President Mohamed Morsi Could Pose Serious Threat to Israel

Don't Be Fooled by Egypt Happy Talk

Forward Forum
By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Published July 18, 2012, issue of July 27, 2012.

The situation in Egypt and throughout the Middle East is confusing, with many different but simultaneous developments from country to country. Each conflict comes along with a set of unknown variables regarding the real strength and aspirations of governments, militaries, institutions, leaders, political parties, political movements, insurgent factions, groups, tribes, etc. And on top of all this uncertainty are the prettifying disinformation campaigns of the various actors, and the wishful thinking on our part in the West. We end up believing that the issues are far simpler than they are, and failing to confront the region’s factual and moral complexities.

Egypt is obviously at a more advanced stage of its “spring” than Syria is, but it is nonetheless shrouded in unknowns. What are the intentions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces? Will the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, be granted any real power? What are his intentions, and more generally, those of his political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, vis-à-vis wresting power from the military? In the struggle for control between these two forces, already under way and likely to intensify, what strategies will each side employ? How far is each willing to go? How adept will each be in the new game of democratic political mobilization, and, if push comes to shove, which side will prevail in an all-out confrontation between a Tahrir Square of impassioned political Islamic activists and army troops of unknown and perhaps wavering ruthlessness and loyalty?

These are just some of the imponderables to ponder when it comes to Egypt. Many more things bear consideration, including our own attitudes. Where should our sympathies lie? People reasonably give varying, and, in light of the imponderables, vacillating answers. But the question is certainly worth posing, if only to etch the issues more clearly.

We are all democrats with a commitment, or at least a bias, toward supporting democratic institutions, most of them embodied in elections. But we are also devotees of liberty — without which there is no democracy — including civil and personal freedoms. What happens if democracy brings to power people who are likely to abrogate fundamental liberties, oppress entire classes of people and indeed hollow out or destroy democratic institutions themselves? It can happen. Hitler became chancellor of Germany through democratic elections. I am not saying Morsi is Hitler, but it is worth noting that the Muslim Brotherhood has for decades and to this day preached and taught the tenets of theocratic totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. Is there any doubt that its ideal, and Morsi’s, is a society governed by the foundationally undemocratic and repressive and punitively cruel Sharia in an orthodox form? As recently as May, when speaking candidly not to Western media, but to his own supporters, he proclaimed, “Jihad is our path…. And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration…. The Sharia, then the Sharia, and finally, the Sharia…. I take an oath before Allah and before you all that regardless of the actual text [of the constitution]… Allah willing, the text will reflect [the Sharia].” So where should we stand vis-à-vis Morsi and the outcomes of elections, which are only one aspect of democracy, and of freedom more generally?

Fundamentally, the questions of democracy and freedom regard what is good for the Egyptian people, not just a slender or even an un-slender majority, but the basic rights and well-being of millions of potentially threatened people. I speak not here of economic matters, where Egypt is in a deplorable condition and it is impossible — another imponderable — to know which of the contenders for power will do less badly in providing for the material needs of Egyptians. Women, gay men and lesbians, Christians and non-Sharia Muslims all wait in acknowledged or unacknowledged potential peril at the prospect of the rule of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Let’s be clear: No country that oppresses — that’s right, oppresses — women (including by mutilating their genitals), that punishes gay people with death, that treats non-Muslims as legally codified second-class citizens can be called a democracy, no matter that it uses the mechanism of elections to choose its leader and legislature.

Yet the other possibility of a power wielded by the military is also nondemocratic and not pretty. Egyptians know how fundamentally illiberal and undemocratic and generally corrupt were the Egyptian old guard elites led by the military and its Supreme Council. But they are, at least, not totalitarians, not wanting to make Egypt live socially and culturally in premodern times, and not threatening to suppress every kind of personal freedom by turning politics and governance, law and policy, into a branch of intolerant religious law. So, what are the intentions of each side? And especially, given the imponderables of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom should we, good democrats and devotees of freedom, side? It is not the same as Hitler verses Stalin, but there, too, a choice had to be made that no person of democratic sentiments could have beheld as anything but an abomination.

Beyond the paramount concern of what is good for the Egyptian people, there is also the question of how Egypt will act outside its borders. The Egyptian military and old guard elites are not hostile to the United States and the West. That, we know. The Muslim Brotherhood — owing to America’s democratic liberalism, support for Hosni Mubarak and strong support for Israel — is likely to be much more antagonistic to the United States and the West. But given the immense stakes regarding other arenas of concern, how much should this matter in any decision about whom we, as individuals and a country, support in Egypt?

Similarly for the Middle East as a region, the Egyptian military is a nonthreatening and essentially a nondestabilizing force compared with the potential of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, to create a more political Islamic Middle East, which would further undermine freedoms and potentially contribute substantially to greater regional conflict.

Finally, Israel. The Egyptian military would like to continue with its cold peace, which has been the foundation of whatever stability the region has seen, and of the diminution of threat to Israel’s security and existence. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which gave birth to its genocidalist offshoot, Hamas, are fundamentally anti-Semitic and hostile to Israel’s existence, and could radically upset the geo-strategic and political situation in a manner deeply threatening to Israel. Or will Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood live with the status quo because their domestic agenda and daunting problems prevent them from making any rash moves? The notion that, magically, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood will morph into peacemakers, much less genuine democrats, is fantasy.

This brings us to the crux of the matter. All the imponderables aside, we have to stop engaging in wishful thinking. Tahrir Square was never Egypt. The “revolution” was never genuinely liberal and democratic. The Muslim Brotherhood, whether its first candidate, Khairat el-Shater, or its second and now the country’s president, Morsi, has never been moderate or liberal or anything but intolerant, theocratic political Islamists. The gullibility of Western media’s reporting, which has pushed such wishful thinking, has only obscured the imponderables and the difficult and unpleasant real-world options before us, before Israel and the region, and, most of all, before all those Egyptians who are not political Islamists.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is the author of “Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity” (PublicAffairs, 2009), which is the basis of a Public Broadcasting Service documentary of the same name. His work can be read at goldhagen.com.

The wonks who sold Washington on South Sudan

Special Report: The wonks who sold Washington on South Sudan
Wed, Jul 11 2012

By Rebecca Hamilton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the mid-1980s, a small band of policy wonks began convening for lunch in the back corner of a dimly lit Italian bistro in the U.S. capital.

After ordering beers, they would get down to business: how to win independence for southern Sudan, a war-torn place most American politicians had never heard of.

They called themselves the Council and gave each other clannish nicknames: the Emperor, the Deputy Emperor, the Spear Carrier. The unlikely fellowship included an Ethiopian refugee to America, an English-lit professor and a former Carter administration official who once sported a ponytail.

The Council is little known in Washington or in Africa itself. But its quiet cajoling over nearly three decades helped South Sudan win its independence one year ago this week.

Across successive U.S. administrations, they smoothed the path of southern Sudanese rebels in Washington, influenced legislation in Congress, and used their positions to shape foreign policy in favor of Sudan's southern rebels, often with scant regard for U.S. government protocol.

