home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter A Just Settlement for the Middle East Our new CounterPunch newsletter, just out, offers Michael Neumann's plan for a just settlement in the Middle East. Manuel Garcia concludes his widely applauded primer on the laws of physics and the myths of conspiracists by explainging the not-so-mysterious collapse of WTC 7. 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 towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories November 30, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Confirmation Hearings as Kabuki Dance November 29, 2006 Glen Ford Barack Obama and the Winds of War Chris Sands Blood, Snow and NATO: the Latvian Summit Viewed from Afghanistan Rochelle Gause Dispatch from Oaxaca: Where Murderers Still Stalk the Streets, Protected by Police Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Physics of 9/11 Norman Finkelstein HRW's Shameful Press Release on Palestine Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Shell Game: the Contraction Begins Gary Leupp CIA Report: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program Joe DeRaymond From Norman Morrison to Malachai Ritscher: Self-Immolation as Anti-War Protest Christopher Fons Prostituting Democracy: History, Latvia and Bush's Night on the Town in Riga Sibel Edmonds Auctioning Off Former Statesmen and Dime-a-Dozen Generals Website of the Day Bombing a Mosque   November 28, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq Nears the "Saigon Moment" Winslow T. Wheeler SASC-ing Robert Gates Michael Ratner The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld: a Q&A John Ross The War on Rebel Journalists Molly Secours Racism Kills: From Michael Richards to the NYPD Peter Rost, MD Big Pharma and "the Pill": Profits, Branding and Experimentation on Women Lucinda Marshall War Chic Website of the Day "Action" in Iraq   November 27, 2006 Kathleen and Bill Christison Genocide or Erasure of Palestinians: Does It Matter What You Call It? Uri Avnery An Evening in Jounieh Nikolas Kozloff The Rise of Rafael Correa: Ecuador and the Contradictions of Chavismo Michael Donnelly Freedom Air: Keeping the Skies Safe from Nipples and Muslims Ben Terrall / John Miller Bush's Big Indonesian Photo-Op Robert Jensen Digging In and Digging Deep Sol Littman Missing Canada's Health Care System in Tucson Website of the Day State Minimum Wages: a Policy That Works   November 25 / 26, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Factors in Our Colossal Mess Saul Landau Republic of the Repressed William Blum New Congress, Same Quagmire Ralph Nader The Trouble with the Bubble Fred Gardner The War on Us: Another 1.9 Million Victims Daniel Wolff Return to District 8, New Orleans M. Shahid Alam Pitting the West Against Islam James J. Brittain Censorship in Colombia: the Arrest of Freddie Muñoz George Ciccariello-Maher Contingency and Counter-Contingency in Venezuela Aseem Shrivastava India on 20 Cents a Day Seth Sandronsky The Washington Post's War on Social Security Julian Assange The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism Christopher Brauchli The Rout and the Honeymoon: In and Out of Bed with Bush Michele Naar-Obed A Letter to the Judge Who Sentenced My Husband to Federal Prison for Protesting Nuclear Weapons Ramzy Baroud Reclaiming America Christiane Passevant / Larry Portis Women in the Israeli Army: Two New Films Adam Engel Striving of His Day-Days: a Prose Poem Jeffrey St. Clair / David Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Gibbons, Louise, Buknatski, Orloski Website of the Weekend The Black Agenda   November 24, 2006 Charles Glass How to Let Lebanon Live Gideon Levy A Prayer in Paradise Jonathan Cook Syria as Fallguy Ron Jacobs Build a Fire on Main Street: Stop the War, Now! Brian McKenna Native Resurgence Spurs Hope: Giving Thanks to America's Indians Kim Ives The UN Fails Haiti, Again   November 23, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Democrats and the Slaughterhouse November 22, 2006 Kathleen Christison The Massacre at Beit Hanoun Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Lone Victory: Defeating the Bill of Rights Mike Roselle Green Muscle on Election Day: Now is the Time for Boldness Dave Lindorff The First Task of the New Congress Greg Moses Up From Chiapas: Giving Thanks to Women's Revolution Dave Zirin Born Under Punches: the Pimping of Mike Tyson Nadia Martinez Dealing with Ortega Sherwood Ross Why the World