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Sold
to Mr. Gordon, Another Bridge!
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Patrick Cockburn, Part Two
Gary Leupp
Iran: A Chronology of Disinformation
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dark Mesas in an Ancient Light
Roger Morris
The Undertaker's Tally: the Tragedy of Donald Rumsfeld
Uri Avnery
Facing Mecca
James Brooks
Palestinians and the "Diplomatic Horizon"
Sen. Russell
Feingold
Congress Must Defund the Iraq War
Linn Washington, Jr.
"Death Row is a Web That Catches Only the Poor"
Michele Brand
Iran: the Proxy War?
Fred Gardner
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Music and Basketball in the Harlem Renaissance
Mitchel Cohen
Storming the Pentagon: Lessons from 1967
Mike Ferner
Democrats Keep Ohio Refugee Free: "No Iraqis in Our Backyards!"
David Swanson
Memo to Don Young: What Lincoln Really Said
P. Sainath
In the Theater of the Jungle Belt
Mike Stark
GoreAid: Gore Plans Concert with Musicians He and Tipper Betrayed
in the 80s
Missy Beattie
The Object of My Disaffection
Jonathan Franklin
Carnival: Where Dance is Hope
Website of the Weekend
The Godfather and the Tenor: "It's a Man's World"
February 16, 2007
Marc Levy
Turning
Point: Veterans' Voices Trigger Response
Andrew Cockburn
In Iraq, Anyone Can Make a Bomb
Glen Ford
Powell, Rice and Obama: Putting Black Faces on Imperial Aggression
Greg Moses
The Terror of Suzi Hazahza: Why Her Family Must Be Freed
Ron Jacobs
Marching on the Pentagon: Then and Now
John W. Farley
Hook, Line and Sinker: The Press and Stephen Hadley
James Marc Leas
Vermont Legislature Says: "Bring Them Home Now!"
Tim Rinne
The Most Dangerous Place on the Face of the Earth?: StratCom
and the Coming War on Iran
Albert Wan
Star-Cross'd Lovers?: The Strange Romance of Hillary and David
Brooks
Website of
the Day
Did Wal-Mart Murder Tweety Bird?
February 15, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Who
is Muqtada al-Sadr?
Saul Landau
How
to Obsess Your Enemies
Stephen Lendman
The Rules of Imperial Management
Evelyn Pringle
More Zyprexa Postcards from the Edge
Michael Simmons
Is the Joke Over?: an Evening with Ralph Steadman
Kevin Zeese
A Congressional Kabuki Show
Dave Lindorff
The Co-Dependent Congress
Pete Shanks
They Want You to Eat Cloned Meat--And They Don't Want You to
Know It
Peter Rost
The Michelle Manhart Affair: the Air Force Listens!
Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon
An Exchange
Website of the Day
Barack Obama vs. Huey P. Newton
February
14, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Patrick Cockburn
Dick J. Reavis
War
Without a Name
Margaret Kimberly
Medical Apartheid in America
Christopher Brauchli
The Perils of Charity: You Can be Prosecuted for Funding Terror
Even If the Designation of the Group as a Terrorist Organization
was Wrong!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Cracks in the Pentagon
John Ross
The Plot Against Mexican Corn
Michael F.
Brown
The Democrats and Palestine: New Chairman, Old Rules
Dave Lindorff
The Press Bites, Again: a Word of Caution on Those Iranian Weapons
J.L. Chestunut,
Jr.
Texas-style Injustice in Black and White
Don Fitz
Hybrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols
Michael Donnelly
Give Love, Give Life
Dr. Susan Block
The Chemistry of Love
Website of
the Day
Code Pink Drops By Hillary's Office
February
13, 2007
Uri Avnery
Three
Provocations: the Method in the Madness
Patrick Cockburn
Targeting Tehran
Ralph Nader
When Wall Street Whines (You Know They're Making a Killing)
Marjorie Cohn
Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Iran Bashing Goes Prime Time
Col. Douglas
MacGreagor
Empty Vessels: Gen. Patraeus and Other Hollow Men
Thomas Power
Coal Ambivalence: Mining Montana
Nicola Nasser
The Politics of Archaeology in Jerusalem
David Swanson
Iran War Talking Points
Columbia Coalition
Against the War
Why We Are Striking
Website of the Day
Our Friends at Antiwar.com Need Your Help
February
12, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Scapegoating
Iran
Paul Craig
Roberts
How the World Can Stop Bush: Dump the Dollar!