"We never controlled anything, but we always did try to influence things in the way we thought most benefited the people of South Sudan," said Roger Winter, now an honorary adviser to the South Sudan government and one of the group's original members, who dubbed himself the Spear Carrier.

The story of the Council has not been told before. For a Reuters series chronicling the first year in the life of South Sudan, the group's main members spoke for the first time about how they came together and what they tried to achieve. They pinpointed key moments when peace could have slipped away. Some expressed disappointment at the compromises America made to broker the creation of South Sudan. One idea shines through: Independence was far from inevitable.

"I actually think it was a miracle we got something," said Winter.

Nationhood has many midwives. South Sudan is primarily the creation of its own people. It was southern Sudanese leaders who fought for autonomy, and more than two million southern Sudanese who paid for that freedom with their lives.

President George W. Bush, who set out to end Africa's longest-running civil war, also played a big role, as did modern-day abolitionists, religious groups, human rights organizations and members of the U.S. Congress.

But the most persistent outside force in the creation of the world's newest state was the tightly knit group, never numbering more than seven people, which in the era before email began gathering regularly at Otello, a restaurant near Washington's DuPont Circle.

A CHARISMATIC REBEL

In 1978, Brian D'Silva, a young student in agricultural economics, began pursuing a doctorate at Iowa State University. There, he studied alongside an intensely charismatic southern Sudanese man named John Garang, who had begun dreaming of a democratic Sudan.

After graduation, D'Silva went with Garang to Sudan to teach at the University of Khartoum. An uneasy peace held between Sudan's predominantly Arab Islamic north and largely Christian south. The divide stemmed from colonial times, when Britain encouraged Christian missionaries to evangelize the south. The British considered splitting the country in two, but ultimately handed a unified Sudan to a small Arab elite in Khartoum, who tried to impose Islamic law throughout the country.

A 1972 agreement had given southerners semi-autonomy. That fragile deal began unraveling in 1979 after Chevron discovered oil in the south; the north did not want to lose control over the newly found riches.

D'Silva returned to the United States in 1980 to work for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Three years later, his old schoolmate Garang, a conscript in the Sudanese army, led a mutiny of southern Sudanese soldiers. His group would become the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM), which led the fight for southern autonomy.

Roger Winter visited Sudan in 1981 for a non-governmental outfit called the U.S. Committee for Refugees. Upon his return, the former Carter administration official sought out Sudanese who were based in Washington. Key among them was respected legal scholar Francis Deng, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

"A man with a ponytail came to see me," recalled Deng, who is now the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.

Deng hails from Abyei, a fertile area straddling north and south Sudan. He thought Winter must be some "wealthy hippie-type" who wanted to give money to the rebels. When Winter explained that the best he could do was disseminate information, Deng suggested that the American public needed first-hand accounts of people affected by the war. He called a cousin in the rebel movement to ensure that on future visits, Winter would have access to all the so-called liberated areas - the parts of Sudan held by the rebels - where he could gather direct testimony on the impact of the war.

By the mid-1980s, these three future Council members - D'Silva, Deng and Winter - were working in the United States as proxies for John Garang. Over six feet tall and more than 200 pounds, the rebel leader had a laugh - and a personality - that filled a room.

"You meet Dr. John, you get converted," said Winter, who first met Garang in 1986.

The three men quickly discovered the size of the task ahead of them. In 1987, D'Silva tried to bring a delegation from the SPLM to meet officials in Washington. But standard procedure at Foggy Bottom was to maintain relations with the recognized Sudanese government in Khartoum and ignore the rebel movement. D'Silva received a phone call from an official instructing him that no meetings should be arranged on any government-owned or -leased property.

ENTER "THE EMPEROR"

According to Deng, many in Washington associated the rebels with the Soviet-backed government in neighboring Ethiopia, leaving the SPLM on the wrong side of the Cold War. "It took a lot of hard work to remove the prejudice against John Garang," Deng said.

As D'Silva, Winter and Deng tried to get the southern rebels through doors in Washington, a wayward college graduate in search of a cause was traveling in the Horn of Africa. By the early 1990s, John Prendergast had decided his calling was to help win better U.S. policies for Africa.

At the time, the circle of people in Washington who cared about the Horn of Africa was small. Prendergast soon ran into Winter, and the pair began briefing journalists, urging them to cover the conflict and putting them in contact with the rebels.

Human rights campaigning was very different from today. The idea of Western groups advocating in a coordinated way on behalf of foreign causes - as they had during the British-led anti-slavery campaigns in Belgian Congo more than a century before - had only recently been rekindled by the likes of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

For the few Americans who had heard of Sudan at all, "the south was a black hole," said Winter, the refugee-rights organizer.

It was about this time that the Council's future Emperor made his entrance. Ted Dagne was a 14-year-old Ethiopian in 1974 when a Soviet-backed military junta seized power. Dagne's older sister, a student leader, was among the first to be executed by the new government.

"After that, there was a (target) on our family," said Dagne, drawing a cross in the air.

By the time Dagne was 16, both he and his older brother had been imprisoned and tortured. Dagne was subsequently released, but his brother was executed and Dagne's own prospects for survival looked slim. One morning he donned his sister's T-shirt and his brother's jeans and shoes, keepsakes for an unknown future, and told his parents he was going out for groceries. It was the last time he saw them.

With the help of a Somali man who pretended to be his father, Dagne crossed the border into Somalia. Eventually he reached Djibouti, and subsequently joined a generation of people fleeing communist lands who were granted asylum in the United States.

Dagne got through college by working two jobs - answering phones from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. and an afternoon shift at a Lincoln Memorial souvenir kiosk. By 1989 he had earned a masters degree, acquired U.S. citizenship and was working on African affairs at the Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan policy-analysis arm of the U.S. legislature.

AN EYE-OPENING VISIT

That year, Winter took two members of Congress to meet Garang on one of his visits to rebel-held areas of Sudan. The trip had a big impact. One of the visitors, Viriginia Republican Frank Wolf, said he still remembers a question put to him by a Dinka woman named Rebecca.

"She said to me, ‘Why is it that you people in the West are very interested in the whales but no one seems to be interested in us?'" he recalled. "It was an eye-opener, and I became very sympathetic toward the southerners."

After that, D'Silva, Deng, and Winter finally managed to get a delegation led by Garang on an official visit to Washington.

Wanting to ensure the group from his homeland made a good impression, Manute Bol, the 7-foot, 7-inch sensation for the Golden State Warriors basketball team, offered to hire a limousine to take Garang's delegation to Capitol Hill. Winter told them this was a bad idea.

"I explained to them, you can't go to the Capitol building in this and then go in and talk about starving people!" Winter recalled. The visitors switched to an old bus that blew out gobs of black smoke as it sputtered to Congress.

It was on that visit to Washington that Dagne met Garang for the first time. More than any other member of the Council, Dagne formed an intense friendship with the rebel leader. There were periods in the years ahead in which they spoke by phone every day, Dagne says.

By the early 1990s, the group's work was starting to pay off. Dagne was seconded from the Congressional Research Service to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, where he began to build allies for the southern Sudanese cause.