Needs Trade Unions Now More Than Ever David Kalbfeisch I Am A Navy Veteran Against Wars Gilad Atzmon Palestinian Solidarity in a Time of Massacres Website of the Day Sorry, Charlie: No Draft   November 21, 2006 Robert Bryce The Ongoing Myth of Energy Independence John V. Walsh Spoilers of the World Unite! Luis Hernandez Navarro Lessons from the Teachers of Oaxaca Kevin Zeese An Interview with Michael Isikoff on Iraq Peter Rost, MD Rules of the Game: How Big Corporations Avoid Paying Their Taxes Evelyn Pringle Drug Your Fetus: How Big Pharma Hits on Pregnant Women Roger Morris Reason in an Age of Folly (and Felony) Don Monkerud Here Come the Democrats ... So? Website of the Day The Grind   November 20, 2006 David H. Price American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq Col. Dan Smith Usurpation of Power Katherine Hughes Compassion on Trial in War on Terror: Muslim Charities and the Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir Dave Himmelstein Ziodammerung: Netanyahu and the End Times Robert Jensen Opportunities Lost Joe Mowrey America's Progressive Nightmare: Here Come the Armani Democrats Mike Whitney Housing Bubble Smack Down: Alan Greenspan, Homewrecker Carl N. McDaniel Living Within Limits Robert Fisk Shia Walk Ramzy Baroud Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun Website of the Day Iraq: the Hidden Story   November 18 / 19, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Top Dems to Voters: "Shut Up! We've Got a War to Run!" Ralph Nader The Hole in Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Lost the Senate Barucha Calamity Peller Who Will Live on in the Oaxaca Uprising? John Ross Halliburton Wrecks Mexico Dave Lindorff The Albatross: Why the Democrats Should Cut Loose Joe Lieberman Fred Gardner The Adverse Effects of Marijuana: California Medical Survey Ron Jacobs Back in the Aether Again: Thomas Pynchon's Stunning Return Larry Portis The Songs of Basilio Martin Patino: Father of the New Spanish Cinema Frida Berrigan The Weapons Bonanza: a Perfect Storm of Profit Wes Enzinna Ghosts of Dictatorships Past: the School of the America's and Memory in Latin America Elizabeth Schulte The Fall of Donald Rumsfeld: Architect of a Disaster Peter Rost, MD The Credit Card Trap Martha Rosenberg We're Drinking What? Milk, rBST and Monsanto's Rats Seth Sandronsky University Unity: California's Professors and Students Unite Missy Beattie Explore This! Adam Engel Data Days Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Newberry and Curtis Website of the Weekend A Modest Proposal for the Art World   November 17, 2006 Greg Grandin The Road from Serfdom: Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire Joseph Massad Pinochet in Palestine: Fateh's Unholy Alliance Kevin Zeese George McGovern's Return to Capitol Hill: "A Down-to-Earth Disengagement Plan" Gideon Levy After the Rain of Death Bill Quigley WMDs Protected!: Blood-Pouring Anti-Nuke Clowns Sent to Prison David Swanson Last Chance for the Democrats?: a Tale of Two Conyers Sherry Wolf Gay Rights: When Will the US Catch Up with Africa? Jerry Beisler What James Webb Knows Website of the Day Thanks for the False Memories!   November 16, 2006 Kathy Kelly Sources of Violence Col. Douglas MacGregor Was It Only Rumsfeld? Norman Solomon Operation Last Resort: the Media Offensive to Prolong the Iraq War Nikki Thanos From Oaxaca to Portland Cindy Sheehan Impeachment Proceedings Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Jimmy Carter and the "A" Word: Will the Democrats Listen to Carter on Palestine? Gloria La Riva Where is the Justice? Anti-Castro Terrorist Gets Only 4 Years Pat Williams How the Democrats Won the West Kerry Joyce From Rummy to Rahmmy: Bob Novak's New Source CP News Service Wal-Mart Charged with Selling Non-Organic Food as "Organic" David Letterman Top 10 Slogans for Wal-Mart Wine James Ridgeway Did Robert Gates' Planning Help Bring Black Hawk Down? Website of the Day A Conversation with West Point Grads Against the War   November 15, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein Alice in Erez: the Gaza Crossing David Rosen Rev. Ted Haggard and the Eclipse of Evangelical Fury Ashley Smith A Socialist in the Senate? Landau / Hassen Talking Tough on Iraq Isn't Courageous Walden Bello Iraq After November 7: New Challenges for the AntiWar Movement Sibel Edmonds The Highjacking of a Nation Austin / Bernstein Why Bill Cosby is Wrong to Link Black Culture to Economic Decline Yitzhak Laor