CounterPunchTells the Facts and Names the Names $2.50 September 1-15, 2003 and Jeffrey St. Clair VOL. 10, NO. 15

Our Little Secrets My Life as an “Anti-Semite”

US GUIDED MISSILE BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN PARTS OUTSOURCED TO CHINA: ight in the wake of then-House rush into print saying “Cockburn toys with majority leader Dick Armey’s ex the old anti-Semitic canard that the INDIANA WORKERS Rplicit call in mid-2002 for two mil- control the press”. CHARGE TREASON lion Palestinians to be booted out of the Back in the 1970s when muteness on West Bank, and East Jerusalem and Gaza the topic of how was treating Pales- Y EFFREY T LAIR B J S C as well, came yet one more of those ear- tinians was near total in the United States, nest articles accusing a vague entity called I’d get the “anti-Semite” slur hurled at me Magnequench is an Indianapolis-based “the left” of anti-Semitism. This one was once in a while for writing about such no- company. It specializes in the obscure in Salon, by a man called Dennis Fox, no stuff as Begin’s fascist roots in Betar, or field of sintered magnetics. Essentially, identified as an associate professor of le- the torture of Palestinians by Israel’s secu- it makes tiny, high-tech magnets from gal studies and psychology at the Univer- rity forces. I minded then, as I mind now, rare-earth minerals ground down into a sity of Illinois. Salon titled Fox’s contri- but overuse has drained the term of much fine powder. The magnets are highly bution, “The shame of the pro-Palestin- clout. The other day I even got accused of prized by electronics and aviation com- ian left: Ignorance and anti-Semitism are anti-Semitism for mentioning that the Jews panies. But Magnequench's biggest cli- undercutting the moral legitimacy of Is- founded Hollywood, which they most cer- ent has been the Pentagon. rael’s critics”. tainly did, as Neil Gabler recently recounted The neodymium-iron-boron mag- Over the past 20 years I’ve learned in a very funny, pro-Semitic book. nets made by Magnequench are a cru- there’s a quick way of figuring out just The encouraging fact is that despite the cial component in the guidance system how badly Israel is behaving. You see a best efforts of the Southern Poverty Law of cruise missiles and the Joint Direct brisk uptick in the number of articles here Center to prove that the Nazis are about Attack Munition or JDAM bomb, accusing the left of anti-Semitism. These to march down Main Street, there’s re- which is made by Boeing and had a star- articles adopt varying strategies, but the markably little anti-Semitism in the US, ring role in the spring bombing of Bagh- most obvious one is that nowhere in them and none that I’ve ever been able to de- dad. Indeed, Magnequench enjoys a is there much sign that the author feels it tect on the American left, which is of near monopoly on this market niche, necessary to concede that Israel is a racist course amply stocked with Jews. It’s comi- supplying 85 percent of the rare-earth state whose obvious and provable intent cal to find people like Fox trudging all the magnets that are used in the servo mo- is to continue to steal Palestinian land, way back to the 60s to dig up the neces- tors of these guided missiles. oppress Palestinians, herd them into sary anti-Semitic jibe. But the Pentagon may soon be smaller and smaller enclaves and ulti- Being called an anti-Semite these days sending its orders for these parts to mately drive them into the sea or Leba- isn’t what it once was. The term has been China, instead of Indiana. On Septem- non or Jordan or Dearborn or the space relentlessly cheapened. As Michael ber 15, Magnequench shuttered its last in Dallas-Fort Worth airport between the Neumann writes in his piece in The Poli- plant in Indiana, fired its 450 workers third and fourth runways (the bold tics of Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is and began shipping its machine tools Armey plan). “action or propaganda designed to hurt to a new plant in China. "We're hand- Eschewing these realities, the author Jews not because of anything they could ing over to the Chinese both our defense feels entirely at liberty to stigmatize the avoid doing but because they are what they technology and our jobs in the midst of left as stained with anti-Semitism. are”. a deep recession," says Rep. Peter The real problem is most Jews here But nowadays people don’t flourish Visclosky, a Democrat from northern just don’t like hearing bad things said the charge of anti-Semitism because Indiana. about Israel, same way they don’t like they’ve heard someone quoting the It gets stranger. Magnequench is not reading articles about the Jewish lobby Protocols or saying that the Jews kill (OLS continued on page 2) here. Mention the lobby and someone will (My Life continued on page 3) 2/COUNTERPUNCH SEPTEMBER 1-15, 