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Today's Stories March 22 / 23, 2008 Ralph Nader Bush Blisteres the Truth on Iraq March 21, 2008 Marleen Martin Land Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on Crime" Peter Montague Run Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not Saul Landau Monroe's Deadly Doctrine Anis Hamadeh Merkel in the Knesset Jacob Hornberger McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic? Khalil Nakhleh Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist? Adam Isacson Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations Kenneth Couesbouc Money for Nothing Madis Senner Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market? Monica Benderman The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay? Website of the Day Stop Foreclosures and Evictions March 20, 2008 Damien Millet / Eric Toussaint The Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks Mike Whitney Winding Up Bear John Ross What Do We Owe Iraq? Dave Lindorff Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up Wajahat Ali Pakistan on Fire Jill Nagle Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism Manuel Garcia, Jr. Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America Dan La Botz Obama's Race Speech Robert Weissman Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API Stella Dallas / Jennifer Matsui Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right Website of the Day The Angry Monk   March 19, 2008 Patrick Cockburn A War of Lies Robert Fisk The Little Men and the Inferno Jeff Taylor Five Years of War in Iraq Ed Ruggero From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai Ron Jacobs Who'll Stop the Rain? Christopher Fons Obama Takes the Race Bait Sherwood Ross In Defense of Rev. Wright Cynthia McKinney An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities Joshua Frank The Kool-Aid That Kills Robert Weissman Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble Walter Brasch It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich Yifat Susskind Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation Andrew Wimmer War Demands Its Due Website of the Day Glimpses of Nature   March 18, 2008 David Price The Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge Paul Craig Roberts The Collapse of American Power Tim Wise Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth Patrick Cockburn One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought Conn Hallinan Afghanistan, a River Running Backward James T. Phillips Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe Uri Avnery The Killing in Bethlehem David Macaray Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement? Marjorie Cohn Beware an Attack on Iran Peter Zinn Obama in New Orleans Dan La Botz The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left Monica Benderman Where are We Going?   March 17, 2008 Pam Martens The Fed's Wall Street Dilemma Sasan Fayazmanesh The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment Nelson P. Valdés The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution Peter Morici The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit Wajahat Ali Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court Since 9/11 Ronnie Cummins Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma Shaun Harkin Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America Ali Khan No Pardon for Musharraf Robert Jensen Beyond Peace P. Sainath Oh, What a Lovely Waiver! Greg Moses Jeremiah was a Bullhorn Dr. Susan Block Advice for Eliot Spitzer Website of the Day No Cowboys   March 15 / 16, 2008 Patrick Cockburn How to Destroy a Country in Five Years Mike Whitney Bearly Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief Ralph Nader Of Laws and Men Robert Pollin It's Still the Economy, Stupid Diane Christian The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer Wajahat Ali Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed Tom Wright / Therese Saliba Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice Alan Farago Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began Greg Moses Raiding the Family Room in Texas Michael Hudson A Grand Global Bargain? Martha Rosenberg Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China John Goekler Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict Uzma Aslam Khan A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack? Oren Ben-Dor The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon David Underhill Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal Fred Gardner The Education of Eliot Spitzer David Michael Green Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have) Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, Entombed in Heaven Gail Dines It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power David Yearsley Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin Chris Clarke Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs Poets' Basement Anderson, Lodge & Subiet Website of the Day Deviant Art   March 14, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Watching the Dollar Die Don Santina Vichy Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration Patrick Cockburn Iraqi Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons Tim Rinne StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska Robert Fantina In Torture We Trust Saul Landau Letter to the Presidents-in-Waitings David Macaray Common Myths About Labor Unions Franklin Lamb Is the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon Michael Neumann The One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics March 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Republicans and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America Mike Whitney Meltdown Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze Assaf Kfoury "One-State