This Merchandise, Security James Rothenberg Unimpeachable: a Brief Argument Why Gail Dines "Borat": It's a Guy Thing Website of the Day Kakistocracy November 14, 2006 Werther Beltway Bromo-Seltzer: a Sneak Peak at the Baker Report Ray McGovern Benching Scowcroft John Walsh Korea, Vietnam and Iraq Syndrome: Alive, Well and Gaining Strength David MacMichael Gates to the Pentagon William S. Lind Lose a War, Lose an Election Sharon Smith Democrats, Born to Compromise Laura Carlsen Oaxaca Fights Back Ron Jacobs The Perishing Republic Peter Rost, MD Whistleblowers: Who Are They? Carol Norris Post-Campaign Ad Stress Disorder? Website of the Day A Map of the US Nuclear Arsenal     November 13, 2006 Kathleen and Bill Christison Screw the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead Bill Quigley Robin Hood in Reverse: the Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast Paul Craig Roberts The Democrats and Civil Liberties: Will They Turn a Blind Eye? Uri Avnery Call It What It Is: a Massacre! Joe DeRaymond The Strange Return of Daniel Ortega Norman Finkelstein Jimmy Carter's Roadmap Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's Revolving Gates: Out with the Old, In with the Old Shepherd Bliss After the Party Dave Lindorff What Vote-Theft Conspiracy? Missy Beattie For Better / For Worse: Will Laura Stay the Course? Trenticosta / Fleming Vindication for the Angola 3   Weekend Edition November 11 / 12, 2006 John Walsh Rahm's Losers Barucha Calamity Peller Oaxaca at Any Cost Al Krebs Be Careful What You Wish For Niall Meehan Ireland's Freedom Struggle and the Foster School of Historical Falsification Conn Hallinan The Ills of War: Shafting the Vets Patrick Cockburn "We Worry About Staying Alive, Not the U.S. Elections" Gary Leupp Democrats Can Be NeoCons, Too P. Sainath India High and Low: the Anatomy of a Tiger Nikolas Kozloff The Return of Tom Lantos: Beware Venezuela, Here Come the Democratic Hawks Lawrence R. Velvel Throwing Rumsfeld Under the Bus Fred Gardner Marijuana, the Anti-Drug Ralph Nader Taking on the Boss: Claybrook vs. the Chamber Ben Terrall / John Miller East Timor: 15 Years After the Massacre Mike Whitney Cheney in a Box Joshua Frank Post-Electoral Deliriums Mukul Dube The Death Penalty Case of Mohd. Afzal Jason Hribal Jesse: Eulogy for a Working Dog Daniel Wolff The Unseen Springsteen Michael Donnelly Red Rock Blues: the Moab Folk Festival Lord Montague A Dissenting Note on the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 Poets' Basement Davies, Louise, Buknatski and Orloski   November 10, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Lame Duck Marjorie Cohn The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld Jorge Mariscal What Veterans See Gregory Elich The Trial of Saddam: Who Will Pass Judgment on the Judges? Joshua Frank Blue Dog Group: Bye-Bye Coke, Hello Pepsi Megan Boler The Joke is On Us: How "Borat" Lowers the Bar of Political Satire Ramzy Baroud The Treacherous Road to Oslo Begins Here Farzana Versey An Iraqi in India Roberto Rodriguez A Thumpin' or a Whippin'? Cartoon of the Day Splat!   November 9, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein How Gaza Offends Us All Patrick Cockburn War of the Snipers Paul Craig Roberts Will Democrats Become Part of the Problem? Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Roots of Corruption Mike Whitney Bush's Chernobyl Economy Alan Maass The Repudiation of One-Party Rule Robert Jensen Blood on the Tracks: the Elections and the Coming Train Wreck Nicola Nasser Saddam's Trial in Context John Chuckman As I Lay Dying: Watching the US Elections from Canada Jamal Juma Between Resistance and Deception in Palestine Felice Pace Can the Klamath be Restored? Website of the Day The Robert Gates Files   November 8, 2006 Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Count Your Blessings: NeoCons and NeoLibs Take Big Hit as Voters Say No to Bush, War and Free Trade Lawrence E. Walsh Robert Gates and Iran/Contra: Lies, Cover Ups and Slanted Intelligence Bruce K. Gagnon What's Next for the Peace Movement?: Confront the Democrats, Now! Neve Gordon Anti-Semitism? Mr. Dershowitz, You Just Don't Like What I Say Dave Lindorff Election Post-Mortem: What's Next? Arthur Neslen Another Tragic Day in Palestine Joshua Frank An Election Hangover: Thank God It's Over James Goodman The Corporate Food System is Broken Charles Sullivan Voting in the Absence of Choice David Swanson Subpoena Envy: The Dems Have