John Walsh
A Splintered Antiwar Movement: Nader and Libertarians Not Welcome
Dr. John Carroll,
MD
What Next for Haiti's Cite Soliel?: a Journey Through the World's
Most Miserable Slum
Greg Moses
An Outrageously Sickening Immigration Policy
Nicole Colson
The Frame-Up That Fell Apart: Jury See Through Another Botched
Federal "Terrorism" Case
Dave Lindorff
Acting in Bad Feith: Inappropriate
Behavior and Impeachment
Ray McGovern
The Kervorkian Administration: Are Bush and Cheney the Biggest
Threats to the Existence of Israel?
Doug Giebel
Rampant Cyncism
David Swanson
Twisted: Sex and Torture in America
Website of the Day
The Texas Model: Executing Women in Iraq
|
March
29, 2007
Censorship, Homosexuality
and Murder
Comparing
Padillas
By SAUL LANDAU
Bush behavior--practicing torture, violating
human rights and wrapping itself in secrecy while preaching the
opposite--has given deceit a bad name. W didn't begin the double
speak and double standards patter, however.
In 1971, US troops and bombers
routinely massacred Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians. In that
same year, Cuban police arrested a poet, Heberto Padilla without
charging him. Hundreds of US and European intellectuals and academics
who had opposed against the US wars reserved a special kind of
outrage when unsubstantiated rumors spread that Padilla had undergone
brutal torture. Petitions circulated demanding that Cuba stop
torturing this great poet, although no one had seen or heard
any direct evidence of such mistreatment.
After 38 days, Cuba's state
security cops sprung Padilla, who then delivered his notorious
speech (1930s Stalin purge style imitation confession) to writers
and artists, condemning his "bourgeois" and "counterrevolutionary
behavior", and naming other writers as also responsible
for their misguided comportment. It didn't matter whether he
invented the speech as a kind of literary ruse to mock state
security or the cops had pressured him to deliver this mea culpa.
Padilla became an instant pariah--a fink and coward -- in Cuban
intellectual circles.
His book of poems, Fuera
del Juego (Out of the Game), won the UNEAC (Artists and Writers
Union) poetry prize in 1968. Cuba published the book with a foreword
by UNEAC reprimanding Padilla for his behavior.
Over the ensuing months and
years after his arrest, I talked with Padilla who laughed at
the campaign to stop his supposed torture. He had suffered a
severe nervous reaction to getting arrested, he recounted The
cops panicked over his stomach pains and they rushed him to a
seaside resort, fed him yogurt and provided on-call doctors.
Throughout the 1970s, Cuban
intellectuals would cross the street when they saw Padilla. A
few felt sorry for him and his reputation-blanching mistake:
making the mea culpa statement. Padilla admitted to me that the
security people had behaved considerately. But we agreed they
had no right to arrest him--just because he had written and spoken
dissenting words in brilliant poems and bad mouthed Fidel and
the revolution to foreign visitors. His arrest correctly provoked
leading world intellectuals to respond in outrage. Cuba deserved
condemnation for having arrested Padilla, but not for torturing
him since he wasn't tortured or threatened with torture.
Padilla lived quietly in Havana
for several years afterwards, receiving a good salary from the
state. In 1980, he moved to the United States where he taught
at Princeton and then at Auburn University. He died of a heart
attack in 2000, a lonely man.
Another Padilla, a Brooklyn-born
Jose of Puerto Rican descent, holds no claim to the intellectual
spotlight. Intellectuals have not rallied to the cause of this
former street gang member who converted to Islam. In February,
in a Miami courtroom, the world public learned--those few who
read about it--that after September 11 US interrogators used
"unusual" methods to "break" prisoners.
Unlike Cuban state security
who fed Heberto yogurt, the US torturers offered Jose sleep interruption,
sound blasting and mind altering drugs. They broke Padilla, but
not exactly in the way they wanted. The Bushies had planned to
try him as an international terrorist, but his lawyers argued
that the long years of torture while in captivity had left him
insane and therefore not fit to stand trial. The judge disagreed,
but the gruesome details are starting to emerge.
In May 2002 US agents grabbed
Padilla at Chicago's O'Hare airport, classified
him "enemy combatant," and threw him into a tiny, windowless
cell in a Navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina. They shackled
Padilla, covered his eyes with goggles and his ears with headphones
-- for more than 3 years. His interrogators forbade him contact
with lawyers or family members, but they did keep bright lights
turned on him and blasted his auditory nerves with loud sounds.