2003 Magnequench in order to speed their devel- opment of long-range Cruise missiles. China OUR LITTLE SECRETS already holds a monopoly on the rare-earth minerals for the missile magnets. The only only moving its defense plants to China, it's shipped its assembly line to China. Now Cox operating mine is in Batou, China. actually owned by Chinese companies with is presiding over the closure of "By controlling access to the magnets close ties to the Chinese government. Magnequench's last factory in the US, the and the raw materials they are composed of, Magnequench began its corporate life Valparaiso, Indiana plant that manufactures US industry can be held hostage to Chinese back in 1986 as a subsidiary of General the magnets for the JDAM bomb. Most of blackmail and extortion," Leitner told Insight Motors. Using Pentagon grants, GM had the workers have already been fired. magazine last year. "This highly concen- developed a new kind of permanent magnet "Archie Cox and his company are com- trated control--one country, one government- material in the early 1980s. It began manu- mitting a criminal act," says Mike O'Brien, -will be the sole source of something criti- facturing the magnets in 1987 at the an organizer with the UAW in Indiana. "He's cal to the US military and industrial base." Magnequench factory in Anderson, Indiana. a traitor to his country." Visclosky and Senator Evan Bayh have In 1995, Magnequench was purchased It's clear that Cox and Sextant were act- asked the Bush administration to intervene from GM by Sextant Group, an investment ing as a front for some unsavory interests. using the Exon-Florio Amendment to the company headed by Archibald Cox, Jr-the For example, only months prior to the takeo- 1988 Defense Appropriation Act to pry the son of the Watergate prosecutor. After the ver of Magnequench San Huan New Mate- Chinese money out of the company and force takeover, Cox was named CEO. What few rials was cited by US International Trade Magnequench to keep its factories in Indi- knew at the time was that Sextant was largely Commission for patent infringement and ana. a front for two Chinese companies, San business espionage. The company was fined There's precedent for just such a presi- Huan New Material and the China National $1.5 million. Foreign investment in Ameri- dential move. In 1990, George H.W. Bush Non-Ferrous Metals Import and Export Cor- can high-tech and defense companies is regu- ordered the state-owned China National poration. Both of these companies have close lated by the Committee on Foreign Invest- Aerospace and Export Company to divest ties to the Chinese government. Indeed, the ments in the United States (CFIUS). It is its interest in Mamco Manufacturing of ties were so intimate that the heads of both unlikely that CFIUS would have approved Seattle, reportedly because of concern that companies were in-laws of the late Chinese San Huan's purchase of Magnequench had the Chinese firm could have use Mamco to premier Deng Xiaopeng. At the time of the it not been for the cover provided by Cox acquire jet fighter engine technology. The takeover, Cox pledged to the workers that and his Sextant Group. directive came from Bush three months af- Magnequench was in it for the long haul, ter CATIC had seized control of Mamco. intending to invest money in the plants and ne of Magnequench's subsidiaries is a When after six months the Chinese company committed to keeping the production line Ocompany called GA Powders, which refused to relinquish its interest in Mamco, going for at least a decade. Three years later manufactures the fine granules used in mak- Bush ordered the Treasury Department to Cox shut down the Anderson plant and ing the mini-magnets. GA Powders was place the company in receivership and barred originally a Department of Energy project the Chinese officials from having any ac- created by scientists at the Idaho National cess to its facilities. Editors Engineering and Environmental Lab. It was Bush 2 has declined to respond to the ALEXANDER COCKBURN spun off to Magnequench in 1998, after JEFFREY ST. CLAIR pleas from Visclosky and Bayh. So has the Lockheed assumed the operations at INEEL. Treasury Department, which could have Business In June 2000, Magnequench uprooted intervened to stop the move. Visclosky BECKY GRANT the production facilities for GA Powders says that he also contacted the Pentagon. from Idaho Falls to a newly constructed plant Its procurement officials admitted to him Design in Tianjin, China. This move followed the that Magnequench was the only domestic DEBORAH THOMAS transfer to China of high-tech computer supplier of the smart bomb magnets equipment from Magnequench's shuttered (Hitachi holds the other contract), but that Counselor Anderson plant. According to a report in In- it had no idea that company was owned BEN SONNENBERG sight