Today's
Stories
January 16, 2007
Colonel Sam Gardiner
Escalation Against Ira
Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's Outrageous Threat
Saul Landau
Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2
Ron Jacobs
Welcome Back to 1965
Susan Block
From Snow-Job to Blow Job
Ken Couesbouc
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
Website Of the Day
Building Bridges Between Jew and Arab
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Nomads Beware!
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
December 30
/ 31, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
2006,
Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's
Year
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart
Paul Wolf
Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution
on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Executing
Saddam, Protecting the Rackets
Tariq Ali
Saddam
at the End of a Rope
Paul Craig Roberts
The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
Douglas Valentine
At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam
Brian M. Downing
The New Iraq Policy: Escalation
Michael Donnelly
Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case
Stephen Lendman
Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations
of Uri Dan
Fred Gardner
Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana
Bailly / Caudron / Lambert
Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad
Ralph Nader
The Prospects for Progressive Politics
Nick Dearden
The War on Terror Hits Africa
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins
of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights
Missy Beattie
In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War
Ron Jacobs
Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics
Dan La Botz
Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them!
Andrew Wimmer
An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007
Dr. Carol Wolman, MD
Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country
Martha Rosenberg
New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma
Dick J. Reavis
News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Listening to James Brown and His Followers
Poets' Basement
Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude
Music Video of the Weekend
"We're Winning the War on Drugs!"
December 29, 2006
Bill Quigley
A
Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in
Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in
New Orleans?
Norman Finkelstein
The Dershowitz Treatment
John Borowski
Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me
Abid Mustafa
The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan
Greg Moses
World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media
Blackout
Uri Cohen
Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine
Bailly / Caudron
/ Lambert
The
Secrets in Ikea's Closet
Website of
the Day
Justice for New Orleans
December 28,
2006
Norman Finkelstein
The
Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book
Anthony Cowell
Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads
John Ross
Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution?
Hilaria Cruz
I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner
Greg Moses
Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas
Brittany Bond
The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred
Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk
December 27,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Farewell
to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford
Faruq Ziada
Is
There a Sunni Majority in Iraq?
Christopher Brauchli
Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save
Your Life
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide?
Nikolas Kozloff
Saving
Caracas
Mark Schneider
Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism
December 26, 2006
Peter Stone
Brown
James
Brown: Please Don't Go
Tito Tricot
Chile: the Ghosts of Torture
Gary Leupp
Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission
John V. Walsh
Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again
Reza Fiyouzat
Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year
Ron Jacobs
The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin
Website of
the Day
JB:
Prisoner of Love
December 25, 2006
Saul Landau
A
Jeep Trip with Fidel
Lang / McGovern
To
Surge or Not to Surge?
Michael Dickinson
Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But
...
Website of
the Day
James Brown, RIP
December 23 / 24, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
What's
Going On?
Jeffrey L.
Gould
The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years
Diane Christian
The Rape of Iraq
William Loren
Katz
From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from
the First US Invasion
Greg Moses
This War Can't be Made Right by Winning
M. Shahid Alam
An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design?
Fred Gardner
Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press
Dave Lindorff
Crime of the Century
Azmi Bishara
Ways of Denial
Ralph Nader
The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football
Seth Sandronsky
Fiscally Imperiled Social Security?
William Hughes
Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest
Ron Jacobs
Making Stones Weep
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve
December 22,
2006
David Rosen
Bush's
Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front
Christopher
Brauchli
When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations
John Ross
Flashlights
in the Tunnel of Hate
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Political
Sell-Outs in Black and White
Rahul Mahajan
Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse?
Arthur Neslen
Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories
Peter Rost, MD
The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with
$198 Million
Website of
the Day
10 Ways to Change the World in 2007
December 21, 2006
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde
An
Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba"
Arundhati Roy
Breaking the News
Brian Cloughley
Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe
Daniel White
Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down
of That Itavia DC-9
John V. Whitbeck
On Israel's Right to Exist
Sam Smith
Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000
Paris Reidhead
GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar
Kevin Wehr
Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment
Website of the Day
Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database
December 20, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Rumsfeld
and the American Way of War
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq
Tariq Ali
The War is Lost
Saree Makdisi
Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter
Bruce Jackson
Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq
Leslie Radford
The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers
Dave Jansson
Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the
Empire
Johnny Barber
Jesus is a Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Is It for Freedom?
