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* "Put a bra and panties on this guy's head" * His "Do This" List for Abu Ghraib * Driving Jose Padilla Insane
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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! HOW RUMSFELD MICROMANAGED TORTURE! * Real-time grilling of Lindh by satellite
* "Put a bra and panties on this guy's head"
* His "Do This" List for Abu Ghraib
* Driving Jose Padilla InsaneRead Andrew Cockburn's devastating report in Our New CounterPunch Newsletter. PLUS: Robert Bryce on Frank Gaffney, Halliburton and Iran. Still available: WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS? At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
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Today's Stories March 6, 2007 Gary Leupp March 5, 2007 Greg Moses Patrick Cockburn James Petras Frida Berrigan Marjorie Cohn Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati Sen. Barack Obama Michael Young Dave Lindorff Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
March 3 / 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Corporate Crime
Reporter Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader M. Shahid Alam Gilad Atzmon Fred Gardner George Ciccariello-Maher Rock &
Rap Confidential Gillian Russom Michael McPhearson Kevin Zeese Sunsara Taylor Wendy Thompson Kenneth Rexroth Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Tina Louise Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 2, 2007 Roger Morris Phil Gasper Mike Roselle Robert Bryce John V. Walsh Sherwood Ross China Hand David Rosen Chris Genovali Peter Harley Website of the Day
March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen Paul Craig
Roberts Ray McGovern Christopher
Brauchli Najum Mustaq Brent Bowden Tina Richards Ethan Nadelman Mike Stark Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague Mike Whitney Website of
the Day
February 28, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Tao Ruspoli China Hand Marjorie Cohn Sarah Olson Susan Van Haitsma Nicole Colson Harvey Wasserman William S. Lind Nicola Nasser Website of the Day
February 27, 2007 Tariq Ali Tom Barry Uri Avnery Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar Jeff Nygaard Hugh O'Shaughnessy Mitchell Kaidy Carl Finamore Anne McElroy
Dachel Ramzy Baroud Andrew Rouse Website of the Day
February 26, 2007 Franklin Lamb Bill Quigley Greg Moses Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Paul Buchheit Jeff Leys Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 24 / 25, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair R. T. Naylor Gary Leupp Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Jeffrey Blankfort Chris Sands Gary Freeman Larry Portis P. Sainath Lee Sustar Kevin Wehr Ken Couesbouc Soffiyah Elijah Kathlyn Stone Dave Lindorff Jason Kunin Kevin Zeese Remi Kanazi Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 23, 2007 Franklin Spinney Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Chris Dols Evelyn Pringle Stephen Pearcy Dan Brook Yifat Susskind Website of
the Day
February 22, 2007 Robert Fantina Tariq Ali Michael Shank John Ross Christopher Brauchli Cindy Litman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Aseem Shrivastava Reza Fiyouzat Illinois Students Against the
War Website of
the Day
February 21, 2007 Maass / St.
Clair Sharon Smith Greg Moses Margaret Kimberly Ralph Nader Nicola Nasser Mike Whitney Tao Ruspoli Byeong Jeongpil Corporate Crime
Reporter Josh Mahan Website of
the Day
February 20, 2007 Sgt. Martin
Smith Werther Corporate Crime Reporter Carl G. Estabrook China Hand Joshua Frank Megan Boler John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Alan Gregory Website of the Day
February 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Michael F.
Brown Robert Jensen Roger Burbach Monica Benderman Sonja Karkar John Walsh Talli Nauman Website of the Day
Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Gary Leupp Jeffrey St.