Congressional staffers are supposed to be neutral, but it was an open secret that Dagne's allegiance lay with the southerners. "Ted was very suspicious of the Sudan government, and so I became very suspicious," said former Democratic Senator Harry Johnston, who headed the subcommittee.

"I pushed the envelope quite a lot," Dagne acknowledges.

In 1993, for instance, Dagne drafted a congressional resolution stating that southern Sudanese had the right to self-determination. He passed his draft to Johnston, who reviewed it and then presented it to his colleagues in Congress. The resolution was not binding, but it passed unanimously. It was the first time any part of the U.S. government had recognized the right of the southerners to determine their own relationship to the Sudanese government.

By the mid-nineties, five men - Dagne, Deng, D'Silva, Prendergast and Winter - were meeting regularly at Otello's. Prendergast had been nicknamed the Council Member in Waiting because he liked to challenge the Emperor. Deng was referred to as the Diplomat, marking him as the least strident of the group. D'Silva, the most serious among them, went without a nickname.

The group was united by a respect for Garang. The men acknowledge that his SPLM fighters committed horrific crimes during the war, and say they often had highly critical conversations with Garang. But they say they never doubted that they backed the right side.

"You have these well-trained guys in Khartoum who are murderers and never keep an agreement," said Winter. "How do you treat them equally?"

MODERN-DAY ABOLITIONISTS

Crises in Somalia and Rwanda were absorbing most of America's attention in Africa. But the southern Sudanese cause soon got a boost from an unlikely quarter.

In 1995, Christian Solidarity International initiated a controversial program in Sudan called slave redemption. The Zurich-based human-rights organization began paying slave traders for the freedom of southerners captured in raids by government-backed militias from the north. Christian Solidarity took journalists and pastors from the black evangelical community along on their missions, and stories of modern-day slavery filtered into church congregations and the U.S. media.

The group drew fire for fueling a market for slavery, but it had a big impact in the United States. American schoolchildren began raising money to free slaves, and members of Congress started getting letters from their constituents. "Americans are divided on just about every issue imaginable, but we are an abolitionist nation," said Charles Jacobs, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which led the U.S.-based outcry.

Dagne's network of southern Sudan allies in Congress solidified. He organized trips into SPLM-held areas for bipartisan delegations, including Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Frist and the late New Jersey Democratic Rep. Donald Payne.

Seeing the human impact of the war firsthand, the lawmakers grew as skeptical of Khartoum as the Council was. For Frist, a surgeon, a key moment was seeing personnel at a field hospital in southern Sudan having to flee a government bombing raid to nearby caves during the middle of an operation.

"Why, I asked myself?" Frist recalled. "No answer except the government in Khartoum's goal to create terror."

For meaningful change, however, the executive branch needed to get on board. This was tough as long as the State Department focused on maintaining a working relationship with Khartoum.

In 1993, though, the United States linked a car bomb at the World Trade Center in New York to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Islamic fundamentalist living in Sudan. Khartoum was added to the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism.

A chance encounter at a Princeton University conference on Somalia provided the Council its next break.

Among the speakers was Susan Rice, a young Rhodes Scholar who was gaining influence in the State Department as the senior director of African affairs. Rice and Dagne took the train back to Washington together, talking U.S. policy on Africa for the four-hour journey. Rice soon became an informal member of the Council, dropping in occasionally for lunches at Otello. Rice, currently the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., declined to comment for this article.

Prendergast, who also met Rice at the conference, applied to work for her. In his job interview, he says, he told her that Khartoum was "too deformed to be reformed," a view that had long been espoused by the southern rebels. Rice hired him.

A LITERARY POLEMICIST

Rice successfully urged the Clinton administration to place comprehensive sanctions on Sudan, prohibiting any U.S. individual or corporation from doing business there. This shift brought the official U.S. position closer to the Council's.

By the late 1990s, Washington was not just providing humanitarian assistance to the southern Sudanese. It was also giving leadership missions and training, as well as $20 million of surplus military equipment to Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea, who all supported the southern rebels. Prendergast said the idea was to help states in the region to change the regime. "It was up to them, not us," he said in an interview.

But the regime was hard to shift. Thanks to a pipeline built by the Chinese linking the southern oil fields to the Red Sea, Sudan began exporting oil in 1999. Now Khartoum had a new source of revenue to fund its fighting.

The Council's Deputy Emperor, Eric Reeves, joined in 2001. Reeves was a professor of English literature at Smith, a small college in Western Massachusetts. He had no background in Sudan. But after reading about the humanitarian conditions in the south and attending a lecture Winter gave at the college, Reeves became the Council's most prolific writer. He published hundreds of opinion pieces and blogged detailed reports brimming with moral outrage against Khartoum.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, Rice and Prendergast left the State Department and joined think tanks. That left only USAID policy adviser D'Silva and congressional researcher Dagne on the inside track. Suddenly, though, the Council's cause became a White House cause.

On the second day of his presidency, Bush directed senior staff to focus on bringing an end to the war in Sudan. Bush declined to comment on what drove him to home in on Sudan. But a pillar of his support base, evangelical Christians, was imploring him to take up the cause. They had long been concerned about the persecution of Christians in southern Sudan.

One influential evangelical, the Rev. Franklin Graham, recalls pushing the future president to focus on Sudan during a breakfast meeting they had in Florida two days before the presidential election.

At the urging of religious groups, Bush also appointed former senator and Episcopalian minister John Danforth to be his envoy, tasking him with helping to unlock ongoing negotiations between north and south.

Evangelical groups suddenly found journalists turning up on the doorstep. "People wanted to hear what we wanted to say," said Deborah Fikes, spokeswoman for the Midland Ministerial Alliance, based in Bush's hometown of Midland, Texas.

Fikes started working with the Sudan embassy and went to Khartoum to meet those in the government she believed were moderates. That didn't impress the Council, who accused her of naiveté. "She didn't know what the hell she was doing," said Reeves.

Fikes dismisses the criticism. "I didn't have a career or an agenda. When you look at Christ, he was misunderstood," she said.

"DAMNED IF WE DO?"

After his time in the Carter administration, Winter had vowed never to work in government again, preferring the less bureaucratic non-government sector. But USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios convinced him that Bush was going to make peace in Sudan a priority. Winter agreed to return to government. With his new role as an adviser to Danforth, the Council was back at the center of Sudan policy.

As with Dagne, it was an open secret that Winter was biased. Danforth says he asked for Winter's help because of his detailed knowledge. Winter himself felt tension with many of the diplomats he was now working alongside. "The State Department was used to working with Khartoum," Winter said.

Progress came that summer, when Khartoum's chargé d'affaires in Washington, Ahmed Khidir, flew to Danforth's home in St Louis, Missouri. Khidir had just one question, Danforth recalls: "Are we damned if we do and damned if we don't?" In other words, if Khartoum agreed to peace, would it still be a pariah to the U.S. government?

The answer mattered. Ever since the rulers in Khartoum had taken power in a 1989 coup, their ability to maintain control depended greatly on patronage networks. Because the United States had effectively black-listed Sudan, Khartoum had to rely on loans from non-Western nations and revenue from the south's oil fields to fund these networks.