December 19, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Democrats
Prepare to Fund Longer War
Jonathan Cook
End
of the Strongmen
Greg Moses
Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto,
TX Jail
Sean Penn
Georgie,
There's a Crowd Downstairs
Dave Lindorff
Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming
Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists
Ralph Nader
Going
Postal
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Pink Tide?
Carlos Villarreal
The
Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out
Website of
the Day
Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon
December 18, 2006
Luis J. Rodriguez
En
Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson
Norman Solomon
Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks
for Nothing!
Uri Avnery
Lebanon: War Without a Plan
Ron Jacobs
More Troops, More Body Bags
Phil Gasper
Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its
Supreme Leader
William Blum
The United States of Punishment
Jim Goodman
So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
James Brooks
Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go
Maria C. Khoury
Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for
the Arts
Website of the Day
Got Powell
December 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Vijay Prashad
A
Perilous Way to Socialism
Saul Landau
Filming Fidel
Anthony Arnove
The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts
Paul Cantor
The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger
Annie Nocenti
Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes
Nicole Colson
Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record
Stephen Gowans
Tehran's Holocaust Conference
Jordan Flaherty
A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second
Looting of New Orleans
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life
P. Sainath
There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow
Seth Sandronsky
The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says
and Does
Nadia Hijab
An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow?
Deb Reich
Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands
Susie Day
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man!
Albert Wan
Why Does It Take 50 Bullets?
Missy Beattie
Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please!
Martha Rosenberg
Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives
Lee Ballinger
The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths
of the Yuma 14
Michael Dickinson
Kingdom of Fear
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis
Poets' Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
December 15,
2006
Eliza Ernshire
Palestinian
"Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration
Virginia Tilley
What
Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
Mike Ferner
Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em!
John Ross
Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse
Fred Wilhelms
The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes?
Kevin Zeese
Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War
Candidate in a Pro-War Party?
David Severn
Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire
Philantropist
Dave Lindorff
Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome
Sunsara Taylor
As American as Shopping and Torture
Website of
the Day
June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting
December 14,
2006
Jonathan Cook
The
Recognition Trap
Riz Khan
An Interview with Jimmy Carter
Jason Hribal
Kasatka, the Sea World Orca
Pennick / Gray
The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program
Richard Levins
That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money
Pat Williams
The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and
Pell Grants
Peter Rost, MD
Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys?
Website of
the Day
The Sound of Rummy
December 13,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is Beyond Repair
Greg Moses
The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost
Elizabeth Schulte
Hungry for the Holidays
Joshua Frank
Death By Coke
Debra Eschmeyer
Corporations Control Your Dinner
Leon Hadar
Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late
Peter Rost, MD
I've Been a Very Bad Boy
Margaret Knapke
Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté!
Reza Fiyouzat
Are Cows Free?
Fred Wilhelms
A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let
Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday!
Website of
the Day
The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
December 12, 2006
Fernando A.
Torres
The
Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of
Pinochet's Political Prisoners
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Injustice System is Criminal
Stephen Soldz
Abusive Interrogations
Uri Avnery
Baker's Cake
William S. Lind
Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq
Missy Beattie
Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN
Dave Lindorff
The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's
Tears
George Pyle
Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years
Norman Solomon
Is the USA the Center of the World?
Website of
the Day
Citizens' War Tribunal
December 11,
2006
Virginia Tilley
Banning
Mandela
Roger Burbach
The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US
Col. Douglas MacGregor
There's Only One Option Left: Leave!
Fawwas Traboulsi
Lebanon on the Brink
Ron Jacobs
Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet
Gideon Levy
The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle
Mary McGrane
Burning Books at Harvard Law
Bernardo Ruiz
The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
Website of the Day
La Cancion de la Unidad
Video of the
Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
December 9
/ 10, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Liberal
Consensus for More Troops in Iraq
Sen. Gordon Smith
Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk
Greg Grandin
Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
Ralph Nader
The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
Behrooz Ghamari
The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
Rev. Willliam Alberts
Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush
James T. Phillips
The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?"
