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Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories May 21 / 22, 2005 David H. Price CIA Skullgery in Academia May 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Newsweek and White House Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese As Insurgency Increases, New US Military Recruits Fall Paul de Rooij "Private": a Film in Search of a Cliché Christopher Brauchli How Insurance Companies Exploited 9/11 Mark Engler Triumph Over Debt? Joshua Frank Bush to Dine with Porn Star Robert Jensen TV Talk, No Evidence Required Jeffery R. Webber Bolivia Erupts May 19, 2005 Bill Forman An Interview with Alexander Cockburn Stan Goff Hey, Democrats, Listen to Galloway and Learn Something Neve Gordon From Ghettos to Frontiers: What Will Happen After Israel Withdraws from Gaza Michael Dickinson The Trouble with Menwith: Tagging British Peace Activists Karyn Strickler The Texas Nexus: How Racial and Political Gerrymandering United Andrew Freedman Nazi Science at NIH Paul Craig Roberts The Politics and Economics of Outsourcing   May 18, 2005 Jean Bricmont Vive La France? Laura Carlsen Bush's Posada Carriles Quandry: an Anti-Cuba Terrorist is Still a Terrorist Mike Whitney The Secret Raids of Alberto Gonzales: 10,000 Swept Up Joshua Frank Flushing the Koran: Why Newsweek Got It Right George Galloway Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens) Manuel Garcia, Jr. Writing Tickets for American War Crimes Dwight D. Eisenhower How the GOP will Destroy Itself Dave Lindorff The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse May 17, 2005 Mickey Z. GIs Behaving Badly Petuuche Gilbert The People of Acoma Still Fight to be Free Paul Craig Roberts Lies That Kill: Why Isn't Bush in the Dock? Ramzy Baroud The New Palestinian Uprising Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood Pinning the Blame on Newsweek Stan Cox Poisoning Patancheru: the Severe Side Effects of India's Drug Industry Dave Zirin American Anthem: Ozzie Guillen and Fining for Freedom Diana Barahona Reporters Without Borders Unmasked Website of the Day Revolutionary Flower Pot Society May 16, 2005 Michael Gillespie The Family Released a Statement: Death Notices for the Warrior Theocracy Jason Leopold BP Stains the Arctic Jesse Muldoon How Many Schools Left Behind? Norman Solomon Media and the War: "The Bombs in Iraq Explode at Home" Robert Cray Twenty Patrick Cockburn Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land Website of the Day Bolton's Divorce Papers: She Took It All Away, Including Most of the Furniture May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Join the 14 Per Cent Club! Saul Landau Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People Gary Leupp Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University JoAnn Wypijewski The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas Ben Tripp The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale Brian J. Foley Was Jesus Gay? Tom Barry Bolton the Eavesdropper Mitchell Verter Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law of the Club" Mike Ferner War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman Dan Smith Perceiving Darfur Mark Scaramella Death with Pitfalls Don Fitz Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA into the Food Chain Diane Farsetta PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News" Hearings Michael Dickinson Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey Ron Jacobs The Jackson State Murders Fred Gardner "Hydroponics? 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Lind Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty Jack Random The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush Gary Leupp Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg     May 11, 2005 Patrick Cockburn The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle Kevin Zeese The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like Every Day Christopher Brauchli Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan Zalman Amit The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University Robert Shull Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops: Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws Mike Whitney God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School Norman Solomon Political Bluster and the Filibuster   May 10, 2005 Richard Drayton The Imperial Mythology of WW II: an Ethical Blank Check Dave Zirin Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP Jackie Corr The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall Dave Lindorff Silence of the Scams: Economists on China Michael Donnelly From Roadless to Clueless: the Great Stillborn Eco Victory Reza Fiyouzat Nomadic Abstracts Scott Parkin Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton Stephen Babcock The Burden of Knowing Better Alan Farago Florida, Water and Lobbyists Michael Neumann Naomi's Courage Website of the Day One Nation Under Plagiarism   May 9, 2005 Louis Proyect Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond, Greenwasher Robert Fisk "Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two Kevin Zeese Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman Joshua Frank Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage Sasha Kramer A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons Andrew Wimmer Create and Resist Jeffrey Webber Back to the Streets in Bolivia? Jeffrey St. Clair Straight to Bechtel   May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Who Beat Hitler? Gary Leupp Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism Saul Landau Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups Joe DeRaymond Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega Daniela Ponce Seeing Chile in Nepal Heather Williams Hollywood Does Enron Gregory Elich Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice Anis Memon To Cuba and Back John Chuckman The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism" Mike Whitney Hard Right Rage Against the Truth Ron Jacobs Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq War Grinds On Colin Kalmbacher Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont. Lance Selfa Uprising in Mexico City Fred Gardner "Getting High is a Little Like Cuba" Ben Tripp Letters on Wittgenstein Mickey Z. The Mother of All Days Richard Joseph Those Patriotic Magnets Dr. Susan Block Come As You Are: Masturbation 101 Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert     May 6, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and Blood Erin Yoshioka Another "3 Strikes" Travesty: Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison? Sam Husseini Talking with Syrians Dave Lindorff Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters Kevin