To sign a pact in which they risked losing the oil-rich south, northern leaders needed an alternative source of income. Normalizing relations with Washington would be a sure pathway back to the international financial system.

After consulting with Bush, Danforth told Khidir that Washington looked forward to normalizing ties. "That was an important message," Danforth said in an interview. Khidir couldn't be reached for comment.

The biggest breakthrough, however, came not as the result of diplomacy or advocacy, but of Al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

When Bush told the world that Washington would "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism," the U.S. relationship with Khartoum changed overnight. Sudan had expelled Al Qaeda leader bin Laden in 1996, but it worried it might be a U.S. target. Washington suddenly found itself with enormous leverage over Khartoum, which the Bush administration used to push for a peace agreement.

Almost all the key issues that would end up in a landmark 2005 peace deal between Khartoum and the SPLM were agreed in the first five months of 2002. Most surprisingly, Khartoum agreed to let the southerners hold a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan.

THE COUNCIL, CLOONEY & CONGRESS

By 2003, though, progress stalled. Reports of U.S. overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan diminished Khartoum's fears of becoming a future military target. And the U.S. government approach to Khartoum started to fracture.

The CIA had issued glowing reports about Sudan's cooperation in the "War on Terror" and supported Bush's promise of normalized relations. On the other hand, events in Sudan took on a life of their own.

As it became clear that southerners were getting a new deal, people in Darfur, in west Sudan, wanted one, too. The civil war had been framed as a north-south or Muslim-Christian conflict. The truth was that southerners were far from the only group suffering under Khartoum. Other marginalized groups included the religiously diverse populace of the Nuba Mountains and mixed northern-southern populations in the Blue Nile and Abyei.

As the Darfuri rebellion escalated, Khartoum moved to crush it. The Council immediately saw the parallels between Khartoum's response and previous atrocities in the south. But shifting the U.S. focus to Darfur could jeopardize the peace agreement for the south.

Dagne consulted Garang, who encouraged him to introduce the Darfuri cause to the U.S. lawmakers backing the southerners. The Council stepped in; over the coming years they would be among the most crucial actors in cementing the previously unknown Darfur region in the imagination of the American public.

Prendergast, at the time working at an independent research group, became a key player in the founding of the Save Darfur movement. He spent weeks at a time talking about Darfur on college campuses and working with actor George Clooney, who became an advocate for the cause. Reeves and Rice, then a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, wrote op-ed pieces. At USAID, Winter and D'Silva organized visits for State Department officials so they could see the violence firsthand. And after interviewing Darfuri refugees, Dagne worked with Rep. Payne on a resolution calling the atrocities genocide.

Dagne was by now an expert at getting his congressional allies to insert pro-southern provisions into sure-to-pass bills on unrelated topics. Using this approach he had succeeded in exempting rebel-held areas of southern Sudan from U.S. sanctions.

His Darfur genocide resolution, though, needed no such maneuver. Growing public outrage ensured it passed the House and Senate unanimously.

PEACE - AND A BLOW

In January 2005, as fighting in Darfur continued, Khartoum finally concluded a Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the south. Garang invited Dagne and Winter to dinner at his home in Nairobi, Kenya, to celebrate.

Seven months later, the south Sudanese leader died in a helicopter crash. Garang's death was a huge blow to the south Sudanese project, but the Council rallied around his successor.

Salva Kiir, who had spent his career on the battlefield, is as understated as Garang was garrulous. Before Kiir's first meeting with Bush, the Council gathered in his Washington hotel suite for an informal briefing, just as they had been doing since Garang's first visit to Capitol Hill.

After the peace pact was signed, Winter retired from government. D'Silva remained at USAID and Dagne at the Congressional Research Service, while Prendergast founded his own advocacy organization. Rice, after Obama won office, joined the new administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

But the momentum ebbed as fractures opened up in the new administration.

Retired Air Force General Scott Gration, the president's new envoy to Sudan, wanted closer engagement with Khartoum. Gration didn't respond to requests for comment.

But in interviews in 2009, he argued that without resetting the relationship, Khartoum had no incentive to let the southerners vote on independence. He thought that making sure the independence referendum happened on time should be the overriding objective. Rice maintained vocal skepticism, believing that Khartoum's treatment of troubled areas outside the south, like Darfur, warranted continuing condemnation.

A lengthy and acrimonious policy review ran through late 2009. In the end, it recommended that Darfur, north-south peace, and counter-terrorism cooperation should all be given equal priority. But disagreement around the details meant there was no consensus on how to pursue all three objectives. The first 18 months of Obama's term slipped away in a bureaucratic stalemate.

Finally, in the summer of 2010, Obama called his Sudan team into the Oval Office. The president said he would not allow a return to bloodshed between north and south, according to Denis McDonough, chief of staff at the National Security Council at the time.

SHOWDOWN WITH BIDEN

Momentum returned. Vice President Joe Biden, due in South Africa for the World Cup, was tasked with urging leaders across Africa that the independence referendum must go ahead. Some African countries feared that southern independence would establish a precedent for secessionist movements in their own states.

Meanwhile, Sudanese preparations for the referendum had stalled. Khartoum and Juba couldn't agree on the makeup of a steering group handling the logistics of the vote, and Khartoum was dragging its feet in releasing funds promised for the poll. The south had been urging Washington to push Khartoum to fulfill its promises.

At a meeting in Nairobi, Biden told Kiir the South Sudanese themselves had to make sure the vote happened.

"‘I don't care about what Khartoum is or is not doing,'" he said, according to Cameron Hudson, who attended as a member of the National Security Council. "‘We can't want this more than you.'" Kiir's office declined to comment on the meeting.

Throughout the fall of 2010, the National Security Council's McDonough chaired meetings of a dozen Sudan policymakers every evening, often to midnight. They debated what incentives to offer Khartoum in exchange for letting the south go.

One important call was over what the north needed to do to trigger these incentives: Was holding the referendum enough? Or should the rewards be tied to the completion of other outstanding issues, such as border demarcation and oil flow?

Ultimately, the group concluded that they could not force the parties to agree on anything beyond holding the referendum. The U.S. decided to push for the vote to go ahead as scheduled. It began on January 9, 2011. The final tally showed that 98.8 percent of voters chose independence for southern Sudan.

Speaking before the U.N. Security Council six months later, on the day South Sudan joined the world community, Rice promised that the United States would remain a "steadfast friend." Washington pledged $370.8 million in aid for the new country in the six months following independence alone.

OFF TO JUBA

The unresolved diplomatic issues have come back to haunt the region.

In January, Kiir shut down the southern oil industry, accusing Khartoum of having stolen 1.7 million barrels of South Sudan's oil from a cross-border pipeline. Khartoum said it only confiscated what it was owed in pipeline fees. Other unfinished business - the border, and the fate of regions such as Abyei and the Nuba Mountains - has sparked new violence.

Still, the current U.S. envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, argues that even in hindsight, it was right for the U.S. to push for the referendum to be held on time.

Members of the Council have mixed views on the legacy of the peace agreement.

Prendergast, Deng and Reeves - none of whom were in government when the agreement was created - are pessimistic, believing that other troubled areas in Sudan should have been more seriously attended to.

