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Today's
Stories
February 18,
2008
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
Dave Zirin
Instep Intifada
Saul Landau
The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln
Susie Day
Our Blob in the White House
Website of the Day
George Carlin on Voting
February 6,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Super
Tuesday's Vote for Chaos
Ben Rosenfeld
Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters
Vijay Prashad
An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out
Joe Bageant
Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
Michael Donnelly
What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths
Allan Nairn
Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion?
Kathryn Gray
Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit
Ray McGovern
Powell's UN Fiasco
Sheldon Richman
The Whining Empire
Paul Cantor
/ Roger Sparks
A
Presidential Aptitude Examination
John Chuckman
Political Bits and Pieces
Website of
the Day
Save the Albatross
February 5,
2008
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The
Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget
Tariq Ali
Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Soldz
The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize
War Crimes?
Chris Floyd
Strange
Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War
William S. Lind
Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win
Martha Rosenberg
Live From the Killing Floor
Heather Gray
Conversations with Georgia Voters
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics
David Macaray
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
Eliza Ernshire
Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run
Brenda Norrell
Hated Nation
Website of
the Day
The Things I Used to Do
February 4,
2008
Marc Levy
Winter
in America
Patrick Cockburn
The Bird Market Bombings
Saree Makdisi
Strangling Gaza
Uri Avnery
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Alan Farago
Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer
Ben Tripp
Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter
Paul Wolf
Civil Wars North and South
Paul Craig
Roberts
Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Joshua Frank
MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change
John Halle
Whither Progressive Democrats?
Website of the Day
How to Cheat in School
February 2
/ 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hot
Democratic Properties
Pam Martens
Bankers
Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense
Ralph Nader
The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked
John Ross
Hilaria
vs. "El Moreno"
Wajahat Ali
Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with
Imam Zaid Shakir
Robert Fantina
A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American
Empire
B. R. Gowani
Not All Veils and Guns
James L. Secor
China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow
John V. Walsh
The Invisible Green Primary
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble
Dave Zirin
Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul?
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater and Blood
Fidel Castro
Reflections on Lula
Joe Allen
Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War
Stephen Lendman
Life in Occupied Gaza
Patrick Irelan
What Happened to the Streetcars?
Andrej Grubacic
Ziga Vodovnik
Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Josh Karpoff
Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement
Ron Jacobs
Carl Oglesby's War
Paul Krassner
Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel
Website of the Weekend
Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart
February 1,
2008
Ray McGovern
The
Iniquities and Inequalities of War
Diane Farsetta
The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists
Tariq Ali
Et
Tu, New York Times?
Allan Nairn
Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti
Rannie Amiri
Collective Punishment in Beirut
Ramzy Baroud
People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It
Kenneth Couesbouc
The Mother of All Snowballs
Peter Morici
Recession Looms
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro
Rosemary Jackowski
27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President
Scott Campbell
Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges
Website of the Day
Betes et Hommes
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
Andy Worthington
Horror at Guantánamo
Mike Whitney
Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System
Jeff Ballinger
Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the
"Suharto of the Steppe"
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
The Saga of the Freightliner Five
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
Alan Farago
Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble
Col. Dan Smith
Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget?
China Hand
Slouching Toward Islamabad
Dave Lindorff
The Usual Suspects Once Again
Wadner Pierre
Fake Democracy in Haiti
Website of the Day
One Big Union
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
January 26
/ 27, 2008
Uri Avnery
Worse
Than a Crime
JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina
Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!
John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico
Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred
by California Supreme Court
Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death
Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic
Meltdown
James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home
Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants
Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"
Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia
Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis
Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten
Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
City of Immigrants
January 25,
2008
Douglas Valentine
Operation
Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA
Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina
Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with
South Carolina Voters
Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA
Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear
Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom
Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada
Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron
Website of the Day
The FIX is In
January 24,
2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama
as Anthologist of Uplift
Paul Craig
Roberts
President Hillary
Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her
Nursing Home Scam?
Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus
Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!
Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken
George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands
Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium
Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?
Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?
Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King
Website of
the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation
January 23,
2008
David Rosen
The
Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics
of Sex
David Isenberg
Is
It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons
Program?
Farzana Versey
Hillary's
Harem
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?
Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights
Activist
Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold
Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back
Norman Solomon
The Power of Love
Website of the Day
Rafah Today
January 22,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Farewell
to Old Economic Nostrums
JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina
Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a
Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada
Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon
Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword
Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap
Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction
Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box
Don Fitz /
Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform
Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness
Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Website of
the Day
Defend the Mapuche!