or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives Andy Worthington Afghan Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story Adam Federman From Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road March 12, 2008 Dave Lindorff Bringing Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US R.F. Blader The Spitzer Backlash Yonatan Mendel How to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or "Palestine" Jonathan Cook One State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism Bill and Kathy Christison Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer James J. Brittain Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders Ron Jacobs "All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul" March 11, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts How to End the Subprime Crisis Ed O'Loughlin How Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal Ramzy Baroud 'Unwavering Commitment' to Inequality Kathy Christison One State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine China Hand PRC Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran John Joslin Thank You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette Mike Averko Serb Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide Ben Rosenfeld Gavin Newsom's Kneejerk Plan Thierry Paquot High Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block March 10, 2008 Uri Avnery "Kill A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza Col. Dan Smith Scoring the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond R.F. Blader Why "Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its Sheen Michael Neumann The One-State Illusion: More is Less Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman Did the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio? James J. Brittain Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World Missy Comley Beattie The Passion of John McCain March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition JoAnn Wypijewski The Only Way to Fight the Clintons Mike Whitney Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America Peter Morici Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets Ralph Nader The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore Jonathan Cook The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah Steve Niva Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza Bill and Kathy Christison Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau Bolivia: Morales is Checked Eric Walberg To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…? Scott Johnson City of A Thousand Foreclosures Mark Scaramella James Brown's Gate Bill Clinton President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman Poet's Basement St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson Website of the Weekend Hillary Blackens Barack March 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face Robin Blackburn Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'? Saul Landau The Stupid Economy Binoy Kampmark When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats Chris Floyd Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire Andy Worthington Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons Will Potter Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word March 6, 2008   March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro The Next Failure of Health Reform Forrest Hylton High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President Peter Morici Why the Dollar is So Cheap George Ciccariello-Maher Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats John Ross Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars Jacob Hornberger No Standing to Lecture on Justice Paul Watson Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers Dan Bacher Off the Deep End Website of the Day A Katrina Reader Online   March 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader) Joanne Mariner After Guantanamo Fidel Castro The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa Christopher Brauchli The Turkish Invasions Steven Sherman Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left Dave Lindorff Busting Bush & Co. in New England James Murren Bombing Somalia Adam Engel Necropolis Now Website of Day Remember Song   March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed William Blum How Could Hillary Have Known? Bill Quigley The Cleansing of New Orleans Ralph Nader The Prince Harry Solution Patrick Irelan Oil and Health in Venezuela James J. Brittain / R. James Sacouman Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America Norman Solomon The War Election Jacob Hornberger Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the European Parliament Mike Averko Kosovo and the Press Website of the Day Tex-Mex Primary   March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Gazan Holocaust Alan Farago American Politics and the Faltering Economy Richard Gott Colombian Deaths in Ecuador Wajahat Ali Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito Paul Craig Roberts The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution Robert Weissman When Multinationals Say Adieu Uri Avnery Good Morning, Hamas Martha Rosenberg When Your Meat is a Downer Eva Liddell Leave the Next Dance for Bill Michael Donnelly Will Ferrell Does Flint Website of the Day Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues   March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Race Card Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P. Valdés Cuba After Fidel Christopher Brauchli Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge John Ross The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Robert Fantina Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy Mohammed Omer Fear in Gaza Remi Kanazi Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia Bob Jackson Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd? Richard Rhames Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury Franklin Lamb Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole Rannie Amiri Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon David Michael Green The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam Conn Hallinan Notes from the Southern Cone Faheem Hussain Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy Poets' Basement Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford Website of the Weekend The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!     