D'Silva wonders whether the agreement would have been better implemented had Garang survived.

Winter and Dagne - who were closest to the creation of the final pact - are more sanguine, saying the independence of the south alone justifies the agreement. Previously, the north-south clash was a domestic dispute which the world could ignore. Now it is a conflict between two states, and the south has its own army to defend itself.

"All the other issues are minor once you have your sovereignty," Dagne said.

One evening in January, Dagne headed to Dulles International Airport outside Washington to catch a flight to Juba. He had left his Congress job and was off to take up a role as special adviser to South Sudan's President Kiir. Leaving behind his family and a secure U.S. government position, he was returning to the continent he left 31 years earlier.

On his iPhone, Dagne carries a recording of a message Garang left him less than 24 hours before he died. "Hi, Nephew, this is Uncle," it begins.

Dagne scrolled through farewell messages from Council members.

"South Sudan could not be more fortunate," wrote Reeves. "I salute you… you are…the Emperor."

(Editing by Eddie Evans and Simon Robinson)

The Most Successful Terrorist Of The 20th Century

Two Faces
The Most Successful Terrorist Of The 20th Century
CounterPunch
By Uri Avnery
July 14, 2012

TWO FORMER Prime Ministers of Israel are in the news these days. They represent two of the many faces of Israel.

They also raise a universal question: which is preferable - an honest fanatic or a corrupt pragmatist?

YITZHAK SHAMIR died two weeks ago and was buried in the cemetery of the “Great of the Nation” in Jerusalem. He was 97 years old and had been vegetating for years in a state of dementia. Most Israelis did not know that he was still alive.

When I described him on TV as “the most successful terrorist of the 20th century”, the interviewer raised his eyebrows. But it was an accurate description.

Shamir was not a great thinker. In his teens he joined the right-wing Zionist youth organization of Vladimir Jabotinsky in Poland, and since then he did not change his world-view one iota. In this respect he was absolutely immovable. He wanted a Jewish state in all of the historical country. Period. No nonsense about Arabs and such.

We both joined the Irgun underground at the same time. I was too young to take part in actual terrorist actions, he, eight years my senior, carried them out. At the time, the Irgun killed scores of Arab men, women and children in attacks on Arab markets, in retaliation for Arab attacks on Jewish civilians. We defied the policy of “self-restraint” ordered by the Zionist leadership.

In the summer of 1940 the Irgun split. One of the commanders, Avraham Stern, founded the organization known to the British as the “Stern Gang”. (Eventually it was called LEHI, acronym for Fighters for the Freedom of Israel.)

Stern was a logical person. The aim was to set up a Jewish state in all of Palestine. The enemy was the British Empire. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Therefore we must cooperate with the Nazis. He sent several emissaries to contact the Germans. Some were intercepted by the British, the others were ignored by the Nazis.

I could not accept this atrocious logic and did not join, though the temptation was there. Shamir did.

He was caught and imprisoned (unlike Stern himself, who was caught and shot on the spot). Within a short time, virtually all the members of the organization were killed or arrested. The group ceased to exist – until Shamir and a colleague, Eliahu Giladi, broke out. The two acted together and brought LEHI to life again. One day Shamir had Giladi tried and shot.

Giladi was not accused of treason, but, on the contrary - of excessive zeal. He made plans for revolutionary actions, such as killing David Ben-Gurion and the entire Zionist leadership. Shamir decided that his adventurous nature endangered the organization and that he must be removed. Afterwards Shamir named his daughter Gilada.

Many years later I asked him which historical personality he admired most. He answered without hesitation: Lenin. I understood that he admired him because Lenin ruthlessly followed the maxim “the end justifies the means”.

Shamir was one of LEHI’s three leaders. He was responsible for operations and organization, meticulously building a deliberately small group of selected individuals, executing incredibly daring actions. He himself planned every single operation in the greatest detail. The most famous was the assassination of Lord Moyne, the senior British functionary in the Middle East, in Cairo.)

He was arrested again when the British shut down Tel Aviv and conducted a house-to-house search. Shamir was well disguised but could not hide his most obvious characteristic: he was very small, almost a dwarf, with a big, strong head. The soldiers were instructed to arrest every man below a certain height. This time he was sent to a detention camp in Africa, from which he duly escaped. He reached French Djibouti, was brought by a French warship to Paris where he stayed until Israel came into being. LEHI never amounted to more than a few hundred members. But it played a major role in driving the British out of this country.

IN ISRAEL, Shamir disappeared from view. For years he worked for the Mossad. It was rumored that his speciality was sending letter bombs. When he resurfaced, he joined the party of his erstwhile competitor, Menachem Begin. He was appointed Knesset chairman. Once I decided to stage a small demonstration in the Knesset. I wore under my jacket a t-shirt saying “Peace is better than a Greater Israel”. During the plenary session I took the jacket off. After some minutes of shock, an usher asked me politely to see the chairman in his office. Shamir received me with a big smile and said: “Uri, where would we be if every member did something like that? Now that you have made your point, would you please put your jacket on again?” Which I did, of course. When Begin made peace with Egypt and even I voted for him, Shamir abstained. After Lebanon War I, when Begin resigned saying “I can’t go on any more”, Shamir took his place. As prime minister, his most outstanding achievement was to do nothing, except building settlements – quietly and unobtrusively. Under American pressure, he attended the Madrid peace conference, determined not to budge an inch. As he remarked later, he was quite ready to negotiate with the Arabs for any length of time. He did not dream of making peace, which would have drawn frontiers and barred the way to Greater Israel. His ideology was summed up by his most famous dictum, alluding to the old adage that the Arabs want to throw the Jews into the sea: “The Arabs are the same Arabs and the sea is the same sea.” Another famous statement: “It is permissible to lie for the fatherland.” Remarkably, this man, who joined the Irgun (like me) in protest against “self-restraint”, exercised self-restraint par excellence when Saddam Hussein rained missiles on Israel during the Gulf War. Shamir was content to let the Americans do the job. His other great achievement was preventing Jews from reaching the US. When the Soviet leadership allowed Jews to emigrate, almost all of them proceeded straight to the US. Shamir persuaded the White House to shut the gates, and thus compelled more than a million Russian Jews to come to Israel (where they now swell the ranks of the extreme right.) For a short time he was the mentor of the young Binyamin Netanyahu, but then he came to detest him. After Netanyahu made a small tactical concession to the Arabs, he called him “Angel of Destruction”. One may assume that he was also disgusted by Netanyahu’s penchant for luxury. When not lying for the fatherland, Shamir was straight as a ramrod, living in utmost modesty. There never was – or could be – even the slightest hint of corruption. Which leads us straight to Ehud Olmert. ONCE upon a time there was a Minister of Education, Zalman Aran, who was known for his dry humor. A party functionary once came up to him and said: “Ziama, you can congratulate me. I have been acquitted!” “Strange,” Aran replied, “I have never been acquitted!” Olmert has been acquitted many times. During his entire career, he has danced from one acquittal to the next. This week it happened again. After a long trial, in which he was accused on five different counts of corruption, he was acquitted of four. One concerned his habit of letting himself be invited by several charity organizations to lecture in the US, and letting all of them pay separately for the same first class ticket (using the surplus for his family’s private outings.) Another count: reporting to the State Comptroller that his collection of expensive pens was worth a tenth of its real value. The district court decided to acquit him on all counts for lack of proof, except one: that as Minister of Industry he had favored the clients of his close friend, who obliged him by keeping a large amount of cash stashed away in his safe. Olmert celebrated his partial acquittal as a great victory. The media – the same media which celebrated his indictment when it all started – are taking part in the celebration. He is still awaiting the outcome of an even bigger trial. The accusation, this time: taking bribes for the building of a huge multi-billion architectural monster in the center of Jerusalem when he was mayor of the city. Everybody expects that he will be acquitted, as usual. Among the outcries against the Attorney General in the media was the accusation that he, a mere civil servant, had toppled an incumbent Prime Minister on trumped-up charges. Worse, that he had done so just when Olmert was about to make peace with the Palestinians. Nonsense. In his years in the Prime Minister’s office, during which he initiated two dirty wars (Lebanon War II and Operation “Cast Lead”), he had plenty of time to make peace. He did Indeed produce a peace plan – but only on the eve of his expected political demise. With peacemakers like this, who needs warmongers? However, Olmert is already hinting that after his next acquittal he will return to political life.

