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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! THE ORIGINS OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY "It was impossible to hold the line. All we got was a battering from the Jews." --John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, 1956 Read Harry Clark's devastating chronicle of how the Lobby humbled Ike, in our new CounterPunch newsletter. PLUS It'll be different under the Democrats? Think again, as Diana Johnstone returns to Kosovo. 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 Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair Catch Saul Landau in New York and DC

Today's Stories April 4, 2007 Joshua Frank Democratic Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering April 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn US's Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking Marjorie Cohn Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees Brian M. Downing The Army's Road to Iraq Corporate Crime Reporter Coddling Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower Carol Norris A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution Ralph Nader Tailpipe Blues Dave Lindorff I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million) Scott Bontz The Great Depletion Thomas Dolby Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem Website of the Day Cockburn on BookTV April 2, 2007 Gary Leupp A Bogus Hostage Crisis Uri Avnery Condi in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat James Petras Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster Norman Solomon McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps Robert Fisk War of Humiliation Stanley Heller A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey Sherwood Ross How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability Pay Monica Benderman On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart Stephen Fleischman Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System Anne McElroy Dachel Never Mind the Mercury Website of the Day Midwestern Common Sense on the War March 31 / April 1, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair That Was an Antiwar Vote? Fred Gardner How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast Cancer Greg Moses The Pirates of Homeland Security Gary Leupp 300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus) Robert Fisk Shakespeare and War Roger Morris The Politics of the Witch Hunt Conn Hallinan The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia Kristin J. Anderson A Protocol for Death Jason Hribal California's Most Unhappy Cows John Ross Strange Fruit Down South Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie, Lie Big David Underhill War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows Elizabeth Schulte The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster Ben Terrall Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti Missy Beattie Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah and the O-Word Sonja Karkar How Palestine Became Israel's Land Daniel Wolff Have You Heard the News? David Vest A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris Ron Jacobs Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet Poets' Basement Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau Website of the Weekend Kansas City Rocks   March 30, 2007 Alan Maass Oil and the Empire Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters Richard W. Behan George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon Gets Their Oil Gabriel Kolko Israel's Last Chance William S. Lind Operation Anabasis Stedjan / Weis The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World Kevin Zeese Is Bush Lame or Is Congress? David Busch Homeless in LA Fidel Castro Biofuels and Global Hunger CounterPunch News Service Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case Website of the Day Free Shaquanda Cotton March 29, 2007 Saul Landau Comparing Padillas Patrick Cockburn When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage Dave Lindorff War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran Arthur Neslen Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth Michael Dickinson Incident at Westminster Abbey Ingmar Lee Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia Aseem Shrivastava As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private Marlene Martin Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited Mahmoud El-Yousseph Wake Up, You Live in America! Michael Foley A Citizen's Peace Lobby Website of the Day Impeach Bush Club Parade 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     Subscribe Online

April 4, 2007 40 Years Ago Today Riverside Church Address Beyond Vietnam By Rev. MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr. To the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam Riverside Church, April 4, 1967, New York City, New York Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it's always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us. Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people? "they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church-the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate-leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans. Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath- America will be! Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam." It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954.* And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men-for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954-in 1945 rather-after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China-for whom the Vietnamese have no great love-but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives. For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization. After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones? We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers. Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call "VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of a new violence? Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition. So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands. Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred, or rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours. This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism. If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict: Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam. Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos. Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government. Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement. Part of our ongoing [applause continues], part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary. Meanwhile [applause], meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible. As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. [sustained applause] I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. [applause] Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. [applause] These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [applause], and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. [sustained applause] So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." [applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. [sustained applause] America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. [applause] War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy [applause], realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low [Audience:] (Yes); the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I'm not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word." Unquote. We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on." We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message-of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated: Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. * King says "1954," but most likely means 1964, the year he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

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