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Israel/Palestine:
How 2011 Could See an Escape from a Dead "Peace Process"From Jerusalem Jeff Halper outlines how a game-changing break is possible. Don’t miss this important piece. Pam Martens: how ordinary people can fight back against the big banks. Peter Lee on North Korea Deathwatch: how real is the threat of war? Larry Portis on the dog massacre that was a trial run for the Armenian genocide. Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
Today's Stories December 17 - 19, 2010 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Clarence Lusane Eric Stoner Saul Landau Rannie Amiri Mottaki: First Casualty of Wikileaks? Ramzy Baroud Chuck Collins Ron Jacobs Sherry Wolf David Macaray Sam Smith Missy Beattie Laura Flanders Randall Amster December 16, 2010 Alan Farago Dean Baker Peter Lee Jospeh Nevins Norman Girvan Michael Winship Robert Jensen Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day December 15, 2010 Diana Johnstone James Bovard Conn Hallinan Vijay Prashad Robert Weissman Stephan Salisbury Fred Gardner Joshua Frank Anthony Papa Steven Higgs Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers / Afghans for Peace Website of the Day
December 14, 2010 Norm Kent Mike Whitney Maximilian Forte Franklin C. Spinney Ralph Nader David Macaray Ali Khan / Lawrence Davidson Stewart J. Lawrence Cecil Brown
December 13, 2010 Patrick Cockburn Tariq Ali Jonathan Cook Israel's War on Children Uri Avnery Russell Mokhiber Patrick Bond David Smith-Ferri The December Review: Rubbish on Afghanistan Bob Sirois Danny Muller Randall Amster Website of the Day
December 10 - 12, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Peter Linebaugh Mike Whitney Thomas Volscho Joe Bageant John Barth, Jr. Jeffrey Sommers Jonathan Cook Robert Alvarez Rannie Amiri Franklin Lamb Dean Baker Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Aurel / Pierre Daum Ramzy Baroud Michael Winship David Ker Thomson Ron Jacobs Christopher Brauchli Missy Beattie Dennis Loo Harvey Wasserman Ingmar Lee Thomas H. Naylor Farzana Versey Ronnie Cummins Sherwood Ross Don Monkerud Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley CP Newswire Poets' Basement Randall and Hahn Website of the Weekend December 9, 2010 Pam Martens Wajahat Ali Sasha Kramer Fatima Bhutto Jimmy Johnson Laura Carlsen Binoy Kampmark Anthony Papa Website of the Day December 8, 2010 Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Eric Walberg Mike Roselle Greg Moses Diane Christian Fidel Castro Linn Washington James McEnteer Website of the Day December 7, 2010 Chris Floyd Gareth Porter / Dean Baker Gregory Elich Ralph Nader M. Shahid Alam Dave Lindorff Information Terrorists? David Macaray Linda Ueki Absher Manuel Garcia, Jr. Website of the Day December 6, 2010 Michael Hudson Paul Craig Roberts The US Government's Frontal Assault on Freedom Mike Whitney Sasan Fayazmanesh Steve Breyman Davey D Neve Gordon Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ben Terrall Website of the Day December 3 -5, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Darwin Bond-Graham Andy Kroll William Blum Rannie Amiri Ray McGovern Saul Landau / Ramzy Baroud P. Sainath John Carroll, M.D. David Rosen Steven Colatrella Thomas I. Palley Francis Shor Russell Mokhiber Bank Power Mark Weisbrot John V. Whitbeck Sherry Wolf Ronnie Cummins Michael Winship Ron Jacobs Nilofar Suhrawardy Missy Beattie Bill Manson Linh Dinh Bruce E. Levine John Grant David Macaray Yves Engler / Charles R. Larson Scott Borchert Harry Clark David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend December 2, 2010 Michael W. Hudson Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Benjamin Dangl Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Ed Moloney Brian McKenna Website of the Day
December 1, 2010 Gareth Porter Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press Paul Craig Roberts Russ Wellen Nikolas Kozloff Conn Hallinan Sheldon Richman Rich Broderick David Solnit Farzana Versey Charles M. Young Charles R. Larson Website of the Day November 30, 2010 Ralph Nader Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook Dean Baker James McEnteer Tom Engelhardt Sherwood Ross Gina Ulysse Bill Manson Website of the Day
November 29, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Israel Shamir Mike Whitney Lawrence Davidson Winslow Wheeler / John Carroll, MD P. Sainath Carl Finamore David Macaray Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