SHAMIR, THE dead honest fanatic, has many followers. Olmert, the living corrupt pragmatist, has very few. Netanyahu, their current successor, has the vices of both and the virtues of neither.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81

2012 Fortune 500

Fortune 500

Rank ▾	Company	Revenues ($ millions)	Profits ($ millions)
1	Exxon Mobil	452,926.0	41,060.0
2	Wal-Mart Stores	446,950.0	15,699.0
3	Chevron	245,621.0	26,895.0
4	ConocoPhillips	237,272.0	12,436.0
5	General Motors	150,276.0	9,190.0
6	General Electric	147,616.0	14,151.0
7	Berkshire Hathaway	143,688.0	10,254.0
8	Fannie Mae	137,451.0	-16,855.0
9	Ford Motor	136,264.0	20,213.0
10	Hewlett-Packard	127,245.0	7,074.0
11	AT&T	126,723.0	3,944.0
12	Valero Energy	125,095.0	2,090.0
13	Bank of America Corp.	115,074.0	1,446.0
14	McKesson	112,084.0	1,202.0
15	Verizon Communications	110,875.0	2,404.0
16	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	110,838.0	18,976.0
17	Apple	108,249.0	25,922.0
18	CVS Caremark	107,750.0	3,461.0
19	International Business Machines	106,916.0	15,855.0
20	Citigroup	102,939.0	11,067.0
21	Cardinal Health	102,644.2	959.0
22	UnitedHealth Group	101,862.0	5,142.0
23	Kroger	90,374.0	602.0
24	Costco Wholesale	88,915.0	1,462.0
25	Freddie Mac	88,262.0	-5,266.0
26	Wells Fargo	87,597.0	15,869.0
27	Procter & Gamble	82,559.0	11,797.0
28	Archer Daniels Midland	80,676.0	2,036.0
29	AmerisourceBergen	80,217.6	706.6
30	INTL FCStone	75,497.6	37.3
31	Marathon Petroleum	73,645.0	2,389.0
32	Walgreen	72,184.0	2,714.0
33	American International Group	71,730.0	17,798.0
34	MetLife	70,641.0	6,981.0
35	Home Depot	70,395.0	3,883.0
36	Medco Health Solutions	70,063.3	1,455.7
37	Microsoft	69,943.0	23,150.0
38	Target	69,865.0	2,929.0
39	Boeing	68,735.0	4,018.0
40	Pfizer	67,932.0	10,009.0
41	PepsiCo	66,504.0	6,443.0
42	Johnson & Johnson	65,030.0	9,672.0
43	State Farm Insurance Cos.	64,305.1	845.0
44	Dell	62,071.0	3,492.0
45	WellPoint	60,710.7	2,646.7
46	Caterpillar	60,138.0	4,928.0
47	Dow Chemical	59,985.0	2,742.0
48	United Technologies	58,190.0	4,979.0
49	Comcast	55,842.0	4,160.0
50	Kraft Foods	54,365.0	3,527.0
51	Intel	53,999.0	12,942.0
52	United Parcel Service	53,105.0	3,804.0
53	Best Buy	50,272.0	1,277.0
54	Lowe's	50,208.0	1,839.0
55	Prudential Financial	49,045.0	3,666.0
56	Amazon.com	48,077.0	631.0
57	Merck	48,047.0	6,272.0
58	Lockheed Martin	46,692.0	2,655.0
59	Coca-Cola	46,542.0	8,572.0
60	Express Scripts Holding	46,128.3	1,275.8
61	Sunoco	45,765.0	-1,684.0
62	Enterprise Products Partners	44,313.0	2,046.9
63	Safeway	43,630.2	516.7
64	Cisco Systems	43,218.0	6,490.0
65	Sears Holdings	41,567.0	-3,140.0
66	Walt Disney	40,893.0	4,807.0
67	Johnson Controls	40,833.0	1,624.0
68	Morgan Stanley	39,376.0	4,110.0
69	Sysco	39,323.5	1,152.0
70	FedEx	39,304.0	1,452.0
71	Abbott Laboratories	38,851.3	4,728.4
72	DuPont	38,719.0	3,474.0
73	Google	37,905.0	9,737.0
74	Hess	37,871.0	1,703.0
75	Supervalu	37,534.0	-1,510.0
76	United Continental Holdings	37,110.0	840.0
77	Honeywell International	37,059.0	2,067.0
78	CHS	36,915.8	961.4
79	Humana	36,832.0	1,419.0
80	Goldman Sachs Group	36,793.0	4,442.0
81	Ingram Micro	36,328.7	244.2
82	Oracle	35,622.0	8,547.0
83	Delta Air Lines	35,115.0	854.0
84	Liberty Mutual Insurance Group	34,671.0	365.0
85	World Fuel Services	34,622.9	194.0
86	New York Life Insurance	34,393.5	557.3
87	Plains All American Pipeline	34,275.0	966.0
88	TIAA-CREF	34,079.0	2,388.4
89	Aetna	33,779.8	1,985.7
90	Sprint Nextel	33,679.0	-2,890.0
91	News Corp.	33,405.0	2,739.0
92	General Dynamics	32,677.0	2,526.0
93	Allstate	32,654.0	788.0
94	HCA Holdings	32,506.0	2,465.0
95	American Express	32,282.0	4,935.0
96	Tyson Foods	32,266.0	750.0
97	Deere	32,012.5	2,799.9
98	Murphy Oil	31,446.3	872.7
99	Philip Morris International	31,097.0	8,591.0
100	Nationwide	30,697.8	-793.1

