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Today's Stories April 18, 2007 Landau / Hassen Tancredo as 17th Century Indian Chief? April 17, 2007 Jean Bricmont / Diana Johnstone The Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami Paul Craig Roberts Bloodbath in Blacksburg Frida Berrigan Militarizing the Border Alison Weir The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims Aren't Bad John Walsh Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC? Jason Hribal Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant Evelyn Pringle The Iraq Money Trail Ben Terrall Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted Stan Cox 1040s and Death Certificates Soren Ambrose Confidence Crisis at the IMF Website of the Day Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"   April 16, 2007 John F. Sugg Hate and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise Carl G. Estabrook The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts The Party of Brownshirts Uri Avnery Blood on Our Hands Ralph Nader Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes? Eamon McCann Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle Lee Sustar Decoding the Democrats Mike Whitney Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market Don Fitz Solar Capitalism? Stephen Lendman Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change Website of the Day Black Mesa Water Coalition   April 14 / 15, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Ho Industry Whores Jorge Mariscal Gen. Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy Jeffrey St. Clair The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded Dave Marsh The Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics Dr. Trudy Bond Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's Bitches Joe Bageant A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard Fidel Castro The Terrorist Walks Alfredo Molano "More Than Complicated" Alan Farago When Miami Crashes Michael Neumann Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities Fred Gardner Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST Ron Jacobs A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War Gail Dines Racy Sex, Sexy Racism Linda Ford Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women Athletes Missy Beattie What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho Dan La Botz Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico Giuliana Sgrena The Lies of Mario Lozano Laura Carlsen A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements Abu Spinoza Wolfowitz's Real Crimes Elizabeth Schulte Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino Poets' Basement Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau Website of the Weekend Vonnegut's Final Interview   April 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Shattering of Mosul Stephen Soldz Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective George Ciccarriello-Maher The Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On Laith al-Saud Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds Dave Zirin Memo to Imus John Ross Drawing a Line in the Heartland Ramzy Baroud America as Proxy Harvey Wasserman The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut Lopez, Olivo and Garcia Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments Dols, Fukumori, Judd and Tillett-Saks Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice Website of the Day Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard   April 12, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski We May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture Paul Craig Roberts Big Profits from Big Brother Marjorie Cohn U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights Evelyn Pringle Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them Off? Ron Jacobs God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut Norman Solomon The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John Joe DeRaymond The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford Plea and Death Row Nicola Nasser Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission Nikolas Kozloff Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By Accident" William S. Lind Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare Siegfried L. Sassoon A Statement Against the Continuation of the War Website of the Day Where You Want This Killin' Done?   April 11, 2007 R. T. Naylor Quebec's Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be Fought Vijay Prashad The Generation of IEDs and iPods Patrick Cockburn The Myth of Tal Afar Winslow T. Wheeler When Will the War Money Really Run Out? Jack Balkwill Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement Russell D. Hoffman The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout Peter Rost, MD The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks Mike Whitney Doomsday for the Greenback? Dave Lindorff Torture and Selective Outrage Susie Day Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts Website of the Day Save the Internet!   April 10, 2007 James G. Abourezk How Syria Helped the US in the "War on Terror"-and How Bush Said "Thanks" Earl Ofari Hutchinson Why Imus Should be Fired-And Why He Won't Be Joshua Frank Democrats for War Lee Sustar How Concessions by UAW Lost Jobs Joseph Grosso Tiger Woods in Dubai: Luxury and Exploitation Nirmal Ghosh China and the Fate of the Tiger Robert Jensen Impeach the System Ramzy Baroud Not an Intellectual Squabble Paul Rockwell History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon Solidaridad? Chávez in Haiti Fred Wilhelms Why the New Royalty Rates Hurt Artists Website of the Day Thaw!   April 9, 2007 Saul Landau Whining Imperialists Uri Avnery Shalom, Shin Bet Nicole Colson Sami Al-Arian's Nightmare: an Interview with Nahla Al-Arian Gideon Levy Israel Does Not Want Peace Corporate Crime Reporter Big Coal Invokes Reverse Nuremberg Defense Evelyn Pringle The Surge in Casualties Hill Kemp Mega Lessons from Iraq War, Year 5 Martha Rosenberg Monsanto's Desperate Plea: "Regulate Our Competitors!" Keith Rosenthal Behind Boston's Recent "Crime Wave" Jane Stillwater Green Zone Cabin Fever Website of the Day Support Norman Finkelstein April 7 / 8, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Dead Dogs Don't Bleed: How Giuliani Lost America Sara Roy A Jewish Plea Arno J. Mayer Back to Cleopatra's Nose: Bush-Bashing and Empire's Onward March Jeffrey St. Clair In the Realm of the Grizzly Kings Vicente Navarro Why Huntington and Beck Are Wrong Fidel Castro Where Have All the Bees Gone? And Other Reflections on the Internationalizaton of Genocide Fred Gardner Medical News from the Business Pages Ralph Nader The IRS Owes You Money David N. Rahni Test Tube Zealots: American Chemical Society Purges Iranian Chemists Arthur Neslen When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite Pratyush Chandra Joseph Stiglitz's "Another World" Missy Beattie Enough Already! The Politics of Exasperation Marc Levy A Beginner's Guide to Combat Poets' Basement Reiss, Holt, Orloski and Louise Website of the Weekend Reactor Man   April 6, 2007 Franklin Lamb Why is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List? Gloria La Riva On the Case of the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles Corporate Crime Reporter The Politics of Coal in West Virginia Ron Jacobs Good Friday, Beethoven and Patti Smith Felice Pace Simon Says: The Pro-Israel Bias of NPR Walter Brasch Treason in the White House? David Swanson Heroes, Sung and Unsung Sylvia Syracuse Roadside Rampage: Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala April 5, 2007 Patrick Cockburn A De Facto Hostage Exchange Tom Barry The Fred Thompson Factor Richard W. Behan Congressional Complicity Nicola Nasser Playing US Politics with Iraqi Blood for Oil Bernadine Dohrn The New and Old SDS: Convergence Not Division Laray Polk Lucky Dragon: Does the World Really Need a New H-Bomb? Helen Redmond Female Chauvinist Pigs?   April 4, 2007 Col. Dan Smith "Have You No Sense of Decency?": the Tillman Affair and the Moral Decay of the Army Joshua Frank Democratic Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering Margaret Kimberly Of Confessions and Torture Sharon Smith Circuit City's Guinea Pigs: the Latest Trend in Corporate America Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV Martin Luther King,Jr. Beyond Vietnam Bill Quigley Incident at Fort Huachuca, the Army's Torture Training Center Dave Zirin Picking Chicago's Pockets with the Olympics Evelyn Pringle Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing Years Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Puny Fine Website of the Day Crash of the Honey Bees   April 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn US's Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking Marjorie Cohn Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees Brian M. Downing The Army's Road to Iraq Corporate Crime Reporter Coddling Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower Carol Norris A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution Ralph Nader Tailpipe Blues Dave Lindorff I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million) Scott Bontz The Great Depletion Thomas Dolby Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem Website of the Day Cockburn on BookTV April 2, 2007 Gary Leupp A Bogus Hostage Crisis Uri Avnery Condi in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat James Petras Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster Norman Solomon McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps Robert Fisk War of Humiliation Stanley Heller A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey Sherwood Ross How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability Pay Monica Benderman On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart Stephen Fleischman Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System Anne McElroy Dachel Never Mind the Mercury Website of the Day Midwestern Common Sense on the War March 31 / April 1, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair That Was an Antiwar Vote? Fred Gardner How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast Cancer Greg Moses The Pirates of Homeland Security Gary Leupp 300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus) Robert Fisk Shakespeare and War Roger Morris The Politics of the Witch Hunt Conn Hallinan The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia Kristin J. Anderson A Protocol for Death Jason Hribal California's Most Unhappy Cows John Ross Strange Fruit Down South Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie, Lie Big David Underhill War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows Elizabeth Schulte The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster Ben Terrall Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti Missy Beattie Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah and the O-Word Sonja Karkar How Palestine Became Israel's Land Daniel Wolff Have You Heard the News? David Vest A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris Ron Jacobs Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet Poets' Basement Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau Website of the Weekend Kansas City Rocks   March 30, 2007 Alan Maass Oil and the Empire Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters Richard W. Behan George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon Gets Their Oil Gabriel Kolko Israel's Last Chance William S. Lind Operation Anabasis Stedjan / Weis The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World Kevin Zeese Is Bush Lame or Is Congress? David Busch Homeless in LA Fidel Castro Biofuels and Global Hunger CounterPunch News Service Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case Website of the Day Free Shaquanda Cotton March 29, 2007 Saul Landau Comparing Padillas Patrick Cockburn When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage Dave Lindorff War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran Arthur Neslen Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth Michael Dickinson Incident at Westminster Abbey Ingmar Lee Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia Aseem Shrivastava As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private Marlene Martin Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited Mahmoud El-Yousseph Wake Up, You Live in America! Michael Foley A Citizen's Peace Lobby Website of the Day Impeach Bush Club Parade March 28, 2007 Nicole Colson The Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian Harry Clark Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine Larry Everest Another $100 Billion to Continue the War Jonathan M. Feldman Citigroup, Property and Theft Dave Zirin Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It) Jane Stillwater How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar Ayesha Ijaz Khan Pakistan's Cry for Justice Jim Wilfong Who Owns Maine's Water? Hawra Karama An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom Website of the Day Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians March 27, 2007 Iain Boal / Standard Schaefer British Petroleum and the New Greenmail Patrick Cockburn The Hostage Game Monica Benderman On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come Home? Corporate Crime Reporter Political Players and Single Payer Joshua Frank Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies Harvey Wasserman Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia? Sen. Russell Feingold FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act Tillman Family Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps" Patrick Bond Zimbabwe's Descent David Judd Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia Website of the Day Why Work? March 26, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Seven Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads Uri Avnery Schoolbooks and Borders Greg Moses Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande Bill Hatch A Plague of Big Shots John V. Walsh The Democrats' War Funding Debacle Diane Christian God Does Not Love the Aggressor Dan La Botz The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads Frederico Fuentes Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!" Sunsara Taylor Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths Mickey Z. Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype Website of the Day DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy   March 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Where are the Laptop Bombardiers Now? Jeffrey St. Clair Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby David Rosen An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation of Nature Ron Jacobs The Political History of the Car Bomb Robert Fantina Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same Alan Maass Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand Atul Gawande On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread in Hospitals Marianne McDonald Staging Anti-Colonial Protest China Hand Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord Kaz Dziamka The Iroquois Way of Impeachment Andrew Wimmer The Nursemaid's Tale Don Monkerud World's Biggest Debtor Nation Anthony Papa Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case Matthew Provonsha Return of the Black Bloc Missy Beattie Calling Youth and Young Adults Stephen Fleischman Confrontation, At Last Poets' Basement Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski Website of the Weekend An Interview with Ron Jacobs Song of the Weekend "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" March 23, 2007 Saul Landau Return to Syria Patrick Cockburn Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban Greg Moses Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley Rep. Ron Paul The War Funding Bill Franklin Lamb Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat? Stephen Gowans Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment Roger Burbach Leftist Victory in Ecuador Dave Lindorff The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats William S. Lind Candles in the Hurricane Alan Mammoser The New Rules of Food Russell Hoffman Al Gore's Nose is Glowing Website of the Day Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class   March 22, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Oil-Rich Kirkuk at the Melting Point Robin Blackburn Toxic Waste in the Sub-Prime Market Michael Donnelly Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from Al Gore Uzma Aslam Khan Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue Lee Sustar Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program Robert D. Skeels LA's Vicious War on the Homeless Rev. William Alberts The Forbidden C-Word Anne McElroy Dachel The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene Mickey Z. This is Your Brain on Meat Website of the Day Raimondo Does Hitchens   March 21, 2007 Tao Ruspoli A Conversation with Robbie Conal James Petras Meet the Global Ruling Class Fred Gardner A U.S. Army Pipe Dream Corporate Crime Reporter Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street Faisal Kutty Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge? Robert Fantina U.S. Imperialism in Action Isabella Kenfield and Roger Burbach Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords Lucinda Marshall Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact of War on Women? Winslow Wheeler Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means! Website of the Day Student Day of Action Against the War     March 20, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster Winslow T. Wheeler The Blank Check War Sharon Smith Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher? Uri Avnery The New Palestinian Unity Government Stan Cox Down-to-a-Trickle Economics Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Hating the Rich Alan Farago Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000 Richard W. Behan Impeachment and Patriotism Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On David Krieger The Treaty of Tlatelolco Peter Rost, MD An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise, 10,000 Fired Employees Mickey Z. A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall Website of the Day Bringing the War Home Webclip of the Day Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again   March 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Crime Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Patrick Cockburn Operation Deepening Nightmare Stauber / Rampton Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward? Werther Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost of Joe McCarthy Noam Chomsky In Memory of Tanya Reinhart Jeff Leys Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War Richard May And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash Ron Jacobs Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons of the Iraq War Mike Whitney Rove in the Dock Website of the Day Ringtones That Roar     March 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Here Comes Another "Crime Wave" John Scagliotti A Sissy's Manifesto Jeffrey St. Clair The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep Paul Craig Roberts The Confession Backfired Greg Moses Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso Harry Clark Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks Brian Cloughley In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq Mehran Ghassemi An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran William Loren Katz A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation John Ross Being a Zapatista Where You Live Ralph Nader Ban the Bomblets! Walter Brasch An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military Samer Assad The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy Dave Zirin Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary Ron Jacobs The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World Missy Beattie No to War and Pace Don Santina First, They Came for the Democrats Sami Adwan What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks Dr. Susan Block Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox Poets' Basement Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski Website of the Weekend God Save Helen Mirren   March 16, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Political Economy of Diamonds Paul Craig Roberts The Last Days of Constitutional Rule Joshua Frank Obama's Israel Problem Diane Farsetta How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups Tom Barry Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right Stephen Lendman Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition to War Al Krebs Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death Squads Jackie Corr Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture Ramzy Baroud Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle Reza Fiyouzat The Chinese Way of Capitalism Website of the Day Introducing: the iRak   March 15, 2007 Alison Weir Strip-Searching Children at Israeli Checkpoints Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Under Surge Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the Bleeding Franklin Spinney Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld Standard Schaefer Biofuels and the Green Resistance Conn Hallinan The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan Maureen Webb Another Patriot Act Abuse Sonja Karkar Rachel Corrie and Palestine Margaret Kimberly The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated Anthony Papa The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition Katherine Hancy Wheeler Bush's Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost Video of the Day The Easiest Targets Website of the Day Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!   March 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli A Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta and the State of the Left Philip Agee The Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America Bruce Dixon The Digital Redlining of African-Americans John Walsh How One Senator Could End the War Sunsara Taylor Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran William Johnson Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula Shipyards Richard Thieme Entitlement and Empire Jeffrey Klein Right-Wing Academic Values Nicola Nasser This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity Dave Lindorff Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats Website of the Day Oil Change   March 13, 2007 Catherine Wilkerson, M.D. Scenes from a Cop Riot Jonathan Cook The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon Robert Bryce Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second Corporate Crime Reporter Coal-Powered Democrats Pierre Rimbert Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism Dave Lindorff What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai Elizabeth Schulte The Repackaging of John Edwards Norman Solomon The Pragmatism of Prolonged War Kevin Zeese The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan Jeff Conant Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos Website of the Day Tacoma and the Big Heat     March 12, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Patriot Act Unbound Col. Dan Smith Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials Paul Craig Roberts Neocons in Kafkaland Ingmar Lee The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine Fred Gardner Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal Ron Jacobs Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest Ralph Nader Send the Bush Twins to Iraq! John Ross Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico Stephen Fleischman Bush's Latin American Slip Eva Carazo Vargas Why We Reject CAFTA Website of the Day Mountain Justice Spring Break   March 9 / 11, 2007 Sameer Dossani Interview with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st Century Jeffrey St. Clair Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil Dave Marsh Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent Patrick Cockburn Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive Jennifer Van Bergen A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic Spying James P. Stevenson Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen Arthur J. Versluis Crusade for Commercialism Corporate Crime Reporter Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime Missy Beattie Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying Michael Simmons Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter Kevin Zeese Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No Longer Enough David Swanson Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats John A. Murphy Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless? Dave Lindorff Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by Democrats Nikolas Kozloff Lights! Camera! Chavez! Christopher Fons Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR? Mike Roselle A Thousand Miles of Bad River Mike Mejia Justice for Sibel Edmonds Susie Day Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran! Michael Donnelly LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5) Poets' Basement Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley Website of the Weekend Japanese Dolphin Massacre   March 8, 2007 Elaine Cassel The Tragic Case of Jose Padilla Yifat Susskind Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation Corporate Crime Reporter Politics and the Prosecutors Col. Dan Smith The Sins of Walter Reed William S. Lind The Washington Dodgers Mark Engler Bush's Latin American Spring Break Roger Burbach With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail Dana Cloud Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought Police Isabella Kenfield Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental Degradation Lucinda Marshall We Stand with the Women of the World Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part 3) Website of the Day Filibuster for Peace March 7, 2007 Christopher Ketcham What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? Christopher Ketcham The Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold Winslow T. Wheeler Mismeasuring the Defense Budget Sean Donahue Free Scooter Libby! Dave Lindorff The Fall Guy Has Fallen Evelyn Pringle Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction Website of the Day Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!   March 6, 2007 Gary Leupp Meet Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It Gets" Uri Avnery Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism Patrick Cockburn The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter Saul Landau World in Crisis, Candidates in Denial Corporate Crime Reporter John Edwards' Big Lie Ron Jacobs The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong! Mike Roselle Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone P. Sainath Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell Joshua Frank Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War Aniket Alam Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen Dave Zirin Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer Website of the Day Physicians for a National Health Program   March 5, 2007 Greg Moses Holding Suzi Hazahza for Profit Patrick Cockburn Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities James Petras Bush vs. Chavez Frida Berrigan US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran Marjorie Cohn Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial: the Case of Augustín Aguayo Douglas Kammen and S.W. Hayati The Rice Crisis in East Timor Sen. Barack Obama On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel" Michael Young Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot? Dave Lindorff It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al Sonja Karkar Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive Website of the Day How Obama Learned to Love Israel   March 3 / 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Persecution of Sami Al-Arian Corporate Crime Reporter "No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim Bias Jeffrey St. Clair Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite Patrick Cockburn War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply Ralph Nader Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America M. Shahid Alam American Mamlukes Gilad Atzmon From Esther to AIPAC Fred Gardner It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain George Ciccariello-Maher The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela Rock & Rap Confidential Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively for Blacks" Gillian Russom The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo Michael McPhearson My Small Act of Civil Disobedience Kevin Zeese The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom? Sunsara Taylor Four Years of an Unjust War Wendy Thompson Re-Organizing the UAW Kenneth Rexroth Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" Missy Beattie Regarding Cheney Don Monkerud Jesus Turned Away at US Border Tina Louise Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams Poets' Basement Richards, Landau and Davies Website of the Weekend John Prine: Flag Decal   March 2, 2007 Roger Morris Cheney's Bagram Ghosts Phil Gasper Prisoners of Ideology Mike Roselle Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone Robert Bryce The Ethanol Scam John V. Walsh Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the War Sherwood Ross Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget China Hand Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb? David Rosen To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America Chris Genovali Connecting the Dots Peter Harley The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela Website of the Day Courage to Resist   March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen Return to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail Paul Craig Roberts The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men Ray McGovern How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Theater of the Absurd Najum Mustaq America's Musharraf Dilemma Brent Bowden The War on Terror and the Terror of War Tina Richards Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds Ethan Nadelman Mexico and the Drug War Mike Stark "Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution Wadner Pierre / Jeb Sprague Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN Mike Whitney Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan Website of the Day Dylan Hears a Who     Subscribe Online

April 18, 2007 An Interview with Steve Connors and Molly Bingham Meeting the Resistance in Iraq By KEVIN PROSEN Meeting Resistance is an unprecedented new documentary that goes deep into the heart of the insurgency against American forces in Iraq. Over the course of ten months, journalists Steve Connors and Molly Bingham interviewed ten anonymous members of the resistance centered in the al-Adamiya neighborhood of Baghdad. Through candid interviews with the diverse members of the insurgency, the film calls into question many of the official myths about the Iraqi resistance promoted in the western press and lays bare the complex psychological, political, and religious motivations of the diverse groups and individuals which began organizing resistance cells almost immediately after the fall of Baghdad. I had a chance to speak with Steve Connors and Molly Bingham after the film's world premier at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival last weekend. To begin, could you please describe how you began reporting in Iraq? Molly Bingham I was in Iraq in March during the invasion. Steve and I both got into Baghdad not long after the statue fell and worked as freelance photographers until about June of 2003 when we took a break for six weeks. We started Meeting Resistance in August 2003. One of the stories I was working on as a freelancer was about places Saddam Hussein was seen before he disappeared. So I went to the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adamiyeh neighborhood of Baghdad, where Saddam had reportedly been sighted. I met a gentleman who offered to show me around and I ended up chatting with him for a little while. After a while my translator told me he was in the resistance. I was surprised, like "that guy?" He was around fifty, had a paunch, mild mannered and gentle, welcoming to me as a foreigner there. I got back to the hotel and talked to Steve about it. We had started noticing small scale attacks against troops, and decided to look into it further. What sort of dangers did you face working as "unembedded journalists" in Iraq? Steve Conners One was that we were approaching people who were clearly involved in violence, and were pretty dangerous; we didn't know if they were going to be dangerous to us. Our main defense was actually our defenselessness; it was Molly and me and a translator and a driver. We had no bodyguards, we just were hanging out and being what we are. When we first met each of the characters in the film, we were told by them in no uncertain terms if anything went wrong, which we took to mean if we were working for the American military or intelligence services, we would be killed. They knew where we lived. Another was just generally being around Baghdad. There were bombs going off all over the place, lots of American convoys trucking around, they didn't take to kindly to anybody walking too close to a convoy. A lot of Iraqis were shot for driving too close to the convoys. Iraq was a very dangerous place even then. Did anything surprise you about the social and political makeup of the resistance? MB: I think the thing we found was they were socially diverse, some had served in the military, some had not. There were some Sunni and some Shi'a, like the Traveler and the Syrian. What surprised us was in some ways how understandable, normal it was once you heard them explain what they were fighting for, their motivations. It started to make more sense. We didn't know what we would find, but that was a little bit surprising. They said "we are defending our land, we don't want to be occupied. Our honor is attacked by foreign troops on the soil." Generally their feeling wasn't anti-American hatred, or hatred of America "because of our freedom." It was because soldiers were on the ground. It wouldn't have mattered if those troops were French or Chinese or American. SC: In some ways we were not surprised, in some ways we were really surprised. We were always on a learning curve. There was an amazing quote by the Teacher, it didn't make the final cut of the film. He said we want to have a good relationship with America, but send us your engineers or scholars, not your warriors who shoot the place up. You interview an Iraqi professor in this film who has studied the resistance cells. He describes their motivations as primarily nationalist and patriotic. Yet many of the people in the film refer to Islam as the banner that these groups form under. What is your impression of the role played by Islamic ideology among the resistance? MB: Again, each individual in the film had a separate and unique personal experience as to their motivations. Some were largely nationalist, with a dash if Islam, and then there were changes. Within the film, there are slight contradictions or nuances where people joined for different reasons. In the beginning there was a very high nationalist attitude, or more secular, and later in the project we were beginning to pick up on a shift in tone, having a more Islamic foundation to it. It was a lot of talking to the Imam, around the time Saddam Hussein was caught. Basically he explained to us that because Iraq had become invaded by non-Muslims, it becomes imperative to fight Jihad. Nationalism folded into Islamic thinking. A lot of them had nationalist characteristics which converged with Islam. SC: This is one of the things we really learned, which was very valuable for us. It's so commonplace, particularly to the Sunnis, and these guys require no leadership, because what they are doing is already mandated in the Koran and the Hadith, which is like the Islamic equivalent to the gospels. This is the first insurgency in history where you can't cut the head off because there is no head. Leadership is going where your followers want you to go. That was a really valuable lesson for us. I know the American military thought the Imams were the leaders of the insurgency, because they would call for Jihad in the mosques. They went around arresting them, when in reality they were just articulating the demands of their congregation. Moqtada al-Sadr's movement staged an enormous rally last week, and early this week he withdrew his six ministers from the cabinet. According to the Iraq Study Group report, the Mehdi army is estimated around 60,000 fighters. Strangely, though, there is no mention of the Sadrist movement in the film. Did you get a sense of Sadr's influence in your time spent in Iraq? MB: there is a very brief mention toward the end. Just after the contractors were killed in Falluja in April 2004 there was a Sadrist uprising, following the closing the Sadrist newspaper by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the issuing of arrest warrants for Sadr. SC: The reason we didn't put in more about Sadr was first of all that the project was very short-lived. We were talking to this resistance movement the Sadrists waited for a command from their sayed, we do try to explain some of that difference in the film. MB: The major difference between Sunni and Shi'a in this context is that the Sunni are going to make their individual decision. They have a more "Protestant" direct relationship with God, they will make their own decision about Jihad. Shia have a more "Catholic" perspective, they will follow the rules and fatwas laid down by their leaders. Some follow Sistani, some follow Sadr, and there are other leaders. If you look at the control the Shi'a leaders have over the population, it's almost like a tap. Sadr can turn the tap on, say "I want you out demonstrating, or he can say "I want everyone to stay home, so there's this really direct control the Shi'a leadership has that doesn't exist on the Sunni side. SC: There is a quote in the film, the Syrian said he was surprised the Iraqis weren't rising "as one hand," but if the Sunni and Shi'a got together, if Sistani got the word, they couldn't rise as one hand and expel the Americans. The Warrior says something similar, at one point, where he asks "where is Sistani in this." Sadr is probably the most underestimated man in Iraq right now. MB: The recent demonstrations were a tremendous force politically, and it shows how controlled the Shia can be. That's really important, the Shia don't unanimously welcome foreign presence on their soil. In pulling his cabinet members this week, Sadr says he wants those positions filled by technocrats, to diminish the sectarian elements in the government. SC: I don't know if you spotted this, but there is a sort of "re-nationalism" coming up, after that bomb attack in the Green Zone the other day, which was purported to be by a suicide bomber. There's talk of a shadow government being formed, a non-sectarian political bloc of Sadrists and Sunni nationalists. So this is spinning out into a very interesting way. That's one story to watch in the coming weeks. This film just had its world premier. What was the reaction from the audience like? SC: Amazing. We had a 275 seat theater, and 60 people outside who couldn't get in. It was full. A lot of people stuck around for the Q&A, and people were coming up to us the rest of the film festival. MB: We've been working basically in isolation the last four years on this, so to finally be public with this project, and the way this film informs the debate about Iraq, it's really wonderful for us to have that response. SC: A lot of people have been very suspicious about what they've been told about Iraq, but they can't put their finger on what doesn't make sense. Meeting Resistance manages to answer some of those questions and then allow people to have a frame work from which they can ask more questions. We've found that there's a sense of relief there, that "Hey, I'm not going crazy, it's not about two-headed monsters, this is bout normal human beings and normal motivations. Once you understand this first year of the resistance, a lot of other things fall in to place. MB: We've also shown this film for over 200 career officers at Quantico, at West Point, the Royal College of Defense Studies in Britain, and the response from those institutions has also been amazing, they had a lot of questions. It's a tremendous honor as a journalist to see that your work is so highly valued. Through documentaries and TV pieces, Americans have been very highly exposed to the American soldiers' experience in Iraq. This is the fist time Americans are being exposed to Iraqis speaking in their own voices, and given a chance to make their own judgments. What can people who read this interview do to help bring this film to a larger audience? MB: Our website is www.meetingresistance.com, there are clips of the film there. For members of universities or groups who want to see the film, they can contact us through the website. W would love to be invited to screen the film in front of universities or other interested groups. Kevin Prosen grew up in Milwaukee, and is now a freelance writer and activist living in Durham. He can be reached at kprosen@gmail.com

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