January 21,
2008
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Playing
the Race Card
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy
Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up
David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?
Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking
Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide
Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.
B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images
Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy
Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA
Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!
Website of
the Day
Destroyed
By a Rising Flood
January 19
/ 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Campaign in Black and White
Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War
China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?
Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?
Ron Jacobs
No Retreat
Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess
Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture
Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think
Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics
Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide
Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki
Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit
Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade
David Michael
Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection
Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King
Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff
Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson
Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain
Blues
January 18,
2008
Allan Nairn
Killing
Civilians, Carefully
Ralph Nader
When
the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?
Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention
Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown
P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins
R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism
Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo
John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan
Women's Prison
Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?
Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines
January 17,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Leader
and Vassal
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due
Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times
Patrick Irelan
Eternal War
Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"
Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment
Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours
Adam Federman
End of the Left?
Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney
January 16,
2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Return
of the Native
Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina
Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?
Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?
Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation
Andy Worthington
A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo
Richard Behan
Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!
Website of the Day
Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!
January 15,
2008
Andrea Peacock
Breach
of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing
Poison Into Libby's Wounds
Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy
and the Prospects of War with Iran
Joe Bageant
Getting Out the Bling Vote
Ralph Nader
The Candidate Taboos
John Ross
Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified?
Peter Morici
The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy
Beena Sarwar
Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade
Robert Weissman
Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought
Binoy Kampmark
Going Tata in India
Dave Zirin
Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame
Website of
the Day
David Lynch on the iPhone
January 14,
2008
Ishmael Reed
Ma
and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man
Roger Morris
Burials in the Sind
Uri Avnery
The
Hands of Esau
Mike Whitney
Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package
Allan Nairn
General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million
Corpses
William Blum
Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us
Alan Farago
A Subprime Wake Up Call
David Macaray
Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time?
Eva Liddell
Getting Drunk with Obama
Zoe Blunt
Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons
Website of the Day
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies
January 12
/ 13, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
How
the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian
Deaths
Saul Landau
60
Years of Empire
Corey D. B. Walker
Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual
Col. Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot
Eric Toussaint
The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global
Ron Jacobs
Television, Murder and Vietnam
Fred Gardner
The People vs. Christopher James Chakos
Stan Cox
Don't Take That Pill!
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Warfare State
Ramzy Baroud
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joseph Grosso
The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites
David Díaz-Arias
Imagining An/Other Latin American Left
Stacey Warde
Before We Move On ...
Dan Bacher
Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt
Michael Dickinson
Georgie in Jesusland
Website of
Weekend
CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices
January 11,
2008
Dave Lindorff
Did
Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold
Voting Machines
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Escape from War and Unemployment
Andy Worthington
Six Years of Guantánamo
Kenneth Couesbouc
Banking on Thin Ice
Jeff Ballinger
Inside the Vienna Consensus
Christopher
Brauchli
Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns
Andrew Silverstein
Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem
Marwan Bishara
Bush in the Middle East
Robert Weissman
The First Amendment Gone Wild
Patrick Irelan
Damn the Small Boats!
Website of
the Day
Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She
Loses
January 10,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Now
Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards
Bob Wing
Marqueece Harris-Dawson
Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom
Bradley
Michael Donnelly
White Women Gone Wild?
David Macaray
Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions
China Hand
Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries?
Rannie Amiri
Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya?
Website of the Day
Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident
January 9,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation
John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada
James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006
Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic
Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?
William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq
Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters
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February
18, 2008
Independence in
the Brave New World Order
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
Across this last weekend, the Western
propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest
NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian
Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used
the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp
Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed
by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national
liberation".
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo,
the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall
know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad."
Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand
as the tsunami of propaganda comes thundering in. The truth
is available--for instance in George Szamuely's thoroughly informative
piece last Friday here on CounterPunch.
Fragments of the truth sometimes even show up in the mainstream
media, mostly in letters from readers. But hopeless as it is
to try to turn back the tide of officially endorsed legend, let
me examine just one drop in this unstoppable sea of propaganda:
a column by Roger Cohen entitled "Europe's new state",
published in the Valentine's Day edition of the International
Herald Tribune.
Cohen's op ed piece is fairly
typical in the dismissive way it deals with Milosevic, Russia
and the Serbs. Cohen writes: "Slobodan Milosevic, the late
dictator, set Serbia's murderous nationalist tide in motion on
April 24, 1987, when he went to Kosovo to declare that Serbian
'ancestors would be defiled' if ethnic Albanians had their way."