magazine, these computers could be by the Chinese or that it was packing up used to facilitate the enrichment of uranium for Tianjin. Published twice monthly except for nuclear warheads. As the doors closed on its Valparaiso August, 22 issues a year: $40 individuals, GA Powders isn't the only business ven- plant, a memo came from Magnequench $100 institutions/supporters ture between a Department of Energy op- advising that its HQ will soon be relocated $30 student/low-income eration and Magnequench. According to a from Indianapolis to Singapore. No word yet CounterPunch. newsletter produced by the Sandia Labs in on whether Cox is moving too. All rights reserved. Albuquerque, Sandia is working on a joint And yes, when the Republicans made a CounterPunch project with Magnequench involving "the mountain out of what turned out to be a pretty PO Box 228 development of advanced electronic controls small molehill concerning transfers to China Petrolia, CA 95558 and new magnet technology". in Clinton time, they said it might be grounds 1-800-840-3683 (phone) Dr. Peter Leitner is an advisor to the Pen- for impeachment. William Safire wrote lots [email protected] tagon on matters involving trade in strategic of columns on the matter. Not a bleat from www.counterpunch.org materials. He says that the Chinese targeted Safire now. CP SEPTEMBER 1-15, 2003 3/COUNTERPUNCH Christian babies. “Anti-Semitism” has be- members of Congress who had defied it. she went to Arab-American groups to try come like a flit gun to squirt at every in- A torrent of money from out of state to raise money to fight back. This allowed convenient fly on the window pane. American Jewish organizations smashed Tom Edsall to attack her in the Washing- I saw 2002 as a year when the Israel Earl Hilliard, the first elected black ton Post as being in receipt of money from lobby was worrying that the grip of the congressperson in Alabama since Recon- pro-terror Muslims. Lots of nasty looking gag rule might be loosening a trifle. Now, struction, and you could have heard a Arab/Muslim names suddenly filled the original gag rule was adopted by the mouse cough. Hilliard had made the fatal Edsall’s stories. US House of Representatives in 1836, re- error of calling for some measure of even- Down went McKinney. solving that “all petitions, memorials, handedness in the Middle East. So he Then it was Rep. James Moran’s turn, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relat- was targeted by AIPAC and the others. in hot water over his head for having re- ing in any way, or to any extent whatso- Down he went, defeated in the Demo- marked in a March 3 town hall session last ever, to the subject of slavery, shall, with- cratic primary by Artur Davis, a black spring with his constituents that, as quoted out being either printed or referred, be laid lawyer who obediently sang for his sup- in the Virginia-area newspapers, “if it were on the table, and that no further action per on the topic of Israel. not for the strong support of the Jewish whatever shall be had thereon”. Then it was Cynthia McKinney’s turn. community for this war with Iraq, we The parallel gag rule these days con- An excellent liberal black would not be doing this”. cerns Israel, a collective agreement by congresswoman, McKinney hadn’t been The House and Senate Democratic our legislators and the larger political cowed by the Israel-right-or-wrong lobby leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, community that any discussion of the and had called for a proper debate on the hastened to denounce Moran’s remarks, conduct of any government of Israel, of Middle East, and for a real examination and six Jewish House Democrats took it the relationship of the United States to of the lead-up to 9/11. The sky duly fell in upon themselves to advise Moran not to Israel, of the power of the pro-Israel on her. American Jewish money showered run for re-election in 2004. Should he do lobby in the United States, be kept as upon her opponent, Denise Majette. Buck- so, “we cannot and will not support his near to zero as is possible. ets of sewage were poured over candidacy”. Moran was forced to give up In the 1970s and early 1980s when I McKinney’s head in the Washington Post, on his positions as Democratic Party leader began writing on these issues, the gag rule and Cynthia Tucker, the black editorial in- in the mid-Atlantic region. The game plan was riding high, amid general agreement house pundit at the Atlanta Journal-Con- is clearly what it was with Hilliard of Ala- in respectable circles that Israeli Prime stitution, declared McKinney to be “a bama and McKinney of Georgia: breathe Minister Golda Meir was on the money fringe lunatic, well outside the congres- a word about justice for Palestinians, and when she declared flatly that there was no such thing as a Palestinian. Back then