Bennis / Leaver
A Bi-Partisan Occupation
Dave Lindorff
A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks
Nikolas Kozloff
Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America
Seth Sandronsky
Activating White Racism
Lucinda Marshall
McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth
Mike Whitney
Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
John V. Whitbeck
Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
Construct?
Hugh Sansom
Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times
Robert Gold
My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia
Boots Riley
Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel & Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
December 8, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal
Leutisha Stills
Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
Norman Finkelstein
The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter
Will Youmans
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
Cleanser
Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
Ray McGovern
Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
Lucinda Marshall
What She Wore
Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
John Lennon's FBI Files
December 7,
2006
Alex Friedman
Rev.
Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison
Industry
Maureen Webb
Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State
Paul Craig Roberts
Catastrophe Still Awaits
Dave Lindorff
Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
Matt Vidal
Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
Yifat Susskind
Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq
Rodriguez / Jones
NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell
Website of
the Day
2006, Remixed
December 6, 2006
Robert Bryce
Omitting
the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the
Iraq Study Group
William S. Lind
The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy?
Zoe Blunt
The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest
Corporate Crime Reporter
The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations
Amira Hass
A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian
Prisoners
Richard W. Behan
The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
Sophie McNeill
Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass
December 5, 2006
Virginia Tilley
Apartheid
Israel: a Beacon of Hope?
Sharon Smith
The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq
Joe Bageant
Somewhere a Banker Smiles
Ron Jacobs
A War Washington Can't Win
Norman Solomon
Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq!
Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
Everything ... "
Derrick O'Keefe
Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
Julian Assange
The Road to Hanoi
Missy Beattie
Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman
Website of
the Day
Lessons of Suez and Iraq
December 4,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Gaza
and Darfur
George Ciccariello-Maher
Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
Ray McGovern
Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
John Ross
Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Clueless Executives
Stephen Lendman
The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
Gideon Levy
This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames
Website of the Day
The "Babes" of Hizbullah?
December 2
/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
The
Dirty War of Oaxaca
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological
Ralph Nader
The Big Boys of Financial Crime
Winslow T.
Wheeler
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January 16, 2007
Gore Vidal in Havana
Part 2
By SAUL LANDAU
While tapes of the 81 year old Gore Vidal’s interviews with Cuban reporters played on Cuban TV, he had a private lunch with a retired Cuban diplomat and his wife, which offered Vidal some insight into the revolution.
“When I was five years old, my father would give me messages to take to comrades. The police wouldn’t bother a little kid, of course. So, you see, I grew up as a communist although I had no idea what it meant.” He laughed. Vidal nodded with a smile.
Then, at age 13, the Batista police caught him. He played ignorant, so they tortured him – beat him badly. He smiled as he told the story. “You see, I was always a revolutionary, even though I had little idea of what messages I was carrying. When you live under a repressive regime, you become a natural conspirator.”
His wife commented on how she spent her eight years in New York while her husband was stationed there as part of Cuba’s UN Mission.
“It wasn’t easy adapting with two kids to life first in Manhattan and then in Queens.”
Vidal soaked in their conversation and asked questions to draw them out.
The diplomat’s wife, a teacher, talked about how in the mid 1980s she had been called to Angola to teach the Cuban troops, how difficult life was and how honored she felt to be able to serve on “such a noble mission.” Her husband nodded. “If the Cuban and Angolan forces hadn’t intervened,” he added, “who knows what would have happened with South Africa, Angola and Namibia.”
He referred both to the initial Cuban military intervention in Angola in 1975, when Cuban forces stopped the CIA-backed counterrevolutionaries invading from the east and the South African forces from the South.
I had a flashback to March 1977, when Castro gave a detailed account to CBS correspondent Bill Moyers (who was filming a documentary on the CIA and Cuba) of how he and the other government leaders had decided to heed Angolan Prime Minister Agosthino Neto’s plea to intervene and save the former Portuguese colony’s newly won independence.
With a map (which said US Department of Defense), Fidel showed Moyers where Holden Roberto’s CIA-backed forces had moved and where the South African and mercenary army were heading. “Neto telephoned me and asked for military help. I conferred with my comrades on the Politburo and all agreed we should do it if possible. I also called (Prime Minister) Michael Manley in Jamaica, who also supported the move and offered Jamaica as a landing place. But that would not help us. Jamaica is very close to Cuba. Then, with Manley’s support, I called Forbes Burnham (PM of Guyana) and he offered us landing rights.”