November 26 - 28, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler Ramzy Baroud Harry Browne Bill Quigley / Saul Landau Brian Cloughley Fidel Castro Francis Shor Steve Heilig Terrence Paupp Brenda Norrell Missy Beattie Linh Dinh Christopher Brauchli Eric Walberg Ellen Taylor Ron Jacobs Bill Manson Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch Michael Dickinson Ingmar Lee Gwyneth Leech David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend November 25, 2010 Michael Hudson Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Sarah Anderson Karl Grossman David Ker Thomson Rajesh Makwana / Adam Parsons Charles R. Larson Website of the Day
November 24, 2010 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts James Ridgeway Invasion of the Body Scanners: Is TSA Spreading Cancer? Michael Scott Nick Dearden Russell Mokhiber Daniel Moss Farzana Versey Yasin Gaber Dan Beaton Website of the Day November 23, 2010 Pam Martens Patrick Cockburn Ben Rosenfeld / Franklin C. Spinney Dean Baker Ralph Nader Ray McGovern George Wuerthner Don Monkerud Clare Bayard Website of the Day
November 22, 2010 Michael Hudson James Abourezk Paul Craig Roberts Sasan Fayazmanesh Richard Forno Gary Leupp Martha Rosenberg Lawrence Davidson Patrick Bond Michael Dickinson Website of the Day November 19 - 21, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Joanne Mariner Gareth Porter Karen Greenberg Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney et al. Rannie Amiri Dr. Jim Morgan Haiti's New Normal: Dispatch from Cite Soleil Lawrence Swaim Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Robert Alvarez Russell Mokhiber P. Sainath David Macaray Carl Finamore Brian Tierney Franklin Lamb Gerald E. Scorse Joshua Brollier Missy Beattie Stewart J. Lawrence Brenda Norrell Christopher Brauchli Carol Polsgrove David Ker Thomson Dave Lindorff Jeff Deasy Bill Manson Clifton Ross Charles R. Larson Twain: the Last Word, One Hundred Years Later Richard Estes David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend November 18, 2010 Diana Johnstone Mike Whitney Behzad Yaghmaian Kenneth E. Hartman Norman Solomon Michael Winship Patrick Bond Joel S. Hirschhorn Website of the Day November 17, 2010 Vicente Navarro James Bovard Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Ralph Nader Nick Turse Sherry Wolf Alienation 101: the Online Learning Rip Off Judith Scherr Peter Certo Website of the Day
November 16, 2010 Pam Martens Richard Forno Gareth Porter Harry Browne Peter Lee Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Frank Green Sheldon Richman Thomas H. Naylor Website of the Day November 15, 2010 Michael Hudson Steve Hendricks Paul Craig Roberts Harvey Wasserman Lawrence Davidson Clancy Sigal David Macaray Tom Engelhardt Steven Fake Website of the Day November 12 - 14, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dean Baker Gareth Porter William E. Alberts Bill Hatch Jonathan Cook Patrick Madden Mystifying the Crisis: Deadlock at the G20 Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri James Zogby Ron Jacobs Mark Weisbrot Tanya Golash-Boza Paul Wright Steve Early Martha Rosenberg Celia McAteer Larry Portis Michael Winship Brian McKenna Gerald E. Scorse Christopher Brauchli Roberto Rodriguez Dr. Susan Block J. T. Cassidy Linh Dinh Farzana Versey David Ker Thomson Phil Rockstroh Charles R. Larson David Swanson Saul Landau Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 11, 2010 Peter Linebaugh Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill Bill Quigley David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem Dedrick Muhammad Robert Bryce Alan Farago Website of the Day November 10, 2010 Allan Nairn Dean Baker Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Sergio Ferrari Patrick Cockburn Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round Sherwood Ross Joshua Frank Website of the Day November 9, 2010 Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Jordan Flaherty Afshin Rattansi Annie Gell Dean Baker Dave Lindorff Stewart J. Lawrence Walter Brasch Website of the Day November 8, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Thomas Healy David Swanson David Smith-Ferri Ralph Nader Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions John Feffer Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day November 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Vijay Prashad Patrick Cockburn Darwin Bond-Graham