Joan “The encouraging fact is that despite the Peters got an enthusiastic reception for her book From Time Immemorial, which ad- best efforts of the Southern Poverty Law vanced the mad thesis that Palestinians in Center to prove that the Nazis are about to Israel were all relatively recent immigrants from adjacent Arab countries. march down Main Street, there’s remark- Things have improved since then, though not for the Palestinians, who in ably little anti-Semitism in the US.” those days had UN Resolution 242 to com- fort them, instead of the mini-Bantustans sional mainstream”. you’ll lose your seat. Moran is running for promised them in George Bush’s “road Tucker asserted McKinney is “incapa- reelection. And the decision will belong map”. Here in the US there’s general ble of aiding any cause” and had the final to the voters. agreement that there are people who can pious effrontery to declare: “The plight of One reason Moran got attacked so hys- be fairly called Palestinians, though be- the Palestinians and their desire for an in- terically is that Jewish nerves were raw yond this concession there’s no agreement dependent homeland is a serious cause on precisely the point he raised, the role about anything. deserving of thoughtful, mainstream ad- of Jewish opinion here in pressing for the By 2002 it was getting harder and vocates. Hilliard wasn’t one and neither attack on Iraq. It was one thing for Pat harder to foster the impression that Gen- is McKinney.” Buchanan to raise the issue of dual loy- eral Sharon was a man of peace, imbued McKinney’s opponent in the primary, alty in the American Conservative, but with a constructive vision of communal Denise Majette, was a former judge best when Tim Russert started to press Richard relations in the Holy Land. As the dust rose known for her ardent support of Alan Perle to assure the American people, or at above demolished homes on the West Keyes, a black aspirant for the Republi- least the audience of “Meet the Press” (by Bank and the enduring terror of the occu- can nomination whose prime plank was no means the same), that he was advocat- pation provoked retaliatory terror in the opposition to abortion. Normally a foe of ing an attack on Iraq in the interests of the form of the ghastly, futile suicide bomb- choice would have brought the women’s United States, not some other power, we ings, the predictable warnings against anti- movement racing to the rescue. Not in knew the gag rule had most definitely Semitism began to appear in the liberal and McKinney’s case. slackened, if only for a moment. left press. Then, it’s clear, the Israel lobby McKinney saw what happened to Suddenly researchers from decided to enforce the gag rule, by work- Hilliard, and that American Jewish money “Nightline” (one called me on the matter) ing successfully for the ouster of two was pumping up Majette’s challenge. So and other mainstream outfits rushed for 4/COUNTERPUNCH SEPTEMBER 1-15, 2003 copies of “A Clean Break: A New Strat- weapons of mass destruction”. or, given the broader Christian evangeli- egy for Securing the Realm”, the 1996 Abe Foxman of the ADL called the cal alliance with Sharon, in the Republi- briefing plan for Benjamin Netanyahu pre- resolution “a consensus document”, and can Party either. pared by such pro-Israel hawks as Perle, the Forward cited him as saying he would It’s supposedly the third rail in politi- Douglas Feith and others high in the Bush support a position that backs the President cal and cultural life here even to have a Administration, advocating attack on Iraq. in “whatever he decides he needs to do”. discussion of Zionist influence in the me- It was now okay for reporters (Robert Of course there were Jewish groups, dia. Obviously, Jews don’t “control” the Kaiser in the Washington Post, for exam- not least in the big peace coalitions, that media. All the same, Jewish families are ple) to describe the Jewish neocon lobby were strongly and effectively antiwar. In proprietors of some of the most powerful for war, starting with Perle, Wolfowitz and January the American Jewish Committee newspapers in the country. Is it likely that Feith, and heading on down the list to released a poll claiming that a majority of this has no bearing on their coverage of Elliott Abrams, running the Israel-Pales- American Jews—59 percent—approved the Middle East? So, it’s reasonable to tine portfolio at the National Security of US military action against Iraq to re- point out that Jewish families control the Council. move Saddam Hussein from power. New York Times and Washington Post and The op-ed pages duly began to vibrate Thirty-six percent opposed such action. to put up for discussion whether this af- with predictable charges from people like These findings, the AJC also emphasized, fects the editorial stance of both newspa- Lawrence Kaplan of were