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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY Former top CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful it is. Read how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier, exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
Today's Stories May 27 / 29, 2006 Kathleen Christison May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Michael Dickinson Missy Comley Beattie Pierre Tristam Joe Allen Kona Lowell Roger Burbach Website of the
Day
May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Jeff Halper Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Bob Wing Elise Gould Robert Bryce Website of the Day
May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Lucinda Marshall Dave Lindorff Shmuel Rosner Moshe Adler Heather Gray Pratyush Chandra Paul Craig Roberts Floyd Rudmin Website of the Day
May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Sunsara Taylor Joel Whitney Alice Cherbonnier Ron Jacobs Kristen Ess Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 22, 2006 Alan Maass William Blum Elaine C. Hagopian Stan Cox Chris Floyd Alexander Cockburn Website of the Day
May 20 / 21, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Ralph Nader Hugh O'Shaughnessy Greg Grandin P. Sainath Greg Moses Stephen Philion Landau / Hassen Fred Gardner Missy Comley
Beattie Michael Dickinson Seth Sandronsky Luke Young John Zavesky Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
May 19, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler José Pertierra John Ross Dave Lindorff Jeff Juel Alan Farago Eric Johnson-DeBaufre José Martî Jonathan Cook Website of the
Day
May 18, 2006 Bill Simpich Patrick Cockburn Christopher Brauchli Nora Barrows-Friedman Victoria Buch Eric Ruder George Wuerthner Juan Santos Website of the Day
May 17, 2006 Lenni Brenner Carlos Villarreal Larry Everest CounterPunch News Service Lee Sustar Anthony Papa William S. Lind Bruce K. Gagnon JoAnn Wypijewski Website of the Day
May 16, 2006 Ward Churchill Ted Honderich Paul Craig Roberts Annie Nocenti Charles V. Peña Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Harvey Wasserman Michael George
Smith Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn William Blum Tanya Golash-Boza
and Douglas A. Parker Dave Lindorff Debra Schaffer
Hubert Patrick Cockburn Tom Turnipseed Ken Livingstone Gideon Levy Mickey Z. Jeff Faux Website of the Day
May 13 / 14, 2006 Vijay Prashad Joan Roelofs Kathy Kelly Michael Neumann Dr. Susan Block Daniel Cassidy Christopher Reed Mike Roselle Saul Landau Robert Fisk Ralph Nader Evelyn Pringle Fred Gardner Stanley Heller Conn Hallinan Valentina Palma Novoa David Krieger Col. Dan Smith Christopher Brauchli Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
May 12, 2006 Michael Snedeker Dave Lindorff Leah Fishbein
/ RJ Schinner Brian Kwoba Chris Kromm Kai Diekmann David Swanson Virginia Tilley Website of the
Day
May 11, 2006 Sunsara Taylor Jonathan Cook Tariq Ali Wayne S. Smith Mike Whitney Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Francis Boyle Edward S. Herman
/ David Peterson Website of the
Day
May 10, 2006 Werther Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri Ramzy Baroud Kevin Zeese Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Sharon Smith Website of the Day
May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern M. Shahid Alam Moshe Adler Walter MIgnolo Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor William S. Lind Todd Chretien Dave Lindorff Ishmael Reed Website of the
Day
May 8, 2006 Kate McCabe Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Ingmar Lee Robert Jensen Ricardo Alarcon Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 6 / 7, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair Ariel Dorfman Joe Allen Fred Gardner Jeff Taylor Saul Landau Stephen Philion Trish Schuh Ralph Nader Robert Fisk Paul Cantor John Holt James Ryan Lawrence R. Velvel Greg Moses Laray Polk Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Mickey Z. Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Week
May 5, 2006 Vijay Prashad Robert Fisk David Swanson Mearsheimer / Walt Dave Lindorff Sarah Ferguson CounterPunch
News Service Corporate Crime Reporter Website of the
Day
May 4, 2006 John F. Sugg Jonathan Cook Roger Burbach Chris Dols Christopher Brauchli Tony Swindell Website of the Day
May 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Paul Craig Roberts James Petras Lee Sustar David Bolton Joshua Frank Jeffery R. Webber Website of the
Day
May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Tariq Ali Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Sen. Russell
Feingold Anthony Papa Website of the
Day
May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Christopher Reed Michael Donnelly Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Gilad Atzmon Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
April 29 / 30, 2006 Peter Linebaugh Ralph Nader Robert Bryce Rev. William
Alberts Lee Sustar John Chuckman Eric Ruder Seth Sandronsky Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Fred Gardner Don Monkerud Tommy Stevenson Lettrist International Contratiempo St. Clair, Vest
and D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
April 28, 2006 James Ridgeway Ramzy Baroud Sarah Knopp William S. Lind Werther April 27, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Robert Fisk Juan Santos Robert Jensen Dave Lindorff Jose Pertierra
April 26,2006 Robin Philpot Sherry Wolf Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Gary
Leupp Bill
Quigley
April 25, 2006 Gary
Leupp Paul
Craig Roberts Linda
S. Heard Ralph
Nader Mike
Whitney Michael
Donnelly Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
April 24, 2006 Tim
Wise John
Stanton Dave
Lindorff Steve
Shore Amadou
Deme Mickey
Z. Ralph Nader Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day
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Weekend