February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport             Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition March 22 / 23, 2008 Behind the Assassination of Raul Reyes The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives By JAMES PETRAS President Uribe's troop and missile assault, violating Ecuadorian sovereignty came very close to precipitating a regional war with Ecuador and Venezuela. During an interview I had with President Chavez, at the time of this bellicose act, he confirmed to me the gravity of Uribe's doctrine of 'preventive war' and 'extra-territorial intervention', calling the Colombian regime the 'Israel of Latin America'. Earlier, during his Sunday radio program 'Alo Presidente', in which I was an invited guest, he followed up with an announcement that he was sending ground, air and sea forces to the Venezuelan frontier with Colombia. Uribe's cross-border attack was meant to probe the political 'will' of Ecuador and Venezuela to respond to military aggression, as well as to test the performance of US-coordinated remote, satellite directed missile attack. There is no doubt also that Uribe aimed to scuttle the imminent humanitarian release of FARC prisoner, Ingrid Betancourt, being negotiated by the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, Ecuador's Interior Minister Larrea, the Colombian Red Cross and especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Kouchner, Larrea and Chavez were in direct contact with FARC's leader, Raul Reyes who, along with 22 others, including non-combatants of various nationalities, were assassinated in Ecuador by Uribe's American-coordinated missile and ground attack. Uribe's military intervention was in part directed at denying the important diplomatic role, which Chavez was playing in the release FARC-held prisoners, in contrast to the failure of Uribe's military efforts to 'free the prisoners'. Raul Reyes was recognized as the legitimate interlocutor in these negotiations by both European and Latin American governments, as well as the Red Cross; if the negotiations succeeded in the prisoner release it was likely that the same governments and humanitarian bodies would pressure Uribe to open comprehensive prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the FARC, which was contrary to Bush and Uribes' policy of unrelenting warfare, political assassinations and scorched earth policies. What was at stake in Uribe's violating Ecuadorian sovereignty and murdering 22 FARC guerrillas and Mexican visitors was nothing less than the entire military counter-insurgency strategy, which has been pursued by Uribe since coming to office in 2002. Uribe was clearly willing to risk what eventually happened--the censure and sanction of the Organization of American States and the (temporary) break in relations with Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. He did so because he could count on Washington's backing, which covertly (and illegally) participated in and immediately applauded the attack. That was more important than jeopardizing cooperation with Latin American nations and France. Colombia remains Washington's military forward shield in Latin America and, in particular, it is the most important politico-military instrument to destabilize and overthrow the anti-imperialist Chavez government. Clinton and Bush have invested over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia over the past 7 years, including sending 1500 military advisers and Special Forces, dozens of Israeli commandos and 'trainers', funding over 2000 mercenary fighters and over 10,000 paramilitary forces working closely with the 200,000-man strong Colombian Armed Forces. Notwithstanding these and other international considerations, influencing Uribe's extra-territorial 'act of war', I would argue that the main consideration in this attack on the FARC campsite in Ecuador was to decapitate, weaken and isolate the most powerful guerrilla movement in Latin America and the most uncompromising opponent to Washington and Bogotá's repressive neo-liberal policies. International politicians, including progressive leaders like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, who have called for the end of armed struggle, seem to overlook the recent experiences of FARC efforts to de-militarize the struggle, including three peace initiatives (1984-1990), (1999-2001) and (2007-2008) and the heavy costs to the FARC in terms of the killing of key leaders, activists and sympathizers. During the mid-1980's many leaders of the FARC joined the electoral process, formed a political party--the Patriotic Union. The scores of successfully elected local and national officeholders and5,000 of their members, leaders, congress-people and three presidential candidates were slaughtered. The FARC returned to the countryside and guerrilla struggle. Ten years later, the FARC agreed to negotiate with then President Pastrana in a demilitarized zone. The FARC held public forums, discussed policy alternatives for social and political reforms to democratize the state and debated private versus public ownership of strategic economic sectors with diverse sectors in 'civil society'. President Pastrana, under