the Power, But Will They Use It? Missy Beattie The Electorate Speaks and Barney Barks! Dr. Susan Block American Voters Say, "Bush Sucks!" Website of the Day Stealing Olive Groves from Palestinians   November 7, 2006 Michael Neumann Cut and Run from Iraq: Sooner Rather Than Later Paul Wolf Saddam Must Die: A Pre-Ordained Verdict Nikolas Kozloff In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave? Eliza Ernshire The Women of Beit Hanoun William S. Lind The Smile on Saddam's Face: He's Tan, Rested and Ready Mike Ferner Pick a Number: Greater Than 47,615 Felice Pace Pumping the Klamath Dry Chris Genovali The Problem with PBDEs: Why Canada's Proposed Ban Won't Protect People or Wildlife Gilad Atzmon Watching Borat Dick J. Reavis Going to Class War with the Proletariat We Got ... Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Lives (and Votes) Lost: the Ordeal of Larry Peterson Website of the Day Magic Sam: a Sure Cure for the Election Day Blues Question of the Day Is Bush Gay?   November 6, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Message of Campaign 2006 Norman Solomon Saddam's Unindicted Co-Conspirator: Donald Rumsfeld Robert Fisk A Guilty Verdict on America, as Well Marjorie Cohn The Banana Election: From Hanging Chads to Hanging Saddam Paul Craig Roberts The Goose and the Gander: Is Bush Next? Nikolas Kozloff Election Eve Jitters: the Chavez Factor Newton Garver The Progress in Bolivia: Morales' Stunning Victory Over Big Oil Mike Whitney Bush's Carnival of Blood Jesse Hagopian From the Black Panthers to the Green Party: an Interview with Aaron Dixon Dr. Peter Rost, MD The Genocide Election: When a Life Saving Industry Cheats, People Die Website of the Day Robert Pollin vs. Rick Wolff: Is Pomo Marxism Marxism?   November 4 / 5, 2006 Dave Zirin Political Players: Where Athletes Give Their Money Patrick Cockburn When Does Incompetence Become a Crime? Sanho Tree War Timing and Opportunism Ralph Nader Failure Across All Fronts Lee Sustar The Obama Myth Dr. Shepherd Bliss Torture Memories Adam Elkus Babies and Banks: Celebrity Colonialism in Africa Seth Sandronsky Is Another Recession Looming? Fred Gardner 10 Years of Medical Pot in California: Dr. Mikuriya's Observations Joshua Sperber How the US Lost Latin America Evelyn Pringle Ohio Redux: Mr. Blackwell and the Henhouse Mitchel Cohen The Left and the Environment: Notes on the Ecological Dimension Missy Beattie The Medium is the Massage Michael Dickinson Watching the Guards: a Prison Diary John Holt The Silk Road to Ruin Dr. Susan Block The Beastly Bombing Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Engel, Orloski and Davies November 3, 2006 Laura Carlsen Day of the Dead in Oaxaca Stephan Said Honoring Bradley Will John Stauber "Victory in Iraq:" The PR Machine Behind Bush's Favorite Slogan Mike Whitney Baghdad is Surrounded Joshua Frank DNC Deja Vu Victoria Furio More Than Timetables Tammara~85,441 They Say He is Coming Home Stuart Croswaithe Beatings and Sugar Plums: New Labor's War on the Kurds Missy Beattie Bush Shock Website of the Day Howlin' Wolf November 2, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler The US Body Count in Iraq: an Analysis of Who is Dying and How Paul Craig Roberts Evil is as Evil Does Dave Lindorff Kerry Out: the Joke's Still on Us Uri Avnery The Lovable Man? Lieberman and the Decline of Israeli Democracy Jeff Birkenstein Smearing Harold Ford in Black Face John Ross Slave Labor in Private Prisons Zoltan Grossman Recharging the Anti-War Movement Eveyln Pringle The SEC's Probe of Halliburton: Is Cheney Being Fitted for a Striped Jumpsuit? Christopher Brauchli Drug Profits and PACs: Why Big Pharma Pushes the GOP   November 1, 2006 Alan Dershowitz v. Bruce Jackson On Torture Brian Tokar Running on Hype: the Real Scoop on Biofuels Fred Leonhardt Democrats, Sex Crimes and the Press: the Goldschmidt Affair Richard W. Behan Triumph of the Petropublicans: Bush's Other Civil War Brenda Norrell Indigenous Opposition to the Border Wall Charles Sullivan Spoils of Corruption: Who Will Stand Up When America Goes Wrong? Ron Jacobs Hell is Rising in Oaxaca: interview with a Oaxacan Rebel Mike Knapp Green Stench in Minnesota: the Commissioner and the Hog Lot Moshe Adler The Temptations of a Union Boss: the Case of Brian McLaughlin Walden Bello Chain Gang Economics Lee Ballinger The Collapse of Hip Capitalism: How Tower Records Committed Suicide Joshua Frank Party in a Cage: Snake Oil and the Midterm Elections Carl Gelderloos Cheerleading the Massacre in Oaxaca: an Open Letter to the Washington Post Peter Rost, MD Panic in Big Pharma Saul Landau Bush's Anti-Terrorism Record: Don't Look Too Close Website of the Day The Meatrix   Subscribe Online