I don't know where Roger Cohen
got that quotation, but it is not to be found in the speech Milosevic
made that day in Kosovo. And certainly, Milosevic did not go
to Kosovo to declare any such thing, but to consult with local
Communist League officials in the town of Kosovo Polje about
the province's serious economic and social problems. Aside from
the province's chronic poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement
of development funds contributed from the rest of Yugoslavia,
the main social problem was the constant exodus of Serb and Montenegrin
inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At the time,
this problem was reported in leading Western media.
For instance, as early as July
12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New York Times
that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because
of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic
Albanian majority:
"The [Albanian] nationalists
have a two-point platform," according to Beci Hoti, an executive
secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, "first to establish
what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then
the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed
concern voer political pressures that were forcing Serbs to leave
Kosovo. "What is important now," he said, "is
to establish a climate of security and create confidence."
And seven months after Milosevic's
visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times
(November 1, 1987):
Ethnic Albanians in the Government
[of Kosovo] have manipulated public funds and regulations to
take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox churches
have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have
been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed,
and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders
to rape Serbian girls.
The goal of the radical nationals
among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania
that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of
southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself."
As Slavs flee the protracted
violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists
have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since
the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981--an
"ethnically pure" Albanian region
This was in fact the first
instance of "ethnic cleansing" in post-World War II
Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other
Western media, and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of "memory"
has become a contemporary religion, but some memories are more
equal than others. In the 1990s, the New York Times evidently
forgot completely what it had said about Kosovo in the 1980s.
Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had collapsed
and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer
in the strategic interest of the United States.
Back to Milosevic in Kosovo
Polje on April 24, 1987. An incident occurred when local police
(under an Albanian-dominated Communist League government) attacked
Serbs who had gathered to protest lack of legal protection. Milosevic
famously told them, spontaneously: "No one should beat you
any more!" If this is "extreme nationalism",
perhaps there should be more of it.
But nowhere do I find a trace
of the statement attributed to Milosevic by Cohen. In his speech
to local party delegates that followed, which is on the public
record, Milosevic referred to the "regrettable incident"
and promised an investigation. He went on to stress that "we
should not allow the misfortunes of people to be exploited by
nationalists, whom every honest person must combat. We must
not divide people between Serbs and Albanians, but rather we
should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle
for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other
hand, counter-revolutionaries and nationalists."
I turn again to Aldous Huxley
for comfort: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are
ignored."
But Huxley also said: "Great
is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view,
is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects...
totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more
effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations."
Last Tuesday in Geneva, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to convey to journalists
his grave concern about the way the United States was handling
the Kosovo problem.
"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations
and principles of international law, which have been won and
established as a basis of Europe's existence at huge effort,
and at the cost of pain, sacrifice and bloodletting," he
said.
"Nobody can offer a clear plan of action in the case of
a chain reaction [of further declarations of unilateral independence].
It turns out that they [the United States and its NATO allies]
are planning to act in a hit or miss fashion on an issue of paramount
importance. This is simply inadmissible and irresponsible,"
the Russian diplomat said. "I sincerely fail to comprehend
the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those Europeans
who have taken up this position," he added.
Roger Cohen dismisses such
considerations in five words: "the Russian bear will growl".
Russia, he adds, "will scream. But it's backed the wrong
horse." There are no issues here, no principles. Just
growling and gambling. "Milosevic rolled the dice of genocidal
nationalism and lost", says Cohen.
This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless
metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist
movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania,
the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression
by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government.
Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied
too heavily on military superiority rather than on political
skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal
for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges
of "genocide" against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the
simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such
a charge.
Milosevic is no longer alive,
and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live
in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care
of that problem in a few words: "Some of the 120,000 Serbs
in Kosovo may hit the road."
As Aldous Huxley pointed out, "The propagandist's purpose
is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of
people are human."
Then you can tell them to "hit the road".
The "Unique"
Case
Russia has warned that Kosovo
independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other
ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and
demand secession and an independent State. The United States
has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is
"unique". Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is
the only one recognized by the United States until the next
"unique case" comes along. When legal criteria have
been thrown out, we just have one "unique case" after
another.
The "uniqueness"
claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It
is based on the supposed "uniqueness" of Milosevic's
repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not
unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout
history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable,
no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the
similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations
in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern
Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more
civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected
government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.
The propaganda "uniqueness"
is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed
unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext
for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of
empire.
To know how a place is unique,
you have to be interested in it.