Fidel scoffed at the notion – promoted by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -- that the Soviets had dictated the Angola intervention. “As our troops left on the refitted commercial planes for Luanda, my brother Raul took off for Moscow to inform the Soviets and ask for their help in providing military equipment.”
The Cuban troops stopped both invasions. Angola celebrated her independence in November 1975 and then got bogged down in a bloody civil war against UNITA, led by Jonas Savimba and financed by the CIA. The crucial battles, however, took place in 1987-88 at Cuito Cuanavale, in southern Angola.
The former diplomat evinced pride in the way Cuban and Angolan forces delivered devastating losses to the apartheid South African army.
Vidal agreed that these battles and not the supposedly brilliant diplomacy of State Department Africa specialist Chester Crocker convinced South Africa to abandon the strategy of maintaining puppet governments in her surrounding states. The military losses were too great. So, Namibia became independent, Angolan sovereignty was sustained and Nelson Mandela emerged from prison to become President. At his inaugural in May 1994, he whispered audibly in Fidel’s ear so that the TV microphones picked it up: “You made this possible.”
This glorious past in which Cubans changed the history of southern Africa had faded quickly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Mandela noted Cuba’s role in changing South Africa’s destiny. The fall of the Soviet Union changed Cuba’s trajectory.
It not only made overseas military expeditions virtually impossible, since the Soviets provided Cuba with significant help for such successful overseas operations, but it cut off the free oil and billions of dollars worth of other aid. Cuba’s foreign trade, mostly with the USSR and the Eastern bloc, spiraled downward.
The Cubans at the lunch table sighed nostalgically. They had lived fifteen years under the “special period,” during which the heady days of the revolution had turned into prolonged hard times. Lengthy blackouts occurred, during the mid summer heat so that not even electric fans could circulate the air. Added to this the state drastically cut down on what had been a guaranteed food supply. Cubans spent hours each day without running water. Rafters by the tens of thousands hit the water to seek better times in Florida.
Most Cubans toughed it out and gradually began to experience better times. But US policies that had from 1959 on aimed at destroying the revolution, intensified under George W. Bush’s two terms. Cuban leaders responded as always by taking whatever measures they thought necessary to deflect US hostility. As the revolution neared its 48th anniversary, and without a very sick Fidel active at the helm, what approach would the leaders take toward the colossus of the north?
In the evening of December 13, Gore Vidal, the former Senators, Jean Stein, Dennis Herrera, City Attorney of San Francisco, his assistants, Matt Tyrnauer from Vanity Fair, myself and the others met with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.
He told the group that Cuba wants to talk to the United States. The only condition: respect for Cuban sovereignty. In the course of the hour-long meeting it became obvious that Cuba had little to offer – other than total surrender. It could not offer to remove the embargo or travel ban from the United States, nor relinquish its naval base from US territory. The final meeting took place with a US diplomat. After a few minutes of small talk John Burton asked, “What did Cuba do to the United States?” Burton had previously talked about how China had killed thousands of US troops in the Korean War as had Vietnam in their war. Both of those countries were ruled by Communist Parties. “Christ,” Burton said. “Saudi Arabia doesn’t even have one party and they don’t let women drive.”
The diplomat fudged, claimed that Cuba’s problems came from its own conditions and were not the result of US policies.Burton repeated: “What did Cuba do to us?”
The diplomat continued to talk around the question, referring to Cuba’s poor human rights record.
Burton stood. “You’re not going to answer my question,” he snapped. “So, I’m leaving.” He nodded to Vidal and the others and walked out.
“He’s my kind of politician,” Vidal later remarked. “Alas, termed out of office!” He referred to California law that limits legislative office holding to three terms.
At the airport prior to departure for Cancun, one of the Cubans who had worked with the group nodded appreciatively toward Gore. “Why don’t people like Mr. Vidal get elected to office in your country?” he asked.
“Unfortunately,” I joked, “the American voters would probably consider him overqualified.”
Not getting my barb, he continued: “He has wisdom, something that seems so lacking in your political leaders.”
Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow. His FIDEL film is available on DVD. His new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD, with an introduction by Gore Vidal, will be published in February by CounterPunch Press.
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