Clair Roger Morris Uri Avnery James Brooks Sen. Russell
Feingold Linn Washington, Jr. Michele Brand Fred Gardner Mitchel Cohen Mike Ferner David Swanson P. Sainath Mike Stark Missy Beattie Jonathan Franklin Website of the Weekend
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
February
10 /11, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Kevin Alexander Gray M. Shahid Alam Greg Moses Paul Craig
Roberts George Ciccariello-Maher Kevin Zeese Turner / Kim George Duke Walter Brasch Shepherd Bliss Missy Beattie Peter Harley Pat Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Conn Hallinan Gary Leupp Lee Sustar Nikolas Kozloff Newton Garver Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff David Swanson Website of the Day
February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh Marjorie Cohn Trish Schuh Ron Jacobs Laura Carlsen Ramzy Baroud Brenda Norrell Bryan Farrell Judith Scherr Website of
the Day
February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
the Day
February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
the Day
Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
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March 6, 2007 The Big Mouth of Israeli FascismThe Book of EsterinaBy URI AVNERY "Patriotism," said Dr. Samuel Johnson over 200 years ago, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel." If we substitute racism for patriotism, then we have a perfect match with the Esterina Tartman affair. She could have been a popular member of the Knesset. She belongs to a respected Oriental family (The Shabtai family, seven generations in the country). She is pretty and looks very much younger than her 50 years. She is the mother of four. She has recovered after a severe road accident. She appeared on the public stage at the end of the last Knesset, when she took the place of a deceased member. From the very first moment, she aroused strong feelings of rejection, disgust and even loathing. Why? Because she is a vulgar person. Her "big mouth" has become her trademark. Not only is she a member of Avigdor Ivette Liberman's nationalist-racist faction, "Yisrael Beitenu", which exudes the odor of fascism, but she herself is prone to voicing discordant opinions. Her rabidly racist speeches have won her headlines in the media, but repelled decent people on the Left and even on the Right. "An ax has been raised against the tree called Zionism", "The evil must be uprooted!" she declared after a Muslim-Arab had been appointed a minister for the first time. Such statements are probably music in the ears of Ivette Liberman (no one knows why his Russian or Moldavian first name sounds like a female French one.) So it was only natural that he decided to give Esterina the post of Minister of Tourism, which was offered to his faction. Since he is the sole leader of Yisrael Beitenu ("Israel is our Home"), that was enough. When asked how the decision was taken, he replied, with unintended irony, "democratically and unanimously." Unanimous" comes from "one mind", in this case his own. AND THEN, just a moment before the appointment was confirmed, it became known that the beautiful Esterina was a fraud, who claimed academic degrees which she had never been awarded. Also, it was discovered that, after her road accident, she had used dubious testimony in order to obtain compensation and incapacity-rates (52%) from the insurance companies. In another case, after hitting a pedestrian, she claimed that the victim had caused the accident intentionally, to gain compensation. The courts reprimanded her for this argument and took away her driving license for a long time. It was the academic titles that were her undoing. Actually, a Knesset member does not need any. I served in the Knesset three times without having finished elementary school. So, why did Ms Tartman add the bogus titles to her official biography? Just for her image's sake. For several days, the scandal outshone all the other affairs that make Israeli life so interesting: the sex scandal of the President, the fatal kiss of the (ex) Minister of Justice, the cloud of alleged corruption affairs that follows the Prime Minister wherever he goes, the alleged election bribes of the Minister of Finance, the widespread suspicions of bribery in the highest ranks of the Tax Authority, the resignation of the Chief-of-Staff after the Lebanon fiasco, the resignation of the Chief of Police because he did nothing about Mafia penetration of his organization. The Esterina Affair has even eclipsed another major new disclosure: that Ehud Olmert, in his former capacity as Minister of Industry and Trade, distributed jobs and other benefits to some 115 members of the powerful Likud Central Committee, of which he was then a member, in order to ensure his place on the party's list for the next elections. And indeed, how could such routine corruption compete with the juicy affair of the "Tartarina" (as she was dubbed by one Knesset member.) HOWEVER IT IS not the cheating of Tartman that is the main point, nor even her vulgar racism, but a nagging question: how could such a person (almost) become a member of the cabinet? True, the Minister of Tourism does not have a very important portfolio, but is still the equal of all the other members sitting around the cabinet table, with a vote on matters of peace and war. This vote can be decisive in sending thousands of soldiers and civilians to their death. The minister takes part in votes that decide the future of the state for generations to come. How could such a dubious individual ever reach such a high station? That is not a purely Israeli question. It has been raised in many other democracies, too. In the United