Rank ▾ Company Revenues ($ millions) Profits ($ millions) 101 Tesoro 29,927.0 546.0 102 3M 29,611.0 4,283.0 103 Time Warner 28,974.0 2,886.0 104 Northrop Grumman 28,058.0 2,118.0 105 DirecTV 27,226.0 2,609.0 106 Publix Super Markets 27,178.8 1,492.0 107 McDonald's 27,006.0 5,503.1 108 Avnet 26,534.4 669.1 109 Tech Data 26,488.1 206.4 110 Macy's 26,405.0 1,256.0 111 International Paper 26,034.0 1,341.0 112 Travelers Cos. 25,446.0 1,426.0 113 Rite Aid 25,214.9 -555.4 114 Staples 25,022.2 984.7 115 Alcoa 24,951.0 611.0 116 Northwestern Mutual 24,861.0 645.1 117 Raytheon 24,857.0 1,866.0 118 Halliburton 24,829.0 2,839.0 119 Eli Lilly 24,286.5 4,347.7 120 Emerson Electric 24,234.0 2,480.0 121 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 24,226.4 877.4 122 Occidental Petroleum 24,216.0 6,771.0 123 AMR 23,979.0 -1,979.0 124 Fluor 23,381.4 593.7 125 TJX 23,191.5 1,496.1 126 Goodyear Tire & Rubber 22,767.0 343.0 127 Xerox 22,626.0 1,295.0 128 Aflac 22,171.0 1,964.0 129 Manpower 22,006.0 251.6 130 Cigna 21,998.0 1,327.0 131 Hartford Financial Services Group 21,918.0 662.0 132 U.S. Bancorp 21,399.0 4,872.0 133 Arrow Electronics 21,390.3 598.8 134 Bristol-Myers Squibb 21,244.0 3,709.0 135 Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold 20,880.0 4,560.0 136 Nike 20,862.0 2,133.0 137 Kimberly-Clark 20,846.0 1,591.0 138 Nucor 20,023.6 778.2 139 EMC 20,007.6 2,461.3 140 United States Steel 19,884.0 -53.0 141 Baker Hughes 19,831.0 1,739.0 142 Time Warner Cable 19,675.0 1,665.0 143 Union Pacific 19,557.0 3,292.0 144 United Services Automobile Assn. 19,036.1 2,128.3 145 Exelon 18,924.0 2,495.0 146 Kohl's 18,804.0 1,167.0 147 Whirlpool 18,666.0 390.0 148 Capital One Financial 18,525.0 3,147.0 149 Illinois Tool Works 18,256.8 2,071.4 150 Cummins 18,048.0 1,848.0 151 AES 17,759.0 58.0 152 Southern 17,657.0 2,203.0 153 J.C. Penney 17,260.0 -152.0 154 Apache 16,888.0 4,584.0 155 Colgate-Palmolive 16,734.0 2,431.0 156 Altria Group 16,619.0 3,390.0 157 Jabil Circuit 16,518.8 381.1 158 Danaher 16,476.4 2,172.3 159 Paccar 16,355.2 1,042.3 160 FirstEnergy 16,258.0 885.0 161 TRW Automotive Holdings 16,244.0 1,157.0 162 Computer Sciences 16,144.0 740.0 163 Eaton 16,049.0 1,350.0 164 Medtronic 15,933.0 3,096.0 165 PNC Financial Services Group 15,820.0 3,056.0 166 Bank of New York Mellon Corp. 15,804.0 2,516.0 167 Southwest Airlines 15,658.0 178.0 168 Amgen 15,582.0 3,683.0 169 Progressive 15,508.1 1,015.5 170 HollyFrontier 15,439.5 1,023.4 171 CenturyLink 15,351.0 573.0 172 NextEra Energy 15,341.0 1,923.0 173 Marathon Oil 15,282.0 2,946.0 174 L-3 Communications 15,169.0 956.0 175 Oneok 15,119.2 360.6 176 American Electric Power 15,116.0 1,941.0 177 Viacom 14,963.0 2,136.0 178 Qualcomm 14,962.0 4,260.0 179 PG&E Corp. 14,956.0 844.0 180 PPG Industries 14,885.0 1,095.0 181 General Mills 14,880.2 1,798.3 182 Global Partners 14,835.7 19.4 183 Dollar General 14,807.2 766.7 184 National Oilwell Varco 14,658.0 1,994.0 185 Gap 14,549.0 833.0 186 Duke Energy 14,529.0 1,706.0 187 Dominion Resources 14,379.0 1,408.0 188 CBS 14,245.0 1,305.0 189 Lear 14,156.5 540.7 190 Loews 14,127.0 1,064.0 191 DISH Network 14,048.4 1,515.9 192 Anadarko Petroleum 13,967.0 -2,649.0 193 Navistar International 13,958.0 1,723.0 194 Toys "R" Us 13,909.0 149.0 195 Baxter International 13,893.0 2,224.0 196 Omnicom Group 13,872.5 952.6 197 AutoNation 13,832.4 281.4 198 Community Health Systems 13,817.0 201.9 199 Constellation Energy 13,758.2 -340.3 200 Texas Instruments 13,735.0 2,236.0
Rank ▾ Company Revenues ($ millions) Profits ($ millions) 201 Ally Financial 13,642.0 -157.0 202 Chubb 13,585.0 1,678.0 203 Waste Management 13,378.0 961.0 204 Aramark 13,244.7 100.1 205 Kellogg 13,198.0 1,231.0 206 Motorola Mobility Holdings 13,064.0 -249.0 207 Dean Foods 13,055.5 -1,575.6 208 US Airways Group 13,055.0 71.0 209 Consolidated Edison 12,938.0 1,051.0 210 Land O'Lakes 12,849.3 182.2 211 Edison International 12,760.0 -37.0 212 PPL 12,756.0 1,495.0 213 Yum Brands 12,626.0 1,319.0 214 Genuine Parts 12,458.9 565.1 215 ConAgra Foods 12,395.5 817.0 216 Parker Hannifin 12,345.9 1,049.1 217 Marriott International 12,317.0 198.0 218 Smithfield Foods 12,202.7 521.0 219 Coventry Health Care 12,186.7 543.1 220 Sara Lee 12,103.0 1,287.0 221 Health Net 11,901.0 72.1 222 Penske Automotive Group 11,869.5 176.9 223 Icahn Enterprises 11,855.0 750.0 224 Monsanto 11,822.0 1,607.0 225 Thermo Fisher Scientific 11,780.2 1,329.9 226 CSX 11,743.0 1,822.0 227 Starbucks 11,700.4 1,245.7 228 eBay 11,651.7 3,229.4 229 Chesapeake Energy 11,635.0 1,742.0 230 Liberty Interactive 11,624.0 912.0 231 Marsh & McLennan 11,526.0 993.0 232 Devon Energy 11,497.0 4,704.0 233 Office Depot 11,489.5 95.7 234 Avon Products 11,291.6 513.6 235 Aon 11,287.0 979.0 236 Textron 11,275.0 242.0 237 Huntsman 11,259.0 247.0 238 Praxair 11,252.0 1,672.0 239 Entergy 11,229.1 1,346.4 240 Public Service Enterprise Group 11,191.0 1,503.0 241 Norfolk Southern 