I have not visited Kosovo since
before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I
drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense,
just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because
of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of
local drivers' habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and
curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok,
this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on
collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane
highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.
Unable to proceed toward Pristina,
I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace
of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone
waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted
my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass
after glass of delicious strawberry juice.
Milomir was happy to talk to
someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited
as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel,
but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to
support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to
university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok.
As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs
anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue,
Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature)
and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in
order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.
But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much
in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo
should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this
was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused
to speak Serbian and learned English instead.
The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar
River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming
from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial
lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to
stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the
Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about
this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score
of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population.
The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled
the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There
were about 10,000 of them.
This was a minor example of
the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population
during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running
the province through the local Communist League.
Milomir was not complaining,
but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by
bus--he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because
he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a
fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians
in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.
While we were chatting, a friend
of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There
was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted
to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in
the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic,
and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream
of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader
of the Radical Party.
Zubin Potok
Today
I have no idea what has become
of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin
Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated
north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population
of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages)
has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately
14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from
other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven
them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians.
The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica's
Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian
representatives.
Up until now, schools, hospitals,
and other public services, as well as the local economy, have
continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade.
The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create
a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies--which,
however, an "independent Kosovo" is unable to replace.
Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that
Zubin Potok "is Albanian" and must be "liberated
from the Serbs". They can be seen on You Tube, using the
Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian
rap.
The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But
the "order" they claim to be protecting is the one
defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to
people like Milomir and his little family?
For Roger Cohen, the answer
is easy: "hit the road!"
Serbia, by the way, already
has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of "ethnic
cleansing" in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get
visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled
the "bad guys". Only their enemies can be "victims".
Before
and After
Kosovo before the NATO war
and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The
accusation of "apartheid" was simply Albanian propaganda,
as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged
term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions.
Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason,
whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime,
was described as a "human rights violation" by the
Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.
It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav
governments allowed an illegal separatist "government of
Kosovo", headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center
of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling
them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.
But the laws were the same
for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and
in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in
what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians
at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.
Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians.
Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was
the Albanians who were under threat of "ethnic cleansing"
(much less "genocide"). Such a project was simply,
obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid,
who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the
means, or who spoke bravely of remaining "no matter what".
Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians
fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight
from the war theater was presented as the justification for the
bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on
the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.
In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina
and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds
me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A
gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language,
and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are
excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way
toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of "mobbing"
was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the
territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval
of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring
of 1999.
Of course, there must have
been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience,
what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among
Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity.
Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian
explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many
children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must
be God's way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity
during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her
fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.
The divine punishment has not
been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner
of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain
people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like
most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this
is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is
agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since
NATO "liberation". Pressure and intimidation have taken
various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant
homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money
for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities
have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the
Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian
mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee.
Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank
in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate
in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions
that allowed local Gorani to survive.
As usual, the crime went unpunished.
David Binder, who used to report
on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded
for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation
of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr.
The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments,
while publicly claiming that Kosovo is "ready for independence",
know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder
reports:
The institute authors, Mathias
Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts
and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study.
In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting
of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a "turnabout
in Kosovo-Albanian social structures." The result is a "civil
war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated
and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in
a rapidly constructed soldateska."
"It is a Mafia society"
based on "capture of the state" by criminal elements.
In the authors' definition,
Kosovan organized crime "consists of multimillion-Euro organizations
with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise." They
quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties
between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal
class" and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit
Haliti as compromised leaders who are "internally protected
by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law."
They scornfully quote the UNMIK
chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj
"a close and personal friend." The study sharply criticizes
the United States for "abetting the escape of criminals"
in Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators
from working."
It notes "secret CIA detention
centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military
training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized
by the Pentagon.
In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of
the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, "The main task
of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj."
Who Goes
and Who Stays
Schook has been fired by UNMIK,
but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken
over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU "mission"
is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans
to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already
movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next
"war of liberation" against the Europeans.
So, after the Serbs, the Roma,
the Gorani, will the Europeans have to "hit the road"?
Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their
gigantic "Camp Bondsteel", they control the strategic
routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass
of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities,
notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces
in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The reality of this shameless
land-grab is available to all. I have written about it, Binder
has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many Germans
have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians,
the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave
New World Order, it does not exist. People don't know.
I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:
"Most ignorance is vincible
ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."
(* The Binder story can be
found at http://www.balkanalysis.com/)
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools'
Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion (Monthly Review
Press.) She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
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