States, the ministers are appointed by the president and serve only as his aides. If he wants, he appoints talented people. If he feels like it, he appoints perfect fools, cheats and fanatics. But the President himself, how is he appointed? He needs only one talent: to convince the electorate to vote for him. After being elected, he can surprise everybody and turn out to be a real leader, with vision and integrity (like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example), or he may turn out to be a charismatic con-man, a trickster devoid of values and principles (see some of the latest names in the media). Israeli democracy is based on a different system. Since no party ever wins an election outright, the prospective Prime Minister needs a coalition in order to put together a parliamentary majority. The ministries are distributed between the coalition parties as spoils of war. Only after the parties have been allotted their shares, each according to its strength, is it decided who shall actually occupy the seats. In a dictatorial party, like Yisrael Beitenu, it is the leader who hands out the jobs to his loyal supporters. In a democratic party, the winners are the politicians who have been most successful in accumulating power by intrigues, bribing colleagues and setting up inner-party power centers. AT NO stage of this process, does one particular consideration play any role at all: the ability of the candidates to direct the ministries they are fighting over. That is considered irrelevant. I remember a diplomatic party, shortly after Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister, where I met several of the ministers newly appointed by Barak. All of them were hopping mad. Shlomo Ben-Ami, a professor of history, an introverted intellectual with an interest in social theory and peace affairs, was exiled to the Ministry of Police. There he was responsible for the "October Events" of 2000, when the police shot dead a dozen Arab citizens. The Judicial Board of Inquiry reprimanded him harshly. Yossi Beilin, who had dreamed of the Foreign Office, a man of many political ideas (some good, some bad, some very bad), was sent to the Ministry of Justice, which did not interest him in the slightest. Barak treated the others in the same, almost sadistic, way. But why turn to the past - the present has enough examples to offer. As chairman of the Labor Party, Amir Peretz had a right to the most important ministry allotted to his party: Defense. His tenure there has turned into a pathetic farce (exemplified most vividly by the famous picture that shows the minister observing maneuvers through binoculars with the lenses still capped. The Foreign Minister, Tsipi Livni, is considered well suited for the job by her colleagues because other countries - the United States, the United Kingdom and Austria among them - also have female foreign ministers. She also has dealings with the female Chancellor of Germany and may soon - God willing - be meeting with a female president of France. Since assuming office, Livni has not started any initiative and not expressed any idea that would suggest that she has any vision at all. The Minister of Police is a former Shin Bet chief, and therefore sees the police as a force fighting enemies, rather than protecting citizens. He has shown his talent by appointing a new police chief, who has in the past been stigmatized in court as unfit to wear a police uniform. The new Minister of Justice, who has just been appointed, declares publicly that his main aim is to cripple the Supreme Court, the last bastion of democracy in Israel, because a female friend of his failed to be appointed to this august body. (His main ally in this noble endeavor was - surprise, surprise - MK Esterina Tartman.) And the appointment of Avigdor Liberman, the primitive racist bully, as minister in charge of dealing with the Iranian problem is like introducing a deranged elephant into a porcelain shop. And this government remains in power only because practically everybody believes that another one would be even worse. ISRAELI SOCIETY is vibrant, multi-faceted and rich in talents. It is prominent in many fields, such as the sciences, medicine, the world of computers and especially of start-up companies, the economy, literature, in several fields of the arts and some sports. Why, then, for Gods sake, does it elevate to the highest ranks politicians who are good for nothing? I have the impression that in other democracies, similar questions are being asked. There, too, a vicious circle is in operation: the political profession is debased, as a result, good people do not choose a political career, as a result, the political profession gets even more debased. According to a Hebrew proverb, "the trouble of others is half of a comfort". Not in this case. Israel is facing many problems, more than most democratic countries. It craves recognition from its neighbors. It must overcome the negative aspects that accompanied a hundred years of Zionist endeavor. It needs a settlement, peace and conciliation with the Palestinian people, and with the entire Arab world. It must cope with deep domestic schisms - between the secular and the religious, between the poor and the rich, between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority, between the various Jewish ethnic communities. In order to cope with these tasks, we need outstanding men and women, people with vision, integrity and talent. And, yes: patriots who are not refuge-seeking scoundrels. In short: men and women who
are the very opposite of Ivette and his Esterina. Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
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