Today's
Stories
February
20, 2007
Werther
How
to be a Washington Expert
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
February
10 /11, 2007
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Will
They Nuke Iran?
Gabriel Kolko
Israel, Iran and the Bush Administration
Patrick Cockburn
Now
It's War on the Shia
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Till the Cows Come Home: How the West was Eaten
Kevin Alexander Gray
Barack Obama: Not a Bold Bone in His Body
M. Shahid Alam
The Pacification of Islam
Greg Moses
The Words of Mohammad: an 11 Year-Old Prisoner
Paul Craig
Roberts
Brzezinski's
Damning Indictment
George Ciccariello-Maher
Coups and Democracy in Venezuela
Kevin Zeese
"You Can't Oppose the War and Fund the War:" a Conversation
with Anthony Arnove
Turner / Kim
The World's Factory: China's Filthiest Export
George Duke
Has Jazz Lost Its African-American Core?
Walter Brasch
A Dream Still Unfulfilled: America Remains Divided
Shepherd Bliss
Veterans' Love Story
Missy Beattie
Fear and Diversions: Anna Nicole, Wolf Blitzer and the Missing
Body Count in Iraq
Peter Harley
Mr. Hyde and Uncle Sam: Reading Stevenson in an Age of Shock
and Awe
Pat Wolff
Oprah's Strange Endorsement of "The Secret"
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt, Engel and Louise
Website of the Day
The 25 Most Corrupt Members of Bush Administration
February 9, 2007
Conn Hallinan
The
Najaf Massacre: an Annotated Fable
Gary Leupp
Charging
Iran with "Genocide" Before Nuking It
Lee Sustar
An Interview with Patrick Cockburn
Nikolas Kozloff
Bombing Venezuela's Indians
Newton Garver
Politics
and Apartheid
Yitzhak Laor
Under the Steamroller
Dave Lindorff
Truth or Consequences: Some Questions for Bush
David Swanson
The Politics of Self-Congratulation: Democrats Change Gas, Claim
It's a New Car
Website of the Day
Why Corporate Social Responsibility is Not Working for Workers
February
8, 2007
John V. Walsh
Filibuster
to End the War Now!
Marjorie Cohn
Watada Beats Government
Trish Schuh
The Salvador Option in Beirut
Ron Jacobs
The Case of the San Francisco 8
Laura Carlsen
Mexico at Davos: the Split with Latin America Widens
Ramzy Baroud
Countdown for Iran
Brenda Norrell
"Leave It in the Ground": Indigenous Peoples Call for
Global Ban on Uranium Mining
Bryan Farrell
The Splinter and the Beam: Violence in the Eye of the Beholder
Judith Scherr
BP Beds Down with Cal-Berkeley
Website of
the Day
Peace TV
February
7, 2007
Daniel Wolff
"The
Road Home is a Joke": Playing Politics with the Recovery
of New Orleans
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Oliver Stone on Art, Politics and the Future
of Cinema in Bush's America
Tony Swindell
The
Looming Shadow of Nuremberg
Sharon Smith
Why Protest Matters
Ken Couesbouc
Delenda Est Baghdad: Why Republics End Up as Empires
Jeff Cohen
Jonah
Goldberg's Gambling Debt
Col. Dan Smith
The Self-Destructive Logic of War
Tom Kerr
McCain to Wounded Soldiers: When Words Fail Fundamentally
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran
Adam Elkus
Surging Right Into Bin Laden's Hands
Stephen Fleischman
The Good News About War on Iran
Website of
the Day
Vote Vets: Battling Escalation
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
|
February
20, 2007
Just
Learn to Read Your Talking Points
How
to be a Washington Expert
By WERTHER
It is a moss-encrusted truism that in
order to be an expert in Washington, one only has to know an
infinitesimal amount more than the average TV-watching ignoramus.
