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Special Issue: the Collapse of America Paul Craig Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class, white collar jobs. Roberts' stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead. Plus Mike Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. 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! |
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Today's Stories July 28, 2006 Charles
Glass July 27, 2006 Tanya
Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi
Kysia Tom Barry Joseph
Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard
Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
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July 28, 2006 A Warning to IsraelSmoke Signals from the Battle of Bint JbeilBy ROBERT FISK Qlaya, Southern Lebanon Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon? From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a "terrorist centre" . To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force. Indian soldiers of the UN army in southern Lebanon, visibly moved by the horror of bringing their Canadian, Fijian, Chinese and Austrian comrades back in at least 20 pieces from the clearly marked UN post next to Khiam prison, left their remains at Marjayoun hospital yesterday. In past years, I have spent hours with their comrades in this UN position, which is clearly marked in white and blue paint, with the UN's pale blue flag opposite the Israeli frontier. Their duty was to report on all they saw: the ruthless Hizbollah missile fire out of Khiam and the brutal Israeli response against the civilians of Lebanon. Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defense Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that. In Bint Jbeil, meanwhile,
another bloodbath was taking place. Claiming to " control"
this southern Lebanese town, the Israelis chose to walk into
a Hizbollah trap. The moment they reached the deserted marketplace,
they were ambushed from three sides, their soldiers falling to
the ground under sustained rifle fire. The remaining Israeli
troops - surrounded by the The battle for southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but, from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small, silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison, where the Hizbollah are still holding out; beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillsides and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke. It was not meant to be like this, 15 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of southern Lebanon, clearly visible to the naked eye, white contrails that thump into Israeli's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours two days ago, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside, and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatiyeh. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished. And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organizations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the three wounded inside. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pious use the cross as their aiming point? The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brush fires on the hillsides below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut-stone doorways and tracery windows, but Israel's target, apart from the obviously marked UN position whose inhabitants they massacred, is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and, in some cases, their families, were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army. This was the same prison complex - turned into a "museum of torture" by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat - that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells deep underground the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their fire in the same underground cells in which they languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there. In Marjayoun, next to Qlaya, once the SLA's headquarters, Lebanese troops are trying to prevent Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man Lebanese army patrols are moving through the darkened roads of both towns at night in case the Hizbollah brings yet more Israeli bombs down on our heads. In Beirut, one observes the folly of Western nations with amusement as well as horror, but, sitting in these hill villages and listening to how the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion. According to US correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a Nato-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment of an enlarged Nato force throughout Lebanon to disarm Hizbollah and then the retraining of the Lebanese army before its own deployment to the border. This plan - which, like all American proposals on Lebanon, is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of conceit as that of the Israeli consul general in New York, who said last week that "most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing". Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed? By Nato? Wasn't there a Nato force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US Marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shia Muslim forces will not do the same again to any Nato " intervention" force? The Americans are talking about Egyptian and Turkish troops in southern Lebanon; Sunni Muslims ruling Shia territory. The Hizbollah has been waiting and training and dreaming of this new war for years, however ruthless we may regard the actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to Nato at Israel's bidding. Yesterday's assault on the Israeli army in Bint Jbeil proved that. The problem is that the US sees this slaughterhouse as an "opportunity" rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah supporters in Tehran and help to shape the "new Middle East" of which Ms Rice spoke so blithely this week. It is Israel which is running out of time in southern Lebanon. Its attacks have for the fifth time in 30 years placed it in the dock for war crimes in Lebanon. The toll of Lebanon's civilian casualties has reached 400. And still the US will not intervene to prevent the carnage, even to call for a 24-hour ceasefire to allow the 3,000 civilians still trapped between Qlaya and Bint Jbeil - who include a number of foreign nationals - to flee. The only civilian walking those frightening roads to Qlaya was a goatherd, guiding his animals around the huge bomb craters in the tarmac. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and obviously could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he has a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice. Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and
author of Pity
the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's
collection, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The
Conquest of the Middle East.
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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.                    |
