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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 June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley David Peterson Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Paul Rockwell Clifton Ross Kevin Zeese Website of the
Day
May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz P. Sainath Ramzy Baroud Seth Sandronsky Mickey Z. Ralph Nader Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp John Ross Robert Jensen Michael Dickinson Michael Carmichael Tim Wise Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 27 / 29,
2006 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Kathy Kelly Christopher
Reed Lawrence R. Velvel Tom Barry Gary Leupp Col. Dan Smith Ron Jacobs Don Fitz Fred Gardner Peter Montague Raymond Garcia John Farley Seth Sandronsky Tia Steele Lenni Brenner Dr. Susan Block Scott Michael Perey Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Recipe of the
Weekend Website of the Weekend
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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June 2, 2006 Learning from the Courage of AliRight LivelihoodBy KATHY KELLY Irbil, Iraq. Earlier this month, I visited a center in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq which has, since it began in 1991, helped survivors of land mine detonations and other war related injuries gain a new lease on life. On the walls of the Emergency Rehabilitation Center are small photos of people whom the staff has treated, over the years, with surgery, physical therapy and prosthetics. Workshops train people in carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking and other skills so that people can return to their homes with a new vocation. Several of the therapists and technicians were maimed by weapons. They adamantly oppose war as a means to solve disputes. The staff's dedication and the familial atmosphere at the center give many people hope in a dark time. They gave hope to Ali, an 11 year old boy who was severely injured by accident. While he was climbing a high voltage tower, the power was turned on. Electricity surged through his body, leaving him armless. It seemed a miracle that he survived. He is bright, energetic, and thoroughly engaging. His mother, who is Kurdish, beamed with energy and pride as she helped Ali cope with physical therapy. She saved her tears until he was out of sight. Ali's father, an Arab Iraqi, has taught Ali to speak both Arabic and Kurdish. Ali helped me practice my fledgling language skills over the course of a few days. But mostly, from Ali, I learned about courage. One day, as technicians at the center showed me a video about one of their "success stories," Ali walked into the room. He climbed up on the chair where I sat, and immediately grew curious about the 28 year old man, in the video, who was struggling to use his artificial limb, with a spoon inserted in the plastic hand, to feed himself. I glanced at Ali's face several times, anxious that he might feel frightened or overwhelmed. First he was curious, and then clearly taken aback as he stared at the man's repeated failures to bring the spoon to his mouth. Ali quickly realized that he would face this challenge. Suddenly he sat up straight, nodded his head eagerly, and then smiled with delight when the man on the video succeeded in feeding himself. The next day, Ali was fitted with an artificial limb. Within hours, he proudly posed for a picture that shows him putting a spoon in his mouth. Just before I headed off to visit this Rehab center renowned for helping victims of war, I received a letter from Brian Willson, a U.S. Viet Nam veteran who, unlike Ali, received horrible wounds from direct military action. He received these wounds from the U.S. military, on American soil. Here is how he remembers September 1, 1987:
Ever since, Brian Willson has bravely "walked the talk," although he must do it on two artificial legs, traveling all over the world to campaign against weapons and war and the voracious resource consumption, chiefly by Western nations, which spurs so many of the world's conflicts. In more recent years, Brian has, with impeccable logic, started staying closer to home to avoid consuming more than his fair share of energy resources wasted in nonessential air travel. By living simply, while working hard for justice, he aims to attain what he calls "right livelihood." Brian and his community are striving to consume services and goods that originate in their own local bioregion. Voluntary simplicity, for them, includes refusing to pay taxes, even if that requires living under the taxable income level. They work toward dramatic reduction in use of petroleum for transportation, and they increase their use of solar energy for hot water and electricity. The community is experimenting with creating its own internal currency and has formed a local "peak- oil" action group to alert others to the dire and permanent energy crisis expected when oil reserves start to be exhausted. Now Brian, at age 65, is in training for a 1200-mile-round-trip journey from his northern California home to the national Veterans for Peace conference this August in Seattle. He's going to use a hand-pedaled recumbent tricycle. "I don't know whether I can do it," he writes. "I'll let you know when I get there." But his main purpose in writing to me concerned my capacity to "walk the talk." Brian quoted from an article I recently wrote urging U.S. people to slow down and think about where our country is going, to feel remorse for suffering caused in Iraq, to try and stop the flow of funds for the war, and to demand that the U.S. pay reparations to Iraq. Brian urged me to "jack up" my prescription for what people can do in response to the reckless direction in which our country is headed. Brian is right. We can't control the U.S. government.
It is every bit as reckless as the train which ran over Brian
Willson. (This train was believed to be carrying white phosphorus
something like powdered napalm-for use in the dirty wars
in or own hemisphere). But we can control our personal budgets.
Brian suggested asking people to stop fuelling "the train."
If we can't control our own government, can we at least stop
actively helping it? For most of us who have entered into adulthood,
the U.S. government doesn't want our bodies fighting in the war;
they don't even care very much about our consent. They do want
our labor, and our money. What right do we have to keep giving
it to them? Generally, audiences applaud. Almost always, a questioner will ask: "How do you avoid paying taxes?" I advise people to visit the National War Tax Refusal Coordinating Committee website, www.nwtrcc.org, and to order the fifteen dollar manual called "A Guide to War Tax Refusal." I urge them to study the manual and then download four pamphlets that offer a practical guide to war tax refusal. I insist they must get in touch with the nearest war tax refusal counselor before embarking on what is, admittedly, a difficult route. But I also hold that if we oppose the U.S. government by refusing to fund U.S. war making, the risks are not that high. For several years now, the U.S. has stood on the precipice of all out devastation-of itself and of the world. Throughout modern history people faced far more dire personal circumstances to resist injustices and calamities like those we are tacitly helping our leaders foment. They faced dreadful risks to resist oppression in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa, and in the Jim Crow South of the U.S. (and its horribly segregated Northern counterpart). The risks we face for nonviolent resistance are comparatively trivial. If we refuse to pay our taxes for imperial war, we won't be disappeared by a death squad. We won't be lynched or shot. Our families won't be massacred. People ruthlessly crushed by U.S. foreign policies, beyond our borders, faces such risks. For us, the risk of continued collaboration with the reckless group of warmongers currently leading the U.S. is, however, extremely high. We fear terrorism. And yet, with our ongoing, unlimited war of U.S. "wholesale" terror against reactive "retail" terror we are creating new, more committed, more dangerous terrorists much faster than we can kill them. But the greatest terror we face is the danger caused by what we're doing to our own environment. We pour pollutants into the air, water and ground, seed the planet with festering hatred and relentlessly deplete irreplaceable natural resources. In his letter to me, Brian Willson recommends calling for massive and permanent presence of people in particular locations who will not move until the war ends and money is redirected to social needs at home and reparations in Iraq, similar to Martin Luther King's prescription for a permanent "Resurrection City" in Washington, D.C. Many are now planning or enacting such projects, and yet we must become many more than we are now. It's easy to feel daunted by
the tasks ahead. But Ali's responses to extraordinary challenges
could guide us: straighten up, smile eagerly, catch courage from
one another, and use our gifts to start over, to gain a new lease
on life.
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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. |