Edition Taking Everything in Iraq, Again and AgainFear of FlowersBy KATHY KELLY Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. "Anfal." It means, "to take everything." In 1988, Saddam Hussein ordered a genocidal campaign, the Anfal Operation, against 4,500 defenseless Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. 180,000 people who couldn't escape are believed to have been buried in unknown mass graves. The Iraqi military deliberately contaminated water sources with TNT, cut down trees, and put TNT and land mines in the foundations of destroyed homes. For the past four days, we've listened to Azad, whose name means "the free person," pour out memories of what he endured during that time. "Inside, I am crying," says Azad, "remembering those awful days. We were shouting, crying, but nobody heard." He was twenty years old at the time. He worked as a nurse at a small surgical center in Takya, southwest of Sulaymaniyah. The Iraqi military attacked the city of Halabja with nerve gas on March 17th, 1988. 5,000 people were killed. Four days later, the Iraqi military shelled Takya. The surgical center staff worked frantically to save surviving villagers. Some came to their center, suffering from seizures, severe disorientation and other neurological effects of nerve gas. The health care workers took their tractor out to surrounding areas to try and rescue others. Then they organized everyone to flee as soon as possible. "Even the animals could sense something was happening," Azad recalls, marveling over the memory of animals following them out of the village. "Cats and dogs proceeded side by side, even though this is not their nature, with their tails hanging down." He and 14 other health care workers helped lead 600 people in a harrowing 760 kilometer escape over mountains, on foot, carrying only as much first aid and bits of bread as they could stuff into backpacks. The Iraqi military pursued them, by air and by land, shelling the defenseless evacuees with more chemical weaponry, which forced them to travel only at night, in total darkness. "We didn't even have one gas mask," Azad recalls. After the first chemical weapon attack, the health care workers realized they must inject themselves with atrophine sulfate so that they could help others survive. "The first dose had to be two milligrams," Azad explained. "You feel dizzy, your heart beats very fast, and your mouth becomes completely dry and numb so that you can't swallow. When a rash breaks out on your skin, then you know that the injection has succeeded." "All actions to save the patients had to be done immediately," says Azad, "or the patients would die." He learned to quickly dispense antidotes to nerve gas. Recalling theory that he'd studied in nursing school, he swiftly learned to deliver babies and, in one instance, to complete the amputation of a child's hand after a bomb had nearly severed it completely. Every waking moment was a matter of life and death emergency. "I would need days",
says Azad, "to describe one family. I will never forget
them." Azad remembers walking by night on the 10th of May when they were encircled by Iraqi military camps and had come upon Peshmerga troops following a 12 hour battle between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi military. The Peshmerga told them they could choose either to stay where they were and face almost certain death, or try to cross a road which required first climbing a slippery, steep cliff and then bolting across a road in hopes of not being seen. Peshmerga troops helped each of the people climb the cliff. They all crossed the road safely but then went the wrong way and were headed into the camp of Kurdish Iraqi military. The Kurdish Iraqi military shouted, "Don't come near the camp! If you do, we will start to shoot!" But then, to help them, they illuminated the route using flares. That same night, when they were walking in total darkness along a road, people in the front suddenly stopped. "Doctor, Doctor!" people whispered to him in alarm. "They need you in front. They smell something strange." He made his way to the front of the line. Because they were surrounded by military camps in the hills, they couldn't turn on a flashlight. He used his "locally" made mask, cupped his torch in his hand, and bent to smell the ground where people were pointing. "I told them, be quiet," said Azad, smiling softly. "We are safe. It's only flowers." He recalls another point when they came to a river with a very strong current. The Iraqi military had opened a dammed lake so that refugees would find it difficult to cross the rivers. But fishermen helped them by letting them use rafts they had fashioned by laying wooden planks across tires. After crossing the river, they rested for two days. But the Iraqi military began new chemical weapon attacks. There was no way to return and help the victims in the towns under attack. They had to press forward toward the Iranian border. The Iraqi military followed them, attacking first by chemical weapons and then by conventional means. Finally, in June of '88, they reached a refugee camp near Iran. Yesterday, Azad took us to a mountain top facing a series of mountain ranges where, before the Anfal Operation, Kurdish villagers had lived as farmers and shepherds. He pointed to an opening between two of the mountains, a gap which was the only route into the mountain valley where they had found protection from the Iraqi military attacks. We stood above a small cave. "Yes, we hid in caves like this and under trees, in the daytime," he said, "and then at night, single file, holding on to the belt of the person in front of us, we walked, trying to reach a road so that we could pass behind the mountain into a safer area. If it were not for that mountain, I would not be here." He stoops in front of a thorny weed. Now this is too ripe, but when these grasses are just growing in the springtime, you can peel the stem and inside it is very sweet. This is what we ate for one week." He repeats, several times, that he never would have imagined, during that time, when he could barely imagine living till the next day that he would one day stand on a mountain, free and safe, and point to the places where he lived through such horrors. Even now, people who were part of that journey sometimes spot Azad in the market or other public spots and race to embrace him, covering him with kisses. "Now we can hear each other's stories," Azad says as Azad says as he gazes at calm valleys where thousands of villagers once lived. "I hope the whole world can become like one village." And he hopes that his children will never fear the smell of flowers. Kathy Kelly is the author of Other
Lands Have Dreams and a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative
Nonviolence, a Chicago based campaign to end U.S. military and
economic war against Iraq, www.vcnv.org
She can be reached at: Kathy@vcnv.org
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |