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Today's Stories July 18, 2006 Mike Whitney Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza July 17, 2006 Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land July 14 / 15, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn How Venice is Dying Tanya Reinhart The IDF is Hungry for War Robert Fisk Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key? Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Jazz Winslow Wheeler Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase Hugh O'Shaughnessy In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation M. Shahid Alam Israel, the US and the New Orientalism William S. Lind Two Signposts in Iraq Ramzy Baroud Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault Gilad Atzmon Echoes of the Wehrmacht Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Railroading Your Rights Samar Assad A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges Ron Jacobs Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There? Lee Ballinger A New Kind of Jim Crow? Walter Brasch A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police Dave Lindorff The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died Clifton Ross Up from Below in Oaxaca Tom Crumpacker Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba Ricardo Alarcon The Mad Annexationist William Hughes Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit Susie Day Bugging Hillary Farrah Hassen The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies July 13, 2006 Saul Landau Lies as Patriotism? Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's   June 21, 2006 Ramzy Baroud Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality Patrick Cockburn Embassy Work as Death Sentence Gary Leupp Making the Case for Impeachment Greg Moses Elite Logic at the Border June 20, 2006 Fred Gardner The Long War on Aspirin Omar Waraich Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink Christopher Reed Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime Slaves CP Newswire Coca Cola Takes a Hit Jonathan Cook Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up   June 19, 2006 Bill Quigley HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of New Orleans John Walsh Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War Mike Whitney The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad Photo Op Alexander Cockburn The Left and the Blathersphere June 16 / 18, 2006 Weekend Edition Kathy / Bill Christision The Power of the Israel Lobby Joseph Nevins On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths Farrah Hassen An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha Greg Moses The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border Nicole Colson "There's No Hope at Gitmo" John Scagliotti How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money Mokhiber / Weissmann Corporate Democrats   June 15, 2006 Kathy Kelly Look Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi Norman Solomon Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem Ron Jacobs Publicity Stunts as Public Policy Sam Bahour Cover Up on Gaza Beach Ramzy Baroud Palestine on the Brink CounterPunch Wire Death Squads at Colombia's Universities Gabriel Kolko Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms Website of the Day Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear   June 14, 2006 Nicole Colson "They Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer Lynne Stewart Jonathan Cook Israeli Law and Order Joseph Schechla Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc. Michael Carmichael Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted Evelyn Pringle Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership Ward Churchill My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies Rev. William E. Alberts Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent? Website of the Day Marines Iraq Snuff Film   June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Take Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech Anthony Alessandrini The Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo Suicides Paul D'Amato The Meaning of Haditha Dave Lindorff The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk? John Ross Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador? Gabriel Garcia Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive Results Hilton Obenzinger DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel Yitzhak Laor The Secret of Authority Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera Puerto Rico at the UN Jennifer Van Bergen The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination? Website of the Day Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter   June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History? Patrick Cockburn The US Already Misses Zarqawi Mike Marqusee Rebranding a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup Lee Sustar "I Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and Delphi Robert Fisk Has Racism Invaded Canada? Michael J. Smith Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland Felice Pace NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East Jennifer Loewenstein Setting the Record Straight on Hamas Website of the Day Our Way Home   June 10 / 11, 2006 Weekend Edition Robert Fisk Zarqawi's End is not a Famous Victory Diane Christian Zarqawi's Face Joe Allen The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues Ralph Nader Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks Fred Gardner Tylenol Toxicity Terror Dave Lindorff Nothing New About Haditha Dave Zirin / John Cox Will Racism Spoil the World Cup? Dennis Perrin Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN Greg Moses Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me John Chuckman Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot? Michael J. Smith Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two Roger Burbach Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush Ira Moskowitz Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve Gordon Sam Bahour The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response Seth Sandronsky Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores Close Michael Berg A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America Kirsten Roberts Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns Ron Jacobs Who's Fooling Who? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Miles and Trane, So What?