The imperial capital boasts a greater density of pseudo-experts,
jumped-up grad students, egomaniacal publicity hounds, and partisan
false flag operatives than any patch of territory since the Rome
of Elagabolus. The fake expert is now a Washington City career
track that supports many a think tank and speaker's bureau. One
such fake expert is Washington lawyer Victoria Toensing, a partisan
operative who clawed her way up the greasy pole to become a deputy
assistant political appointee at the Justice Department in the
remote Pleistocene abysm of the Reagan Administration.
In the 1990s, as a political
gunslinger no longer employed by the government, Ms. Toensing
fell naturally into the well-worn groove of becoming a pseudo-expert:
an ostensibly well-informed specialist observer who in reality
recites carefully rehearsed talking points, in this case of the
Republican National Committee.
Knowing this background, it
was with eager anticipation that we read Ms. Toensing's latest
pronouncement on the famous Libby/Plame case in the journal of
the political class, the Washington Post. [1] The first thing
we noticed was that the Post, predictably, failed to disclose
that Ms. Toensing had filed an amicus curae brief on behalf of
journalist Matthew Cooper and "journalist" Judith Miller
in March 2005 in re the Libby Plame case. Some disinterested
observer she is, but par for the course. We shall return to this
filing later.
The gravamen of Ms. Toensing's
bill of indictment, as she calls it, is that the defendant, I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, [2] is a patsy. But who is guilty?
Rather than focusing "like a laser beam" on a plausible
suspect, she unlooses a blunderbuss that hits every conceivable
party involved - except, by a miraculous coincidence, the Office
of the Vice President, where Libby worked, and which had the
strongest motive to attack Joseph C. Wilson, the husband of Valerie
Plame.
Her indictees include: a. prosecutor
Patrick J. Fitzgerald himself, for picking on Libby and not prosecuting
former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (conveniently
out of government and held harmless by Fitzgerald); b. the Central
Intelligence Agency; c. the news media (perennial bugaboo of
the Right that it is); d. Wilson (the victim of the crime made
out to be the actual perpetrator); e. Ari Fleischer (also conveniently
out of government, and whose testimony appeared to incriminate
Libby); and finally, f. the Justice Department, for having punted
the leak case to a special prosecutor for no compelling reason.
Let us deconstruct this farrago
of nonsense in detail. Ms. Toensing prefaces her six scattershot
bills of indictment by saying that "responsible prosecutors
don't bring perjury cases on mere 'he said, she said' evidence,"
because the trial becomes "a mishmash of faulty memories
in which witnesses can seem as guilty as the defendant."
Really? Contradictory statements
before a grand jury, recorded and transcribed as they are, constitute
some of the most solid evidence that could come before a court.
Unless a crime is, for instance, a robbery committed in full
view of a surveillance camera, the evidence in a typical criminal
trial is likely to be much more ambiguous than the Libby case
- and the material facts of non-perjury cases would also rely
on a "mishmash of faulty memories" of those who witnessed
the event months or years before.
Libby appears to have fallen
into a classic perjury trap. He could either have risked violating
the Intelligence Identities Protection Act [3], or exposed the
zeal of his superior, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, to discredit
Wilson, [4] or he could have simply tried to brazen his way out
by claiming the multitude of journalist he spoke with told him
of Valerie Plame's identity, rather than the other way around.
He appears to have chosen the last course of action.
The odds that a half dozen
witnesses had uniformly "faulty memories" rather than
Libby is implausible, particularly as Libby's defense is based
on the allegation of his own faulty memory: yet he adamantly
insists that they told him.
One can only conclude that
rather than being an overzealous prosecutor, Fitzgerald is being
overly cautious. The perjury charge being easy to prove, that
is the case he would bring before a jury. In fact, the testimony
of Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, other administration witnesses,
as well as the numerous big-foot Washington journalists, combined
with the evidence of Vice President Cheney's interest in the
case, suggests not just perjury, but a criminal conspiracy to
use government resources to defame a citizen. Perhaps if Fitzgerald
is as tough as his reputation, he will solicit evidence of criminal
conspiracy from Libby during the sentencing phase.
