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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 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Roger Burbach
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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May 26, 2006 My Lai, IraqThe Few, the Proud, the MurderersBy PIERRE TRISTAM Of course the first line of defense, for those craven enough to defend atrocities just because Americans commit them, is to say that Iraqis do worse. And in fact the U.S. military, after lying about the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last year, then lying about the number of Iraqis killed, then covering up the massacre until a Time magazine article made it impossible to keep lying, attempted that very line of defense: As Time reported in March, "Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of [military investigators] does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who "placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the M! arines responded to defend themselves.'" All lies, of course. There were no insurgents hiding among civilians. There w as no crossfire. The Marines weren't defending themselves. They were out on a rampage, murdering at point-blank leisure, logding bullets in the heads of women and children, My Lai-style. There is one buried quarter truth in Michelle Martin's official story (odd, how her name rhymes with the name of that most craven of right-wing bloggers, to whom apologizing for brutality, as long as it's camouflaged in stars and stripes, is a back-seat shtick), though it doesn't justify what happened in Haditha: When you train men not only to kill but to become sub-human drones who dehumanize their enemy in turn, and when you place them in situations where they want to see nothing but sub-human creatures, you can't expect them not to act the part they've been trained to act! . I keep remembering that Bob Herbert column in the Times last May, relating the story of Aidan Delgado, a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq: "He wasn't happy when, even before his unit left the states," Herbert wrote, "a top officer made wisecracks about the soldiers heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans. "He laughed,' Mr. Delgado said, "and everybody in the unit laughed with him.' The officer's comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads.' He said he had confronted guys who were his friends about this practice. "I said to them: "What the hell are you doing? Like, what does this accomplish?' And they responded ju! st comp letely openly. They said: "Look, I hate being in Iraq. I hate being stuck here. And I hate being surrounded by hajis.'' "Haji' is the troops' term of choice for an Iraqi. It's used the way "gook' or "Charlie' was used in Vietnam. Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong." The banality of evil doesn't have to rise to the level of genocide to find its stage. To the contrary. Evil at its most routi ne is localized affair, the more debased for being either completely out of sight and accountability, or for being tacitly, happily condoned by its execut ioner's posse. The Haditha massacre stands out only because in its case someone was there to report it. But who doubts that these atrocities aren't routine, or that a soldier's swift kick in the chest of a six year old boy is any less of an atrocity, considering what that soldier would do to an adult if can be such a brute toward children? What's almost as repulsive, though in this case only ink is being spilled, not blood, is the way the subsequent reporting about the massacre is being laid out. The New York Times this morning, with its usual, but in this case nauseating, restraint in balance's name, pulls a classic example of mitigating atrocity with qualifiers. The lead paragraph refers to a small number of marines carrying out "extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians," establishing right away the rogue-soldier theory that was attempted in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib. The downplaying of U.S. torture as an institutional rather than ! an exce ptional strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan was successful, at least in the public's mind. The evidence suggests otherw ise. It does so as well when it comes to wanton killings, whether it's the trigger-happy soldiering at Iraqi checkpoints or the killing of civilians in allegedly collateral circumstances. Yet you can see the Haditha massacre's dowplaying game already in full swing. The Times has the story over two columns above the fold, but to the left of a four-column spread about the Enron verdict. Enron is news. It isn't bigger news than the massacre of twenty-four Iraqis at the hands of U.S. marines. Not by any stretch of journalistic calibration. But such are the tastes for news in the United States that business porn will always outplay patriotism's barbarity. Americans don't want to know what their soldiers are doing in their name in Iraq. The cost to Iraqis is immense. It's more devastating, especially in human terms, than anything Enron ever did. But it's safer to focus on old-fashioned homegrown corruption and malfeasance. In that sense Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are doing the American public a favor, in distractions and entertainment, and the public is grateful. They may be bad guys, but they're our bad guys, and they! 're pro v iding cover for what our supposedly good guys, our supposedly heroic soldiers, under the leadership and don't-mess-with-Texas-encouragement of their apologist-in-chief, are doing in Iraq. For the record, the Los Angeles Times' lead about the massacre had none of the New York Times' daintiness. It was to the point: "Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found." One more point about the Times story. The very last paragraph raises the prospect of yet another massacre, though it reads like an afterthought: "The Marines also disclosed this week that a preliminary inquiry had found "sufficient information' to recommend a criminal probe into the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 near Hamandiyah, a village west of B! aghdad. " But isn't the uncovering of atrocity always an afterthought, if even that? Pierre Tristam is a columnist and editorial writer
at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, and editor of Candide's
Notebooks, a Web site. Reach him at ptristam@att.net.
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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. |