July 18, 2006 "The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel" Israel’s Shameful attack on Gaza By MIKE WHITNEY “We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in their operation…When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of shrapnel that hit the person killed.” Dr. al-Saqqa, Shifa hospital, Gaza; following the examination of the “completely burnt” bodies of dead Palestinians killed in Israeli air raid. Question: How many editorials or op-ed columns have appeared in American newspapers defending the rights of Palestinian civilians to live in peace without the constant threat of being invaded or shelled by the world’s forth largest military? None. How many editorials or op-ed columnists have defended the Geneva Conventions or international laws against collective punishment, the willful destruction of critical infrastructure, or military maneuvers that deliberately put civilians in imminent danger? None. Then how many editorials or op-ed columnists have presented the recent flurry of events (including the capture of Israeli soldier Galid Shalit) in the broader context of Israel’s ongoing boycott of food and medical supplies, as well as the 50 or so Palestinian civilians who have been killed in Israel’s regular incitements in the occupied territories? None. The account of Palestinian suffering and victim-hood rarely finds its way into the mainstream press, but in the present case, it has been completely ignored. In fact, none of the media provide any context for the current invasion at all. Israel’s blockade of food and lethal provocations have been going on for months, and yet, the accounts from Gaza would have the reader believe that history began on the day that the Israeli soldier was captured. Sure, if the reader wants a balanced perspective, he can go to the internet and choose from the many articles which provide the Israeli or Palestinian perspective of events, but the mainstream media? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. The bias has grown into such an impenetrable cloud of pro-Israeli rubbish that it’s laughable. In fact, its more likely to stumble across the random article lambasting Bush or Cheney than anything remotely critical of Israel. There’s no debate about the facts of Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza. The only thing in dispute is the way those facts are skewed in the American media. Pick up the New York Times and you would swear it was edited by Ariel Sharon. There’s not even an attempt at evenhandedness; just the foolish ruminations of scribes who think they can spin war crimes into hard-hitting journalism. Israel has been pummeling Gaza for months; intentionally starving the beleaguered occupants while lobbing 6,000 artillery shells into populated areas. Isn’t that front page news? Meanwhile, another 50 civilians have been bumped-off in gangland-style hits ("Targeted assassinations") authorized by the Knesset’s newest Mafia Don, Ehud Olmert. Olmert has put the carnage and destruction into high-gear eliciting criticism from his very own daughter who protested in front of her father’s home with signs that said, “Stop the Killing” among other things. The Israelis have developed “sound machines” that emit ear-piercing explosions that have been deployed in Gaza City to shatter windows, cause miscarriages, and send children into deep trauma. It is a “terror device” pure and simple; it has no other function except to produce massive fear and anxiety. It is the latest weapon in the prodigious arsenal of the “world’s most moral army” (Olmert quote) So why can’t we get the real scoop about Israel’s depredations in the territories or, at the very least, an occasional article providing a differing point of view? Is that too much to ask? Simply put, anyone who believes this nonsense about “the poor abducted soldier” who fell prey to Hamas terrorists is a fool. The soldier is part of an illegal occupation which has been condemned in countless UN resolutions and which makes him a legitimate target in the struggle for national liberation. Since his capture, he has received medical attention and, my guess is, he probably hasn’t been tortured or abused at all. (which certainly would not be the case if he was captured by Israeli or American forces) So, who’re the terrorists here anyway? Newly elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been calling for calm and restraint throughout the entire 14 day ordeal. In fact, Haniyeh has made repeated appeals to the militants to release the soldier unharmed even while “Olmert the barbarian” was rampaging through Gaza blowing up roads, electric power plants, water lines, and, yes, even schools. Schools, for God’s sakes. That’s just flat nuts! If Israel had any sense they’d dump Olmert the madman and appoint Haniyeh as Prime Minister. So far, he’s the only one who has emerged from this mess looking like a reasonable fellow. (Note: Israel continues to threaten his life.) Anyway, don’t expect objectivity from the American “free press”. I had to search through the Arab media just to find out that the UN was sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza to report on “Israel’s grave rights violations”. Don’t you think that the American people would like to know that little tidbit? Or, that UN special-rapporteur, John Dugard is headed off to Gaza to investigate the Israeli military’s “disproportionate use of force against civilians”. Dugard said, “It is clear that Israel is in violation of the most fundamental norms of humanitarian law and human rights.” His comments have not appeared in any American newspaper. Wouldn’t the American people want to know how far removed their government is from the prevailing opinion of other countries? Sure they would, but don’t expect the media to tell them. The American public has no idea the effect this invasion has had on the Muslim world; the mass demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Tehran, Doha etc. They haven’t heard the anger ring-out at the United Nations or the world leaders who are sick and tired of the US defending Israel’s heavy-handed tactics. The average American has no idea that Israel is keeping over 9,000 prisoners locked up without charges and that over 400 of them are woman and children. What the hell are they doing with children anyway? It’s an outrage. It’s pretty clear that Israel would never get away with its crimes against humanity if it didn’t have a trustworthy friend in the American media. The streetwalking western press gave Bush a free pass on his Iraqi bloodbath; now they’re abetting Israel in its terror-crusade in Gaza. It’s shameful.

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