A 2002 article on anti-Semitic remarks by Reverend Billy Graham reprinted elsewhere , discussed the furor over recently released tape-recorded conversations between Graham and President Richard Nixon . Cockburn contrasted that response to the response to revelations in 1989 that Graham had advocated destroying Vietnam 's irrigation infrastructure , which by Nixon 's estimate would kill a million civilians if the Paris peace talks failed . The latter revelations , in Cockburn 's view , received little press coverage , while the anti-Semitic remarks caused a media firestorm . Cockburn wrote that Graham 's anti-Semitic comments were " consonant with the standard conversational bill of fare at 75 percent of the country clubs in America , not to mention many a Baptist soiree ? But they ( Nixon , Graham , and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman ) did n't say they wanted to kill a million Jews . That 's what Graham said about the Vietnamese and no one raised a bleat . " His critics quoted the final passage , reproduced below , to accuse Cockburn of spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories : Certainly , there are a number of stories sloshing around the news now that have raised discussions of Israel and of the posture of American Jews to an acrid level . The purveyor of anthrax may have been a former government scientist , Jewish , with a record of baiting a colleague of Arab origins , and with the intent to blame the anthrax on Muslim terrorists . Rocketing around the web and spilling into the press are many stories about Israeli spies in America at the time of 9/11 . On various accounts , they were trailing Mohamed Atta and his associates , knew what was going to happen but did nothing about it , or were simply spying on US facilities . In regards to the same passage , Suzanne Fields goes on to note " When asked if the stories were true , Mr Cockburn delicately demurs . ' I do n't think I said they were true , ' he told The New Republic . ' I do n't know there 's enough exterior evidence to determine whether they are true or not . ' " Another of his critics was Franklin Foer of '' The New Republic '' , who first noted Cockburn 's response : To be fair , Cockburn does n't exactly endorse these theories . Rather , by noting that all of these Jewish conspiracy stories are " sloshing around the news , " Cockburn seems merely to be pointing out that , hey , anti-Semitic ideas are still out there today — so why the shock that Billy Graham endorsed them 30 years ago ? Indeed , when I reached Cockburn to ask him about these conspiracies , he insisted he was just reporting what was already in circulation . In the same article , Foer notes that Cockburn pointed out in the 1980s that Joseph Sobran " had a history of publishing boorish books on the Jews " and that he later criticised Lech Walesa for indulging in crude stereotypes of Jews . In September 1995 Cockburn had also accused Franjo Tudjman of anti-Semitism while covering the expulsion of 150,000 Serbs from Krajina writing that " President Franjo Tudjman bellowed coarsely from his ' freedom train ' that the refugees fled so fast that they did n't have time to take ' their dirty hard currency and their dirty underwear ' – language somewhat similar in timbre to Tudjman 's diatribes against the Jews in his professorial writings . " In his ironically entitled essay " My Life as an " Anti-Semite " , from pages 21 – 22 of '' The Politics of Anti-Semitism '' ( 2003 ) , Cockburn wrote , " Over the past 20 years , I 've learned there 's a quick way of figuring out just how badly Israel is behaving . You see a brisk uptick in the number of articles here accusing the left of anti-Semitism . " He went on to add : " Back in the 1970s when muteness on the topic of how Israel was treating Palestinians was near-total in the United States , I 'd get the anti-Semite slur hurled at me once in a while for writing about such no-no stuff as Begin 's fascist roots in Betar , or the torture of Palestinians by Israel 's security forces . I minded then , as I mind now , but overuse has drained the term of much clout . " In 2007 , during a C-SPAN interview , a caller commented accusingly that " Anti-Semitism is thought of as a right-wing phenomenon traditionally . However , you left-wingers , using Israel 's struggle for survival as an excuse , are the anti-Semites of the last quarter of the 20th Century and you 're on your way in the 21st Century . " Cockburn responded , " I think Israel is secure . I do n't think it 's struggling for survival ... It 's protected by the United States . I do n't see any threat to Israel 's survival ; it 's ludicrous to say so . I do see a threat to the survival of Palestinians , who are living on – what ? – a dollar a day in Gaza . " With the emergence of the Occupy movement in 2011 , Cockburn expressed support . " Its strength lies in the simplicity and truth of its basic message : the few are rich , the many are poor . In terms of its pretensions , the capitalist system has failed . " He went on to elaborate " right now most people love OWS . The Financial Times ran an editorial in favour of it . But in the end , to reform finance capital you have to offend people and institutions , including the Financial Times . " In spite of these doubts , Alexander Cockburn appeared at the nearest occupation to him in Eureka , California , in January 2012 . There he gave a speech on Martin Luther King , Jr. as it was an event celebrating King 's memory : So there 's no real choice this year , but what the Occupy movement has done has taken us back to the era when Martin Luther King was in the Sixties said ' This is unacceptable ! ' We can not have a situation where everything is owned by the 1 % in the same way that Martin Luther King said in the Riverside Church that we have a government that is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today , we are exploiting the planet , and that is unacceptable . So the memory of Martin Luther King – it 's about dreams , but it 's also about the courage to draw a line right there and say ' We can not go on crossing this line . This is a moral line , this is a line concerning power and the world ' . And there today America is on that line . And people know that what we got to – these years after Martin Luther King was murdered – is completely unacceptable , and it 's his example that will inspire us as we go forward into this year . In July 2012 , shortly before his death , Cockburn noted " Questions of organization were obliterated by the strength of the basic message – we are 99 per cent , they are one per cent . It was probably the most successful slogan since ' peace , land , bread ' . " Though he ultimately felt his earlier cynicism had been confirmed , he stated " Before the fall came there were heroic actions , people battered senseless by the police . These were brave people trying to hold their ground . " In May 2012 Cockburn stated " I think gay marriage is an incredibly boring subject ; though , I do like to hear right-wingers say that it will bring the whole edifice of Western civilization crashing down . It 's hard , these days , to find such messages of good cheer . " Cockburn took an anti-assimilationist position on same-sex marriage , asking " Why would an institution which is basically taking church principles , you know , and applying them to a state license to get marriage be regarded as ' progressive ' ? " He felt it was inconsistent with a radical position , which sees the state as " intrusive on human freedoms " ; though he did support equality at the level of civil partnerships , he did n't see why this should be limited to monogamous relationships
9/11
September 11 attacks
Alexander Cockburn