comparable to the attitudes of the pers. But it is also true that the most rabid that all this talk of dual loyalty and Isra- general American population. It’s at the of all papers in its Israel-right-or-wrong el’s agenda was nothing but rank anti- elite level that the Jewish voices one heard stance is the Wall Street Journal, which is Semitism. To his credit, Michael Kinsley, were overwhelmingly pressing for war. not Jewish owned and whose most influ- editor of Slate, ran a piece saying that up- Back once more to Moran. What was ential editor was Robert Bartley, a mid- roar raised by American Jews was prob- the precise nature of his supposedly “anti- western Christian. ably evidence that Moran was on the Israel” record that the rabbis in his district The economic and political commen- money, and that when it came to testimo- were now seeking to avenge? In a speech tator (and former denizen of The Wall nies to the power of the Jewish lobby, none to the American Muslim Council, Moran, Street Journal editorial page) Jude was more publicly boastful on the matter who has traveled extensively in the Mid- Wanniski remarked in his web newsletter than AIPAC. Moran himself was plummeting, whirling in the familiar downward spiral It’s supposedly the third rail in politi- of contrition and self-abasement. But did cal and cultural life here even to have his remark about “strong support” for at- tack on Iraq in the Jewish community have a discussion of Zionist influence in the any basis in reality? What about Ameri- can Jewish organizations? In the fall of media. 2002 the Forward reported that some Jew- ish groups, such as the Workmen’s Circle, dle East, said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel at the time of the Billy Graham uproar that were angry at the way the Conference of Sharon was coming to Washington “prob- even if Jews don’t control the media over- Presidents of Major American Jewish Or- ably seeking a warrant from President all, it is certainly true to say that they con- ganizations had been hijacked by the pro- Bush to kill at will with weapons we have trol discussion of Israel in the media here. war faction and by its mad-dog president, paid for”. True enough. In a 1996 Jerusa- Some time in the spring of 2002 I Mort Zuckerman, who was openly howl- lem Post op-ed, Moran described an Is- wrote an item for a column I was doing at ing for war in his own publication, U.S. raeli border policeman beating an unarmed the time for New York Press. Later, the News & World Report, as “the only ap- Palestinian. “The unarmed youth was held column went up on our CounterPunch propriate and acceptable course”. on the ground while police officers armed website (counterpunch.org), which has In mid-September 2002, Michelle with guns and clubs climbed over each around 50,000 regular visitors a day. Goldberg began a piece on this topic in other’s backs to land their own blows on “There are a number of stories slosh- Salon with “Once a pillar of the American his body”, Moran wrote. “Most of the wit- ing around the news now”, I wrote, “that peace movement, mainstream Jewish nesses to this scene said it happens all the have raised discussion of Israel and of the groups and leaders are now among the time. When Israeli police and Palestinians posture of American Jews to an acrid level. strongest supporters of an American inva- are concerned there is no justice or fair The purveyor of anthrax may have been a sion of Baghdad.” On October 11 the For- play. Might makes right. I witnessed the former government scientist of Jewish eth- ward reported that a draft resolution of the police laughing and making self-congratu- nic extraction with a record of baiting a 52-member Conference supported “meas- latory gestures after the beating.” colleague of Arab origins, acting with the ures necessary to ensure Iraqi disarma- How encouraging to know that an intent to blame the anthrax on Muslim ter- ment”. Jack Rosen, president of the Ameri- elected US representative had the sinew rorists. can Jewish Congress, was quoted by the to describe such a scene, sinew lacking in “Rocketing around the web and spill- Forward as saying “the final statement most US reporters deployed in Israel. But, ing into the press are many stories about ought to be crystal clear in backing the alas, such indignation, in Nancy Pelosi’s Israeli spies in America at the time of 9/ President having to take unilateral action words about Moran’s remarks in Virginia, 11. On various accounts of unknown reli- if necessary against Iraq to eliminate has “no place in the Democratic Party”— ability, they were trailing Atta and his as- SEPTEMBER 1-15, 2003 5/COUNTERPUNCH “As the dust rose above demolished homes on the West Bank and the enduring terror of the occupation provoked retalia- tory terror in the form of the ghastly, futile suicide bombings, the