November 30, 2006 Sooner or Later, Someone in Washington Will Have to Admit the US Has Been Defeated More Troops Into a Lost War? By WILLIAM S. LIND The latest serpent at which a drowning Washington Establishment is grasping is the idea of sending more American troops to Iraq. Would more troops turn the war there in our favor? No. Why not? First, because nothing can. The war in Iraq is irredeemably lost. Neither we nor, at present, anyone else can create a new Iraqi state to replace the one our invasion destroyed. Maybe that will happen after the Iraqi civil was is resolved, maybe not. It is in any case out of our hands. Nor could more American troops control the forces driving Iraq's intensifying civil war. The passions of ethnic and religious hatred unleashed by the disintegration of the Iraqi state will not cool because a few more American patrols pass through the streets. Iraqi's are quite capable of fighting us and each other at the same time. A second reason more troops would make no difference is that the troops we have there now don't know what to do, or at least their leaders don't know what they should do. For the most part, American troops in Iraq sit on their Forward Operating Bases; in effect, we are besieging ourselves. Troops under siege are seldom effective at controlling the surrounding countryside, regardless of their number. When American troops do leave their FOBs, it is almost always to run convoys, which is to say to provide targets; to engage in meaningless patrols, again providing targets; or to do raids, which are downright counterproductive, because they turn the people even more strongly against us, where that is possible. Doing more of any of these things would help us not at all. More troops might make a difference if they were sent as part of a change in strategy, away from raids and "killing bad guys" and toward something like the Vietnam war's CAP program, where American troops defended villages instead of attacking them. But there is no sign of any such change of strategy on the horizon, so there would be nothing useful for more troops to do. Even a CAP program would be likely to fail at this stage of the Iraq war, which points to the third reason more troops would not help us: more troops cannot turn back the clock. For the CAP or "ink blot" strategy to work, there has to be some level of acceptance of the foreign troops by the local people. When we first invaded Iraq, that was present in much of the country. But we squandered that good will with blunder upon blunder. How many troops would it take to undo all those errors? The answer is either zero or an infinite number, because no quantity of troops can erase history. The argument that more troops in the beginning, combined with an ink blot strategy, might have made the Iraq venture a success does not mean that more troops could do the same thing now. The clinching argument against more troops also relates to time: sending more troops would mean nothing to our opponents on the ground, because those opponents know we could not sustain a significantly larger occupation force for any length of time. So what if a few tens of thousands more Americans come for a few months? The U.S. military is strained to the breaking point to sustain the force there now. Where is the rotation base for a much larger deployment to come from? The fact that Washington is seriously considering sending more American troops to Iraq illustrates a common phenomenon in war. As the certainty of defeat looms ever more clearly, the scrabbling about for a miracle cure, a deus ex machina, becomes ever more desperate - and more silly. Cavalry charges, Zeppelins, V-2 missiles, kamikazes, the list is endless. In the end, someone finally has to face facts and admit defeat. The sooner someone in Washington is willing to do that, the sooner the troops we already have in Iraq will come home--alive. William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.

Coming Soon from CounterPunch Books / AK Press Buy End Times Now! "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair     CounterPunch Speakers Bureau 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. The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"