pressure from US President Clinton and later Bush, abruptly broke off negotiations and sent the armed forces in to capture the FARC's high level negotiating teams. The US-funded and advised Colombian military failed to capture the FARC leaders but set the stage for the scorched earth policies pursued by paramilitary President Uribe. In 2007-2008, the FARC offered to negotiate the mutual release of political prisoners in a secure demilitarized zone in Colombia. Uribe refused. President Chavez entered into negotiations as a mediator. The French government and others challenged Chavez to ask for 'evidence' that the FARC prisoners were alive. The FARC complied with Chavez request. It sent three emissaries who were intercepted and are being detained by the Colombian military under brutal conditions. Still the FARC continued with Chavez request and attempted to relocate the first set of prisoners to be turned over to the Red Cross and Venezuelan officials--but they came under aerial attack by Uribe's armed forces thus aborting the release. Still later, under increased risk, they were able to release the first batch of captives. The French Foreign Minister Kouchner and Chavez made new requests for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national and former presidential candidate. This was sabotaged when Uribe, with high-level US technical assistance, launched a major military offensive throughout the country, including a comprehensive monitoring program, tracing communications between Reyes, Chavez, Kouchner, Larrea and the Red Cross. It was this high-risk role played by Reyes as the highest level FARC official involved in the negotiations and coordination for captive release that led to his assassination. Outside pressures for a unilateral release of prisoners caused the FARC to lower their security. The result was the loss of leaders, negotiators, sympathizers and militants--without securing the release of any of their 500 comrades held in Colombian prisons. The entire emphasis of Sarkozy, Chavez, Correa and others demanded unilateral concessions from the FARC - as if their own tortured and dying comrades in Uribe's jails were not part of any humanitarian consideration. The subsequent summit in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of March 8-9 led to a condemnation of Colombia's violation of Ecuador's territorial sovereignty, but the Uribe government, responsible for the invasion, was not actually named or officially sanctioned. Moreover, no mention was made (let alone respect shown) for the treacherously assassinated leader, Raul Reyes, whose life was lost in pursuit of a humanitarian exchange. If the meeting itself was a disappointing response to a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce: a smiling Uribe, walked across the meeting hall and offered a hand shake and perfunctory apology to Correa and Chavez, while Nicaraguan President Ortega embraced the murderous leader of Colombia. By that vile and cynical gesture, Uribe turned the entire military mobilization and weeklong denunciations by Chavez and Correa into a comic opera. The post-meeting 'reconciliation' gave the appearance that their opposition to a cross-border attack and the cold-blooded murder of Reyes was merely political theater--a bad omen for the future if, as is likely, Uribe repeats his cross border attacks on an even larger scale. Will the people of Venezuela or Ecuador and the armed forces take serious another call for mobilization and readiness? Less than a week after the Santa Domingo 'reconciliation' meeting, Chavez and Uribe renewed an earlier military agreement to cooperate against 'violent groups whatever their origins'. Clearly Chavez hopes that by dissociating Venezuela from any suspicion of providing moral support to the FARC, Uribe will stop the large-scale flow of paramilitary infiltrators from entering Venezuela and destabilizing the country. In other words, 'reasons of state' take precedence over solidarity with the FARC. What should be clear to Chavez however is the fact that Uribe will not abide by his side of the agreement because of his ties to Washington, and the latter's insistence that the Chavez government be destabilized by any or all means, including the continued infiltration by Colombian paramilitary forces into Venezuela. Uribe could apologize to Correa and Chavez because the real purpose of his military attack was to destroy the FARC leadership, any way, any place, any time and under any circumstance--even in the midst of international negotiations. Washington placed a $5 million dollar bounty on each and every member of the FARC secretariat, long before Chavez or Correa came to power, Washington's top priority--as witnessed by its military aid programs ($6 billion dollars in 7 years), size and scope of its military advisory mission (1500 US specialists) and the length of its involvement in counter-insurgency activities within Colombia (45 years)--was to destroy the FARC. Washington and its Colombian surrogates were willing to incur the predictable displeasure of Correa, Chavez and the slap on the wrist by the OAS if they could succeed in killing the Number Two commander of the FARC. The reason is clear: it is the FARC and not the neighboring leaders, who influence a third of Colombia's countryside; it is the FARC's military-political power which ties down a third of Colombia's armed forces and prevents Colombia from engaging in any major military intervention against Chavez at the behest of Washington. Uribe and Washington have pressured Correa into cutting most of the FARC's logistical supply lines and many security camps on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Correa claims to have destroyed 11 FARC campsites and arrested 11 guerrillas. The Venezuelan National Guard has turned a blind eye to Colombian cross border military