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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! Hillary Clinton's Fatal Vices Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair dissect HRC in her White House years and conclude their series on the woman who may be the next president. PLUS Eva Liddell on the man who really set the course of the Bush presidency PLUS Andy Worthington on the battle for the rights of the Guantanamo detainees PLUS Debbie Nathan on what the border crackdown has done to the women crossing the Rio Grande. 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

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! Today's Stories September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z   August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest Paul Craig Roberts The War Criminal in the Living Room Ray McGovern Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran? Robert Weissman The Benchmarks Iraq is Missing Matt Vidal Subprime Lending and Shady Mortgages Robin Mittenthal The Biofuels Trap Chris Kutalik Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis Richard Forno Watching Freedom's Watch Binoy Kampmark Dianified Dave Zirin Kenneth Foster Lives Website of the Day Free the Jena 6   August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation             Subscribe Online

September 13, 2007 Gay Old Party Outs Itself While Many Ask, Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK Recent Republican sex scandals continue to function as amusing Weapons of Mass Distraction from ongoing Republican fiscal, diplomatic and military fiascos.  An intriguingly large portion of these scandals are gay, or, lest we offend those members of the Gay Old Party who prefer to define themselves as “not gay,” let us say that they are “homoerotic.” Just about all of those GOP public servants caught in the homoerotic act are screamingly homophobic. They also tend to be religious, often active religious leaders with wives and families and huge constituencies who speak out against same-sex marriage and express very little political tolerance for their openly gay brethren-in-desire. Take Our Man in the Men’s Room, Idaho Senator Larry Craig. He is, he assures us, “not gay.” And who are we to insist he is? After all, he could be bi. The soon-to-be former Senator has got three kids, all adopted from his wife’s first marriage. These adult children spoke “seriously” with Craig who stood firm on his position that he was “not gay,” and they believed him, at least enough to go on the talk shows, in hopes of salvaging their stepdad's considerable pension from the toilet. Craig's tap-dance with the cop takes this scandal-in-the-loo from tragedy to farce, and oh how the rabble loves a farce. Then there’s former New Life Church Pastor Ted Haggard. He’s also “not gay.” At least, he has been pronounced, by his counselor/minister Tim Ralph, to be “completely heterosexual,” which is, technically, even more "not gay" than "not gay." Pastor Ted does seem to have provided the sperm for his five kids. But his sexual relationship with male escort Mike Jones, as described in the book “I Had to Say Something: The Art of Ted Haggard's Fall,” was way too hot to simply cool down, at least not so fast. Pastor Ted was the quintessential hypocrite, preaching that homosexual acts were condemned by God even as he was committing them with a hooker, while snorting meth and grinning that big scary grin. But I must admit, Pastor Ted is so crazily charismatic and so flamboyantly gay, that I'm kind of hoping he "repents" by just admitting he's bisexual (or whatever he wants to call himself). Then his wife can say she's bi too, and then they'll both say being gay or bi is okay with God, and then they'll start a massive mega-church for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trannies and alt sex lovers in Boulder, Colorado. This could happen! If only... Former Florida Congressman Mark Foley was also "not gay," at least in the sense that most normal gay adults are not trolling for teenagers. Foley and Craig were both sacrificed on the altar of Republican purity. They were expendable liabilities that the GOP shed, like Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of strong winds to take his military to war. And despite the scandals, the winds of war still blow strong in America, under the reign of King George II, the chickenhawk, crotch-stuffed, frat boy exhibitionist who appears to be more narcissistic than gay, bi or straight, but then there are all those unaccounted overnight stays at the White House for gay-escort-cum-journalist Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert. Or was Gannon/Guckert's job to erotically discipline Karl  Rove? When you consider Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter and Lynn Cheney's lesbian lit, and, on the darker side, the homoerotic, deeply sadistic twists of all that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib POW Porn, overseen and often micromanaged right down to the women’s underwear by wresting addict Donald Rumsfeld, the whole Bush Crime Family seems as divinely gay and "not gay" as Christmas at Liberace's, or Ernst Rohm's. Nothing against gays or even closet gays. Some of my closest relatives, friends and favorite people are gay, and some of my best telephone sex therapy clients are closet gays. Of course, the closet gays tend to be the ones who say they're "not gay." And who am I to say that they are? Many of them have decent or even great sex with their wives or girlfriends. But their desire for some sort of carnal knowledge of the same gender occasionally and almost irresistibly asserts itself in various ways, at least in their minds, if not their actions. Their "sexual orientation" is complicated, much more complex than labels like “gay,” or "not gay," "straight,” "homosexual," "heterosexual" or even “bisexual” can convey. Some of these closet cases are powerful men with sensitive souls leading double lives. Some are hypocrites at the lowest rungs of the ethical ladder, overcompensating for their agonizing discomfort with their own desires for same-sex relations, their own tortured “gayness,” by attempting to punish and humiliate openly gay people. Closet gay overcompensation virtually ejaculates over the top when these tortured men channel their fear of being sissies into reckless military adventure and expenditure. As more and more stories of furtive man-to-man lust gush forth from our highest offices in the land, it becomes clear that a vast deeply closeted gay "conservative," usually (but not always) Republican network of political and religious leaders has held our nation in its sexual self-hating sadomasochistic thrall for some time. The twist on this Old Boys Network is that they don't actually have sex with each other (they prefer pageboys and hot Tearoom studs), but they do cooperate intimately when it comes to making "muscular" military policies that put other people’s loved ones in harm’s way while flying the flag of some macho ideal. If you want to stay in the closet, that's your business. And believe me, I cherish and uphold your right to privacy, gay or "not gay." But please don't become a public "servant," to punish the closeted side of yourself, as well as a lot of other people. Meanwhile, what about the fact that Dick Cheney's phone number is listed numerous times on the DC Madam's phone bill? Is the major media refusing to touch that because it's just "straight" sex? After all, Louisiana Senator David Vitter was only spanked, not sacrificed. Or is it because this Dick is just too big to expose? © September 12, 2007.  Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV hostand author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Her film “Blonde Island: Funk Me” is premiering at the LA Erotica Film Festival this Sunday at 3:30 pm.  Closet GOP Gays and all others over 21 are welcome.  Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/  Email her at liberties@blockbooks.com       Your Ad Here

New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"