Let us now demolish Ms. Toensing's
six bills of indictment in turn:
a. Patrick Fitzgerald is an
out-of-control prosecutor. Ms. Toensing presents her own "mishmash"
of assertions intended to prove Fitzgerald's animus, yet she
proves nothing. In particular, her statement that Richard Armitage
had identified Plame as a covert operative at about the same
time as Libby is alleged to have done so is doubly irrelevant.
Armitage's blurting out of Plame's identity would not have lessened
any other government official's duty to keep her CIA job secret,
as Armitage manifestly did not have the power of on-the-spot
declassification. And even if his statement had become public,
no other official had the right to confirm it. His slip, or crime,
did not release other government employees from their affirmative
obligation to obey the law, just as your neighbor's hypothetical
commission of petty larceny does not make it OK for you to do
it. And, in any case, Libby is not formally charged with doing
what Armitage did; he is charged with lying to a grand jury.
b. It's the CIA's fault. The
Central Intelligence Agency has been a favorite scapegoat of
the Right since the "Team B" hallucination of the mid-1970s.
Ms. Toensing asserts that although the CIA requested an investigation
of the leak of Plame's identity, Fitzgerald never introduced
any evidence that Libby violated the law by leaking her identity
- the suggestion being that the CIA was pursuing a vendetta,
aided and abetted by Fitzgerald. Again, and for the last time,
Libby has been charged with perjury, not leaking.
c. It's Joe Wilson's fault.
Ms. Toensing blows her shrill tin horn by way of announcing that
the victim of this drama is really the perpetrator. In so doing,
she also restates the falsehood (a perennial Republican National
Committee talking point) that Plame was not a covert CIA operative.
If that were the case, why is Plame enjoined by her secrecy agreement
from stating that she was, in fact, a covert operative, in anything
she might write? The "Plame-not-a-covert-operative"
meme is of the same genus as the myth of Iraqi WMD: no matter
how thoroughly it is debunked, some will believe it.
d. It's the media's fault.
Here Ms. Toensing must skillfully execute a delicate political
operation. Notwithstanding her amicus curae brief on behalf of
a journalist and a "journalist" in this very case,
the media are somehow indicted because they wrote editorials
after the fact pressing for indictment of the leaker of the identity
of a CIA operative. Her opinion represents an interesting inversion
of the usual Right Wing tropism: ordinarily, government secrecy
must remain secret, and it is not the business of the press,
much less the common herd of voting citizens, to know about it.
Yet now she is oddly indulgent of those who would leak the identities
of CIA operatives, as if she were cheering on Phillip Agee. This
is quite a switch from her usual tack, which is to advocate secret,
unaccountable surveillance of US citizens. [5] Why the sudden
180, if not pure partisanship?
e. It's Ari Fleischer's fault.
Another out-of-government red herring. If Fleischer's testimony
is damning because it contradicts the statements of another witness
on some points, then that charge applies tenfold to Libby.
f. It's the Justice Department's
fault. It was to his credit that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
(author of numerous inanities while in office) announced a potential
conflict of interest in a political matter, and referred the
Plame case to an independent counsel. Ms. Toensing simply ignores
the conflict of interest angle and insinuates a variety of implausible
motives, such as Ashcroft's presumably clairvoyant conclusion
that he would be replaced after the 2004 election.
Hatchet jobs of this caliber
are old hat for Ms. Toensing of diGenova and Toensing, LLP, K
Street. Two years ago, she unburdened herself with a similar
effusion on the Libby/Plame case, also in the Washington Post
op-ed page. [6] In that propaganda piece, she (and the Post)
failed to disclose that key witness Robert Novak, whom she mentioned
nine times, was a friend of hers.
Thus it is that one becomes
an expert in Washington. Substantive knowledge applied with intellectual
honesty is unnecessary; all that is required is brazen assertion,
assisted by the Powers-That-Be at the Post editorial board.
Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based
defense analyst.
[1] "Trial in Error:
If You're Going to Charge Scooter, Then What About These Guys?",
Victoria Toensing, Washington Post, 18 February 2007. The Post,
like all major metropolitan dailies, gives lavish space not only
to fake experts by the score, but to horribly discredited scoundrels
like Douglas Feith (the latter as recently as 14 February), William
Kristol, and Robert Kagan. It would be interesting to be a fly
on the wall at these papers' editorial board decisions on whether
to print the latest transparent lie by Feith et al. Is the decision
taken freely, out of some unerring editorial preference for drivel?
Or is the board swayed by the prospect of government disfavor
if one of its golden boys receives a rejection? Or perhaps Northrop-Grumman
will cease placing full-page ads for their latest wonder weapon
if the Post or similar dailies fail to give "equal time"
to fraudulent arguments. A biologist espousing Lysenkoism, or
a chemist touting phlogiston theory would be unlikely to get
space in a major newspaper; but the most idiotic and criminal
political notion is apparently exempt from editorial disfavor,
as long as the author's resume implies some connection to power,
money, or influence.
[2] What grown man, let alone
a middle aged Jewish political lawyer, would consent to be called
Scooter? Libby is moreover an unlikely martyr for the Right:
a mere six years ago, he was the attorney representing one of
the criminals benefiting from the Clinton "Pardongate"
about which the Right made such a pother. Libby's client, Marc
Rich, was a particularly odious economic criminal and swindler,
having been convicted of having illegal dealings with Iran, now
ironically the chief demon in the Right's axis of evil. As in
Orwell's 1984, the government and its captive press can shove
historical facts in and out of the Memory Hole without anyone
noticing.
[3] Ms. Toensing alleges that
as a staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1982,
she was a guiding light behind the drafting of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act; her current representation is that
the statute somehow does not apply in the Libby case. Strictly
speaking, Fitzgerald has not applied it in his prosecution, mainly
because Libby apparently perjured himself precisely to obstruct
a determination as to whether he had in fact violated that law.
To refute her underlying charge that the law is somehow irrelevant
to Libby's actions, it is necessary to reproduce the provision
in full; the reader can judge for himself:
TITLE 50, UNITED STATES CODE
Sec. 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover
intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources (a) Disclosure
of information by persons having or having had access to classified
information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having
had authorized access to classified information that identifies
a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying
such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive
classified information, knowing that the information disclosed
so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is
taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence
relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than
$50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) Disclosure
of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents
as result of having access to classified information Whoever,
as a result of having authorized access to classified information,
learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses
any information identifying such covert agent to any individual
not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that
the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and
that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal
such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States,
shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both. (c) Disclosure of information by persons
in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose
covert agents Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities
intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason
to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign
intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information
that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual
not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that
the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that
the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such
individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United
States, shall be fined not more than $15,000 or imprisoned not
more than three years, or both. [4] It is hardly surprising,
albeit worthy of note, that at the very highest levels of government,
officials were more concerned with the op-eds of domestic critics
like Wilson than, for instance, the whereabouts of Osama bin
Laden; the provisioning of US troops with adequate armor; or
the need to seek restitution for the $10 billion which the Department
of Defense Inspector General has estimated was lost through fraud
and over-billing in Iraq. Instead, Vice President Cheney was
apparently so obsessed with Wilson that he ordered government
employees to make transcripts of the news/entertainment show
"Hardball" for his perusal.
[5] See, for instance, "Terrorists
on Tap: Do Al Gore and other Democrats really want to keep the
government from finding al Qaeda agents in the U.S.?", Victoria
Toensing, Wall Street Journal, 22 January 2006.
[6] "The Plame Game: Was
This a Crime?", Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford,
Washington Post, 12 January 2005.
|
Coming
in March from
CounterPunch Books
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All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert
Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End
Times
Leaves No Reputation Unstained!
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Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
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"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
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
|