Padilla claims they injected him "truth serum," or,
perhaps as his lawyers believe LSD or PCP.
Two professionals examined
him and determined he had been physically destroyed, and thus
unable to assist in his own defense. He thinks of his lawyers
as interrogators, not as defenders. As Naomi Klein wrote (The
Nation, March 12, 2007), in order to prove that "the
extended torture visited upon Mr. Padilla has left him damaged,"
his lawyers want to tell the court what happened during those
years in the Navy brig. The government strenuously objects, maintaining
that "Padilla is competent," that the treatment he
received is irrelevant.
Compare the intellectual outrage
in Heberto Padilla's case with the relatively muted response
by leading intellectuals and artists to Jose Padilla's treatment.
The outcry of human rights violations around the Cuban poet was
literally deafening; the silence on Jose Padilla rings louder
still. His case drags on as torture claims from US prisons multiply.
In 1971, Jean Paul Sartre,
Simone de Beauvoir and Susan Sontag, led a list of distinguished
writers. They held Fidel Castro responsible for directing Heberto's
torture. Do intellectuals not get aroused by what appears as
yet one more George W. Bush peccadillo? Is it because most cultured
people no longer hold the assumption that the United States holds
the eternal torch for human rights and civilized behavior?
Indeed, when US officials use
moral hyperbole it seems to mocks the facts of US behavior. In
early March, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, publicly likened homosexuality to adultery. The General
vibrated his moral outrage over the prospect of having gay soldiers
serving alongside straight soldiers. Yich!!!
The military, he declared,
"should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly
in the armed forces." In 1994, President Clinton instituted
his enigmatic "don't ask, don't tell" policy on sexuality--which
he ironically did not use himself when he got caught in the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. Pace, the law abiding officer, claimed he of
course supported this standard, which prohibits commanders from
asking about a person's sexual orientation.
But, Pace personally believed
that "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral
and that we should not condone immoral acts." Pace told
a reporter: "I do not believe the United States is well
served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."
Speaking "as an individual, I would not want (acceptance
of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want
it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so
was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look
the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral
behavior," he said. (Pauline Jelinek, AP, March 13, 2007
Wow, I said to myself, it's
a good thing the reporter didn't ask Pace how he compared his
moral standards on homosexual behavior with the morality of killing
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians--or indeed, if such
killing by the US heterosexual military was immoral. Imagine
an army that took seriously the Sixth Commandment--You Shall
Not Murder!
Given the raging fundamentalism
that is sweeping across the United States and the armed forces,
it becomes puzzling to see this Commandment become an exception.
When it comes to the unborn (abortion) or brain dead -- remember
Terri Schiavo? -- the fundamentalists reach their pinnacle of
moral indignation.
Somewhere in their Bible it
must say something about how angry God gets when He sees two
guys getting it on. This obviously means more to Him than the
act of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people
in Iraq, which was the US army's job. Is there no Commandment
that says: "Thou shalt not bugger the neighbor"? There's
one about not "coveting your neighbor's wife, or male or
female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your
neighbor." But when US soldiers stole from and raped Iraqis
wholesale after they invaded in March 2003, Pace expressed no
moral indignation.
In the 1970s, Cuba mistakenly
arrested Heberto Padilla, an act that symbolized the restriction
of creativity. Subsequently, the government reversed those policies.
In the last two decades, Cuban music, literature and especially
cinema has offered profound critiques of its social order. Tomas
Gutierrez Alea's "Strawberry and Chocolate" and "Guantanamera"
ridicule Party line thinking and bureaucracy.
Bush and company have not taken
responsibility for the injustice done to Jose Padilla and thousands
more held without charges, many of them tortured. "Mistakes
were made!" Bush chants this mantra when his murderous errors
in Iraq are revealed.
The Heberto Padilla case still
resonates with the notion of censorship, but it no longer represents
Cuba cultural policy. The Jose Padilla case stands as the insignia
of current US justice standards.
Saul Landau's new book, BUSH
AND BOTOX WORLD, with a foreword by Gore Vidal, is now available
from Counterpunch Press. His new film, WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE,
is available on DVD from roundworldmedia@gmail.com
|
Now
Available!
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!
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Available from
CounterPunch Books!
Saul Landau's
Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
Click Here to Order!
"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
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
|