Mike Whitney Linn Washington, Jr. Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud Larry Portis Gary Leupp William Loren Katz Brian Cloughley Mark Weisbrot Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes Joseph Nevins Neve Gordon Alan Farago Stewart J. Lawrence James R. King Ron Jacobs Franklin Lamb James McEnteer Richard Phelps Saul Landau David Ker Thomson The Long Argument Evelyn Pringle Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore Stanley Heller Missy Beattie Harvey Wasserman Billy Wharton Shamus Cooke Linh Dinh Windy Cooler Charles R. Larson Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Website of the Weekend November 4, 2010 Doug Peacock Andrew Cockburn Iain Boal Paul Craig Roberts Chase Madar Dave Lindorff Russell Mokhiber Laura Flanders Website of the Day November 3, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Franklin C. Spinney Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle William Blum Sheldon Richman Stephen Soldz Mark Weisbrot Stewart J. Lawrence Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland Norman Solomon Website of the Day November 2, 2010 Vincent Navarro Ishmael Reed Uri Avnery Mark Driscoll Mike Whitney Linh Dinh David Macaray Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny Betsy Ross Yves Engler Website of the Day
November 1, 2010 Ted Honderich Steven Higgs John Ross Dean Baker Ralph Nader Justin E. H. Smith Marjorie Cohn Scott Boehm Brian Tierney Trish Kahle Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition Hammering KandaharThe Brutal Price of ProgressBy GARETH PORTER The Barack Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October. But those tactical gains have come at the price of further exacerbating the basic U.S. strategic weakness in Afghanistan – the antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south. The military offensive in Kandahar, which had been opposed clearly and vocally by the local leadership in the province, was accompanied by an array of military tactics marked by increased brutality. The most prominent of those tactics was a large-scale demolition of homes that has left widespread bitterness among the civilians who had remained in their villages when the U.S.-NATO offensive was launched, as well as those who had fled before the offensive. The unprecedented home demolition policy and other harsh tactics used in the offensive suggest that Gen. Petraeus has abandoned the pretense that he will ever win over the population in those Taliban strongholds. The New York Times first reported the large-scale demolition of houses in a Nov. 16 story that said U.S. troops in Arghandab, Zhari and Panjwaii districts had been using armoured bulldozers, high explosives, missiles and airstrikes in "routinely destroying almost every unoccupied home or unused farm building in areas where they are operating". Neither U.S. nor Afghan officials have offered any estimate of the actual number of homes destroyed, but a spokesman for the provincial governor told the Times that the number of houses demolished was "huge". Confirming the widespread demolition policy, Col. Hans Bush, a spokesman for Petraeus, suggested that it was necessary to provide security, because so many houses were "booby- trapped" with explosives. But Bush also acknowledged that U.S. troops were using a wide array of "tools" to eliminate tree lines in which insurgents could hide. And the demolition policy was clearly driven primarily by ISAF's concerns about the IED war that the Taliban has been winning in 2010. The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran revealed in a Nov. 19 article that, in one operation in Zhari district, the military had used more than a dozen mine clearing charges, each of which destroyed everything - houses, trees, and crops - in a 100-yard-long path wide enough for a tank. The district governor in Arghandab, Shah Muhammed Ahmadi, acknowledged that entire villages had been destroyed – a policy he defended by claiming that there were no people left in them. "[I]n some villages, like Khosrow," he said, "that we've found completely empty and full of IEDs, we destroy them without agreement, because it was hard to find the people, and not just Khosrow but many villages we had to destroy to make them safe." But Col. David Flynn, the battalion commander of a unit of the 101st Airborne Division responsible for a section of the district, contradicted the claim that demolition was only carried out if the people who owned the houses could not be found. Flynn told reporters of London's Daily Mail he had issued an ultimatum to residents of Khosrow Sofia: provide full information on the location of IEDs the Taliban had planted there or face destruction of the village, according to the account published Oct. 26. Flynn told the reporters that one of his platoons had a casualty rate of 50 percent in the village. Flynn later claimed that the residents had responded to his threat by clearing out all the IEDs themselves, according to Carl Forsberg of the Institute for the Study of War. Researcher