Zeese Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead Guilty Joshua Frank An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War Dan Bacher Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water Raid P. Sainath India's Bloody Water Wars     May 5, 2005 Carles Mutaner Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist" or "Populist?" Carl G. Estabrook Is There Any Hope for the Pope? Farrah Hassen The US's Syrian Obsession Kevin Zeese "Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview with Patrick Resta Michael Leonardi May Day with an American Soldier in Rome Bennett Ramberg The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You Ray McGovern The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit Norman Solomon Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran Nicole Colson The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights Brian Concannon, Jr. Clearing the Fences in Haiti     May 4, 2005 Colin Kalmbacher Ann Coulter and the Police State: Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested John Walsh Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying on Air America to Support the War Greg Moses Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises "Birth of a Nation" Ali Khan Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart Chris Floyd Ring Them Bells Linda S. Heard D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics Dave Zirin The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle William S. Lind Fool's Paradise Gary Leupp Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution Website of the Day Kent State, May 4, 1970   May 3, 2005 Dave Lindorff Bush has Grasped the Third Rail, Now Turn on the Juice Brian Cloughley Halliburton's War Loot Ira Kurzban Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers Seth Sandronsky Towards Debtors' Prisons? Gilad Atzmon The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More Michael Donnelly Branding Eco Collapse Alex Sanchez Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush? Peter Linebaugh Magna Carta and May Day   May 2, 2005 Ron Jacobs Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement Stan Goff The Case of Hasan Akbar Karyn Strickler Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics Joshua Frank Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly Kevin Zeese Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam Vicente Navarro Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician       April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility" Gabriel Kolko Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later Jennifer Loewenstein The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood Lee Sustar City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago Saul Landau The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power T.W. Croft The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy Nikolas Kozloff Fox News v. Hugo Chavez William Blum Never-Ending Double Standards Dave Lindorff Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly Joshua Frank The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls Doug Giebel Saving Jane Fonda Steven Erlanger A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief Fred Gardner Washington State Doctor Harassed Mike Whitney Another Mad Bush Press Conference Kurt Nimmo Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine Joe DeRaymond A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania Michael Dickinson Flags Mickey Z. May Day at Yankee Stadium Justin Taylor The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy Poets Basement Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Save Barbados's Cowpastor                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 21 / 22, 2005 The Resistance in Context An Anatomy of the Resistance to the American Occupation in Iraq By LAITH AL-SAUD Much of the American left has been less than consistent with its approach to the occupation of Iraq. Before the invasion of March 2003, the streets of metropolitan America hosted a pageant of political dissent and indignation directed at the current administration. Yet in the post-invasion world the American left has been remarkably ambiguous and ambivalent. Whenever any one addresses this seeming inconsistency the rhetorical response is the same-"we" are there now so "we have to finish the job"-what "the job" is precisely always remains vague, however, it is intimately tied to Iraq's security. Donald Rumsfeld on a recent trip to Iraq reiterated the administration line; namely that the US would supposedly leave Iraq when the Iraqis were capable of putting down the so-called "insurgency." In other words, the reason the US invaded Iraq was WMD, but the reason they now remain is the resistance. And again the media have been as professionally contemptuous about examining American claims about the resistance as it was about weapons. The media's misrepresentation of the resistance in Iraq has been a central component to the Bush administrations ideology for occupation. As an occupying power the US has ostensibly claimed a duty to protect the Iraqi people from the insecurity that the US presence ironically induces. Notwithstanding the many criticisms we could make of the American media in this regard, what is most frustrating is that many on the so-called "left," self-proclaimed critics of the war, have invested in the ideology of occupation. I was recently involved in a public event at one of the more prestigious universities here in the US where one of the guests-who has spent considerable time in occupied Iraq and who is also another self-proclaimed critic-denounced the Iraqi resistance as an extreme and terrible bid on behalf of "Wahhabists and former Baathists." When I asked the guest how much time he had actually spent with members of the resistance he could not provide me any substantive experience. In other words his intelligence on violence in Iraq was being provided by the same source that initiated the occupation in the first place-the US administration. It is both ironic and comical that little has been done to substantiate the claims being put forth by the American administration in this regard; but most notably there can be no serious hope of the Americans leaving Iraq so long as the majority of the country "fears" what might happen there next. And the administration's presentation of the resistance as a band of wide-eyed fanatics or desperate men "with nothing to lose" has been employed, quite tactfully, to keep up as much American support for the occupation as Iraqi. What I wish to do here is provide a brief anatomy of the resistance-a description of what it is made of and what it hopes to accomplish. First the Iraqi resistance is made up of both political and martial forces, thus all of the major resistance groups