predictable warnings against anti-Semitism began to ap- pear in the liberal and left press.” sociates, knew what was going to happen words, “Frank, is your purpose to accuse determine whether they are true or not.’” but did nothing or were simply spying on me of disseminating anti-Semitic libels, “But, of course,” Foer crowed, “that US facilities. Some posing as art students under the guise of relaying rumors on the last sentence is the giveaway. There most have been expelled, according to the AP. Internet?” Frank allowed jovially as how certainly is enough exterior evidence to Finally, there’s Sharon’s bloody repression that was indeed his intent. determine whether the stories are true or of the Palestinians, and Israel’s apparently I told him that in my opinion the sto- not. The answer is that they are not. They powerful role in Bush’s foreign policy.” ries about Israeli spies, as categorized in are wild rumors circulating, if at all, in You’d have thought I’d urged Ameri- a US inter-agency report, as discussed on some of the least credible corners of the ca’s youth to immerse themselves in the Fox News, by the French site Intelligence Internet. No respectable media outlet has Protocols of the Elders of Zion. People Online and various other news sources in- given these stories credence. Merely by wrote in demanding that I acknowledge the cluding the British Jane’s, were legitimate stating that these ideas are in circulation, Israeli spy ring story had been “discred- topics of comment, as were the stories merely by saying it’s impossible to judge ited”. I declined to do so, citing some very about anthrax dissemination involving an their veracity, Cockburn confers these good columns by Justin Raimondo on the anti-Arab researcher. ideas with legitimacy.” Case proved. antiwar.com site, also the work of reporter We went back and forth on such is- But … “some of the least credible cor- John Sugg of the Atlanta-based Creative sues until the static got too bad. Later I ners of the Internet”? No one from The Loafing alternative weekly chain, and retrieved a magnanimous message from New Republic likes antiwar.com and Jane’s Intelligence Digest. I could also Frank Foer, as his name turned out to be, Justin Raimondo, and maybe he was have mentioned Carl Cameron’s four-part saying that he was conferring with asso- throwing in Fox News but surely not Le series on Fox News, altogether the single ciates about whether to deal with me in Monde and Jane’s Intelligence Digest. most comprehensive overview of Israel’s The New Republic. So I assumed that at “Consider, for example,” Foer went secret war, and Le Monde, as well as In- some point Cockburn would be stigma- on, “the story about the mad Jew scien- sight, the magazine supplement of the tized yet again as the purveyor of anti-Se- tists out to ruin the Muslims. I searched Washington Times. mitic filth. for it on the Lexis-Nexis news database Jane’s put it well, remarking in a Eventually Foer’s piece, for the online March 15 dispatch: “It is rather strange that New Republic, tumbled into my inbox, the US media, with one notable exception, where I read it after enjoying some spec- SUBSCRIPTION INFO seems to be ignoring what may well prove tacular barbecue at Dreamland in Birming- Enter/Renew Subscription here: to be the most explosive story since the ham, AL. After a pro forma linking of my One year $40 Two yrs $70 September 11 attacks—the alleged break- name with that of Louis Farrakhan, Foer ($35 email only / $45 email/print) up of a major Israeli espionage operation conceded that I had in the past denounced One year institution/supporters $100 in the United States which aimed to infil- expressions of anti-Semitism but that was One year student/low income, $30 trate both the Justice and Defence depart- now moot given the fact that in an allu- T-shirts, $17 ments and which may also have been sion to Gabler’s book on Hollywood I had Please send back issue(s) tracking Al-Qaeda terrorists before the air- pointed out that Sam Goldwyn, Bill Fox ($5/issue) craft hijackings took place.” and another mogul had all grown up within At the time I was driving a 1985 Ford 50 miles of each other in Galicia. In Foer’s Name Escort (diesel wagon) across the country view this was not the mere relaying by me from South Carolina. As I headed off down of an interesting fact but a culpable dem- Address the road from Greenville, SC, towards Bir- onstration of anti-Semitism. mingham, AL, my cellphone rang. It was Then he got down to business, City/State/Zip a fellow from The New Republic called focussing on the paragraph quoted above, Frank something or other, who said he where I’d brought up the Israeli spy story wanted to quiz me about some recent re- and the anthrax conundrum. “To be fair”, Payment must accompany order, or marks of mine about the Internet being he wrote, “Cockburn