and author Alex Strick Van Linschoten, one of the only two Westerners to have lived independently in Kandahar City in recent years, said a friend had been told the same thing. However, Linschoten told IPS that he understands from an eyewitness that at least two other villages in Flynn's area of responsibility, including the nearby Khosrow Ulya, were leveled and one was reduced to "a dust bowl". District chief Ahmad referred to "Khosrow" as one of the villages he said the Americans "had to destroy to make them safe". The threat to destroy a village if its residents did not come forward with information would be a "collective penalty" against the civilian population, which is strictly forbidden by the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. It is unclear how widely the threat to demolish homes was used in Zhari and Panjwaii and how many of the villages were destroyed in retribution for refusing to do so. According to data provided by the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), however, only 13 IEDs were turned in by the population in the entire country in October. That suggests that the residents of the newly occupied villages in the three districts did not provide any information about IEDs. The house demolition policy and the increased use of collective punishment were part of a broader strategy of increasing the pressure against the Pashtun population in the south. The level of targeted raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces against suspected Taliban was tripled before Petraeus took over command from Gen. Stanley McChrystal in June, even though McChrystal acknowledged publicly that those raids generated intense anger across the country against foreign forces. Although those targeted raids killed and captured a large number of Taliban commanders, they also subjected thousands of part-time guerrillas and supporters to arrest and detention. The effort to weaken the Taliban insurgency through such violent tactics is bound to continue the cycle of more Pashtuns vowing revenge against foreign troops and rejecting the Afghan government. Journalist Anand Gopal, a Dari-speaking specialist on Afghanistan, discovered another form of collective punishment practiced during the offensive. Gopal told IPS that people in Zhari district reported two cases in which U.S. and Afghan forces rounded up and detained virtually everyone in a village after receiving small arms fire from it. The house demolitions in Kandahar have apparently affected many thousands of people. The demolitions "have made a whole lot of people very angry, because they will be cold and hungry in the coming months", said a U.S. source who asked not to be identified. But the U.S.-NATO command is evidently unconcerned about that anger. Chandrasekaran quoted a "senior official" as asserting that, by forcing people to go to the district governor's office to submit their claims for damaged property, "in effect you're connecting the government to the people." Now Brig. Gen. Nick Carter, commander of U.S.-NATO troops in southern Afghanistan, has openly embraced that justification of the house demolition policy. In an interview with AfPak Channel published last week, he suggested that the demolition of houses "allows the district governor to connect with the population…" But that connection is certain to be marked by bitterness. A tribal elder in Panjawaii was quoted by the Post's Chandrasekaran as dismissing the offer of compensation for houses destroyed as "just kicking dirt in our eyes." The new level of brutality used in the Kandahar operation indicates that Petraeus has consciously jettisoned the central assumption of his counterinsurgency theory, which is that harsh military measures undermine the main objective of winning over the population. But there are tell-tale signs that higher-level commanders in Kandahar know that those tactics will not defeat the Taliban either. Col. Flynn, the U.S. commander in a section of Arghandab, told the Daily Mail, "At the end of the day, you cannot kill your way to victory here. It will have to be a political solution." Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
CounterPunch Print Edition Exclusive! Israel/Palestine: From Jerusalem Jeff Halper outlines how a game-changing break is possible. Don’t miss this important piece. Pam Martens: how ordinary people can fight back against the big banks. Peter Lee on North Korea Deathwatch: how real is the threat of war? Larry Portis on the dog massacre that was a trial run for the Armenian genocide. Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
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