in the country are tied to a greater political framework that has been clear and consistent in its hopes for the country. What is more important, however, is that the methods and goals of the resistance have always been made public. There has been no major Iraqi resistance group that has condoned the targeting of innocents in the country, none. Conveniently the US only invokes public claims to the contrary when they are made on websites to which the authors are unavailable for comment, verification or elaboration. The political members of the Iraqi resistance have been constantly available to the media as spokespersons of the armed effort, yet no western media source has inquired as to their feelings or analysis of what is happening in their country. The media's insistence in relying on the official American version of events precludes other available sources that are actually tied to the resistance itself. There are only three things we can assume in this regard a) the American press is complicit in the occupation, b) it is simply incompetent or c) it is racist, assuming that an Arab is not a good source for information (it could be all of the above of course). Needless to say this characterization is not conducive to a reliable flow of information. In terms of public and verifiable evidence it must be conceded, emphatically no less, that there simply has been no tangible occurrence of an Iraqi resistance group publicly condoning the targeting of civilians. Secondly, the Iraqi resistance has been vibrant in organizing itself politically not only inside Iraq but outside as well. I will mention two events in this regard: the meeting of the Higher Committee for National Forces Rejecting the Occupation and the 16th Arab National Congress held in Algiers. With the former there was even greater consolidation amongst Iraqi resistance groups; the implication of course is that a national liberation front is beginning to emerge that possesses a mandate and doctrine. Few, if any journalists have concerned themselves with the ideas or political ambitions of such an alliance. The Higher Committee is, however, dedicated to several major things: a) the right of the Iraqis to defend themselves against foreign aggression and imperialism, b) the right of Iraq to demand a political process untainted by occupation and that reflects the uninhibited will of the Iraqi people and c) a pluralistic and democratic Iraq. Needless to say the Higher Committee is a variegated and diverse membership and emphasizes Iraq's diversity-which never was an issue in the country until the Americans arrived. There are several things to which the Committee is adamantly opposed to as well: a) the continued occupation of Iraq and the establishment of any permanent basis in the country, b) the privatization of the Iraqi economy and foreign corporations' unrestricted access to Iraq's resources and business community and c) the federation of Iraq. This last point may strike some as contentious; however, it is crucial to what is felt to be the neo-colonial ambitions of the US in the Middle-East. Federalism in Iraq means an even deeper breakdown of the region into semi-disparate groups that will be encouraged to "arm themselves" against their neighbors; all the while the US presence in the region is perpetuated by the "need to maintain stability." The reason I have laid out some of these more central features is not to convince anyone to adopt them, but rather to demonstrate the political context in which the resistance is thinking and to suggest that moral support from around the world should be more forthcoming. Furthermore, unlike US evidence which refers to phantoms and their websites, individuals that no one has access to or ever see in Iraq, members of the Association of Muslim Scholars or the People's Struggle Movement, amongst others, are available for comment or elaboration and can provide definitive accounts of the Iraqi resistance, its nature and goals. In addition all such groups have adamantly condemned the targeting of Iraqi civilians, after all, why would they not, they are Iraqis. What has been most disturbing has been the ease by which westerners have attributed the most draconian and cruel features to the Iraqi resistance while absolving the US of any duplicity in their occupation. The administration's insistence that the Iraqis (or other "foreign" Arabs) are trying to start a civil war within their own country has never been supported by any logical analysis. Meanwhile it remains true that so long as there is chaos in Iraq the Americans must remain to insure "security." Just as much of the world regrets investing too heavily in the Bush administration's cries of WMD, so long as the occupation continues there should also be a greater scrutiny of the US's reasons for remaining there. Several things are clear: The United States invasion of Iraq was illegal, immoral, unjustified and destructive. With that in mind it would be insidious to future relations with Iraq and the Arab-Muslim world in general if people in the west are going to deny the right of Iraqis to defend themselves. Secondly, many of the acts of destruction that have been connected to the "insurgency" have found no resonance with the major groups of the Iraqi resistance; in addition there is a broad based political platform that is available to the wider world and which can be reached in this regard. The organized Iraqi resistance has been adamant about its principles and methods but has yet to receive the necessary attention from those in the west who are likewise committed to justice and ending the illegal occupation of Iraq. Unfortunately the American press has chosen to ignore the organized opposition forces in Iraq and has focused rather on the abundance of petty crime and faceless websites now conflagrating Baghdad and misidentified that as the resistance. For a variety of reasons most of the Left has also invested too heavily in the myth that the resistance is an irrational menace-made up of "former Baathists and Wahhabists." As political observers the strange conclusion we must draw from this characterization is that there is no resistance to the actual American occupation; there is rather an "insurgency" against a supposedly free and democratically elected government. The occupation's significance has been audaciously negated within intellectual circles to an unbearable degree and much more rhetorical capital has been invested in the relations between "Sunni and Shi'a" or "Arab and Kurd." The question we must ask ourselves is what happened to the illegitimacy of the occupation and the legitimate right to oppose it? Laith Al-Saud is a college lecturer in the social sciences and a member of the People's Struggle Movement-an organization politically opposed to the occupation of Iraq.