pursuit of FARC activists and sympathizers among the Colombian refugee-peasantry camped along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Uribe and Washington's pressure has forced Chavez to publicly disclaim any support for the FARC, its methods and strategy. The FARC is internationally isolated--the Cuban Foreign Ministry proclaimed the phony 'reconciliation' at Santo Domingo to be a 'great victory' for peace. The FARC is diplomatically isolated, even as it retains substantial domestic support in the provinces and countryside of Colombia. With the 'neutralization' of outside support, or sympathy for the FARC, the Uribe regime--before, during and immediately after the Santo Domingo meeting--launched a series of bloody murders and threats against all progressive and leftist organizations. In the run-up to a March 6, 2008 200,000-strong 'march against state terror', hundreds of organizers and activists were threatened, abused, followed, interrogated and accused by Uribe of 'supporting the FARC', a government label, which was followed up by the death squad killings of the leader of the march and four other human rights spokespeople. Immediately following the mass demonstration, the principle Colombian trade union, the CUT (the Confederation of Colombian Workers) reported several assassinations and assaults including the head of the banking employees union, a leader of the teachers union, the head of the education section of the CUT and a researcher at a pedagogical institute. All told, over 5,000 trade unionists have been killed, 2 million peasants and farmers have been forcibly removed and their land seized by pro-Uribe paramilitary forces and landlords. Former self-confessed death squad leaders publicly have admitted to funding and controlling over one-third of the elected members of Congress backing Uribe. Currently 30 congress-people are on trial for 'association' with the paramilitary death squads. Several of Uribe's most intimate cabinet collaborators were exposed as having family ties with the death squads and two were forced to resign. Despite international disrepute, especially in Latin America, with powerful support from Washington, Uribe has built up a murderous killing machine of 200,000 military, 30,000 police, several thousand death squad killers and over a million fanatical middle and upper class Colombians in favor of 'wiping out the FARC'--meaning eliminating independent popular organizations of civil society. More than any other past Colombian oligarchic rulers, Uribe is the closest to a fascist dictator combining state terror with mass mobilization. The opposition political and social movements in Colombia are massive, committed and vulnerable. They are subject to daily intimidation and gangland-style murder. Through terror and mass propaganda, Uribe has so far been able to impose his rule over the working class opposition and attract mass middle class support. But he has utterly failed to defeat, destroy or disarticulate the FARC--his most consequential opposition. Each year since he has come to power, Uribe has pledged massive, all-out military sweeps of entire regions of the country, which would finally put an end to the 'terrorists'. Tens of thousands of peasants in FARC-influenced regions have been tortured, raped, murdered and driven from their homes. Each of Uribe's military offensives has failed. Yet he absolutely and totally fails to recognize what some generals and even US officials observe: the FARC cannot be militarily annihilated and at some point the government must negotiate. Uribe's failures and the enduring presence of the FARC have become a psychotic obsession: All territorial, legal, international constraints are thrown overboard. Alternating between euphoria and hysteria, faced with internal opposition to his mono-maniac strategy of terror, he screams 'FARC supporters' at any and all overseas and Colombian critics. To Ecuador and Venezuela, he promises 'not to invade their territory again' unless 'circumstances warrant it.' So much for 'reconciliation.' The period of humanitarian exchange is dead; the FARC cannot and will not accommodate the requests of well-intentioned friends, especially when it puts in risk the entire FARC organization and leadership. Let us concede that Chavez intentions were well meant. His pleas for a mutual release of prisoners might have made sense if he had been dealing with a rational bourgeois politician responsive to international leaders and organizations and eager to create a favorable image before world public opinion. But it was naïve for Chavez to believe that a psychotic politician with a history of annihilating his opposition would suddenly discover the virtues of negotiations and humanitarian exchanges. Without question, the FARC understands better than its Andean and Caribbean friends through hard experience and bitter lessons, that armed struggle may not be the desired method but it is the only realistic way to confront a brutal fascist regime. Uribe's killing of Raul Reyes was not about Chavez initiatives or Ecuador's sovereignty or Ingrid Betancourt's captivity, it was about Raul Reyes, a consequential and life-long revolutionary and leader of the FARC. The war-scare is over, differences have been papered over, the leaders have returned to their palaces, but Raul Reyes has not been forgotten--at least not in the countryside of Colombia or in the hearts of its peasants. James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and argentina and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed). His new book with Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and the State: Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina, will be published in October 2005. He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu

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