doesn’t exactly en- dial 1-800-840-3683 and renew by credit card. Add $12.50 for Canadian awash with anti-Israel material. Amid the dorse these theories…. Indeed, when I and $17.50 for foreign subscriptions. crackle and hiss of the ether and the roar reached Cockburn to ask him about these If you want Counter-Punch emailed to of the interstate it was hard to hear Frank conspiracies, he insisted he was just re- you please supply your email address. through the no-hands speaker on my dash- porting what was already in circulation. Make checks payable to: CounterPunch board, but eventually I caught his purpose ‘I don’t think I said they are true. I don’t Business Office and asked him flatly, in more-or-less these know there’s enough exterior evidence to PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 6/COUNTERPUNCH SEPTEMBER 1-15, 2003 but came up with nothing—not one sin- [Assaad’s] honor we created this beast; CounterPunch.... It’s been our experience gle mention of the story in a mainstream it represents life lower than yeast.’ The that we’ve had differences with our writ- news outlet.” Foer hadn’t tried very camel, it notes, each week will be given ers. It’s a strength of the magazine that it hard. A quick punch-through on Google ‘to who did the least’. The poem also accommodates a range of perspectives.’” brought four rather lengthy and detailed doubles as an ode to each of the partici- Isn’t it great to have an editor whose stories in the “mainstream” media on the pants who adorned the camel, who first instinct is to stand up for a 20-year harassment of Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a number at least six and referred to them- veteran of ’s columns! former Fort Detrick scientist, who was selves as ‘the camel club’. Two—Dr. “There are some perspectives that driven out of his job by people whose Philip M. Zack and Dr. Marian K. shouldn’t be accommodated”, Foer con- hatred of seemed to verge on the Rippy—voluntarily left Fort Detrick cluded. psychotic. The Hartford Courant ran two soon after Assaad brought the poem to So you should know that these days long stories: one report on how many the attention of supervisors.” it’s clear evidence of anti-Semitism to have samples of deadly anthrax and other bio- Foer also missed the complete ac- written an item that pisses off someone at terror toxins had gone missing from the count on the anthrax investigation The New Republic, with which I have had Army’s Fort Detrick facility, and another posted on Salon.com, in a story dated combative relations for the past 30 years, on the campaign against Dr. Assaad— January 26, 2002. Not to mention the as would anyone with a moral fiber in his the connecting tissue being another Fort Philadelphia Inquirer story, dated Feb- body. Could anyone sink lower than Foer? The game plan is clearly what it was with Hilliard of Alabama and McKinney of Georgia: breathe a word about justice for Palestinians, and you’ll lose your seat.

Detrick scientist, Dr. Philip Zack, who ruary 28, 2002. He also blithely ignored Yes! Eric Alterman adduced as a proof of was videotaped going into the lab at major media coverage of the Israeli spy my anti-Semitism the fact that I had been night after hours, and who was at the story. Why should he dally with fact rude, more than once, about Irving Howe. center of the anti-Assaad clique. when he was hurrying to issue judge- Puts me up there with the Cossacks, According to the Courant, “Assaad ment: “Cockburn’s column goes way doesn’t it? said he was working on the Saturday be- beyond legitimate criticism of Israel. It’s You’ll find this piece along with es- fore Easter 1991, just after the Persian akin to the rantings of pitchfork Pat says by Jeffrey St Clair, , Gulf War had ended, when he discov- Buchanan, whose anti-Semitism The Michael Neumann, Jeffrey Blankfort, Yury ered an eight-page poem in his mailbox. Nation has condemned. So you would Avnery and others, in The Politics of Anti- The poem, which became a court exhibit, expect the magazine to take a tough Semitism, published by CounterPunch/ is 47 stanzas—235 lines in all, many of stance on the anti-Semitism in its own AK Press October l. Order your copy now them lewd, mocking Assaad. The poem backyard. But when I asked The Na- from CounterPunch’s Becky Grant at the also refers to another creation of the sci- tion’s editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, discounted rate of $10.50, S/H included. entists who wrote it—a rubber camel about Cockburn, she could only lamely Call l-800-840-3683 with credit card in outfitted with all manner of sexually distance herself from the piece: ‘This hand, or send cheque to CounterPunch, po explicit appendages. The poem reads: ‘In didn’t appear in The Nation. I don’t read box 228, Petrolia, Ca 95558. CP

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