11,172.0 1,916.0 242 Nordstrom 10,877.0 683.0 243 First Data 10,713.6 -516.1 244 H.J. Heinz 10,706.6 989.5 245 SAIC 10,657.0 59.0 246 Xcel Energy 10,654.8 841.2 247 Lincoln National 10,635.6 293.8 248 Ameriprise Financial 10,621.0 1,076.0 249 R.R. Donnelley & Sons 10,611.0 -122.6 250 Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America 10,571.3 209.9 251 Applied Materials 10,517.0 1,926.0 252 Stanley Black & Decker 10,437.6 674.6 253 Synnex 10,409.8 150.3 254 Jacobs Engineering Group 10,381.7 331.0 255 Peter Kiewit Sons' 10,381.0 573.0 256 Limited Brands 10,364.0 850.1 257 Newmont Mining 10,358.0 366.0 258 Genworth Financial 10,344.0 122.0 259 C.H. Robinson Worldwide 10,336.3 431.6 260 Unum Group 10,278.0 235.4 261 Liberty Global 10,246.5 -772.7 262 State Street Corp. 10,207.0 1,920.0 263 EOG Resources 10,126.1 1,091.1 264 Whole Foods Market 10,107.8 342.6 265 Air Products & Chemicals 10,082.0 1,224.2 266 Sempra Energy 10,036.0 1,357.0 267 BB&T Corp. 9,998.0 1,289.0 268 Mosaic 9,937.8 2,514.6 269 Automatic Data Processing 9,879.5 1,254.2 270 CDW 9,602.4 17.1 271 SunTrust Banks 9,602.0 647.0 272 Tenet Healthcare 9,601.0 82.0 273 GameStop 9,550.5 339.9 274 Motorola Solutions 9,549.0 1,158.0 275 URS 9,545.0 -465.8 276 Western Digital 9,526.0 726.0 277 VF 9,459.2 888.1 278 Las Vegas Sands 9,410.7 1,560.1 279 CarMax 9,402.2 380.9 280 KBR 9,261.0 480.0 281 Visa 9,188.0 3,650.0 282 Enbridge Energy Partners 9,109.8 624.0 283 BlackRock 9,081.0 2,337.0 284 NRG Energy 9,079.0 197.0 285 Western Refining 9,071.0 132.7 286 Progress Energy 8,907.0 575.0 287 DTE Energy 8,897.0 711.0 288 Caesars Entertainment 8,834.5 -687.6 289 Reinsurance Group of America 8,829.5 599.6 290 Estée Lauder 8,810.0 700.8 291 Micron Technology 8,788.0 167.0 292 AGCO 8,773.2 583.3 293 Sherwin-Williams 8,765.7 441.9 294 Bed Bath & Beyond 8,758.5 791.3 295 Principal Financial 8,709.6 715.0 296 Crown Holdings 8,644.0 282.0 297 Ball 8,630.9 444.0 298 Owens & Minor 8,627.9 115.2 299 Ross Stores 8,608.3 657.2 300 Discover Financial Services 8,550.3 2,226.7
Rank ▾ Company Revenues ($ millions) Profits ($ millions) 301 Family Dollar Stores 8,547.8 388.4 302 Reynolds American 8,541.0 1,406.0 303 Henry Schein 8,530.2 367.7 304 Dover 8,501.9 895.2 305 CenterPoint Energy 8,450.0 1,357.0 306 Gilead Sciences 8,385.4 2,803.6 307 Ashland 8,370.0 414.0 308 Stryker 8,307.0 1,345.0 309 Hertz Global Holdings 8,298.4 176.2 310 Assurant 8,272.8 545.8 311 Kinder Morgan 8,264.9 594.4 312 Energy Transfer Equity 8,240.7 309.8 313 Autoliv 8,232.4 623.4 314 Republic Services 8,192.9 589.2 315 Reliance Steel & Aluminum 8,134.7 343.8 316 Peabody Energy 8,096.0 957.7 317 Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea 8,078.5 -598.6 318 W.W. Grainger 8,078.2 658.4 319 Goodrich 8,074.9 810.4 320 AutoZone 8,073.0 849.0 321 Visteon 8,047.0 80.0 322 AECOM Technology 8,037.4 275.8 323 Steel Dynamics 7,997.5 278.1 324 Coca-Cola Enterprises 7,939.0 749.0 325 Williams 7,930.0 376.0 326 Commercial Metals 7,919.8 -129.6 327 Hormel Foods 7,895.1 474.2 328 Corning 7,890.0 2,805.0 329 TravelCenters of America 7,888.9 23.6 330 Sonic Automotive 7,871.3 76.3 331 MGM Resorts International 7,849.3 3,114.6 332 Thrivent Financial for Lutherans 7,842.8 454.6 333 Becton Dickinson 7,832.1 1,271.0 334 Campbell Soup 7,719.0 805.0 335 Boston Scientific 7,622.0 441.0 336 Dana Holding 7,592.0 219.0 337 Oshkosh 7,584.7 273.4 338 Masco 7,560.0 -575.0 339 Universal Health Services 7,534.1 398.2 340 Ameren 7,531.0 519.0 341 Quest Diagnostics 7,510.5 470.6 342 Darden Restaurants 7,500.2 476.3 343 Regions Financial 7,427.0 -215.0 344 Broadcom 7,389.0 927.0 345 Owens-Illinois 7,358.0 -510.0 346 Eastman Chemical 7,283.0 696.0 347 Pantry 7,271.8 9.8 348 Cablevision Systems 7,252.3 291.9 349 Dole Food 7,223.8 38.4 350 Tenneco 7,205.0 157.0 351 Charter Communications 7,204.0 -369.0 352 Spectrum Group International 7,203.4 3.8 353 Franklin Resources 7,140.0 1,923.6 354 OfficeMax 7,121.2 34.9 355 BorgWarner 7,114.7 550.1 356 Alpha Natural Resources 7,109.2 -677.4 357 Energy Future Holdings 7,040.0 -1,913.0 358 Interpublic Group 7,014.6 532.3 359 DaVita 6,998.9 478.0 360 Barnes & Noble 6,998.6 -73.9 361 Targa Resources 6,994.5 30.7 362 Cameron International 6,959.0 521.9 363 Winn-Dixie Stores 6,929.9 -70.1 364 Calpine 6,800.0 -190.0 365 Ecolab 6,798.5 462.5 366 Cliffs Natural Resources 6,794.3 1,619.1 367 Avery Dennison 6,786.7 190.1 368 Celanese 6,763.0 607.0 369 NII Holdings 6,719.3 198.8 370 MasterCard 6,714.0 1,906.0 371 Jarden 6,679.9 204.7 372 Fifth Third Bancorp 6,673.0 1,297.0 373 Dollar Tree 6,630.5 488.3 374 Weyerhaeuser 6,618.0 331.0 375 Agilent Technologies 6,615.0 1,012.0 376 Sanmina-SCI 6,602.4 68.9 377 NuStar Energy 6,575.3 221.5 378 Advanced Micro Devices 6,568.0 491.0 379 Terex 6,504.6 45.2 380 CMS Energy 6,503.0 415.0 381 AK Steel Holding 6,468.0 -155.6 382 American Family Insurance Group 6,400.2 295.2 383 Dillard's 6,399.8 463.9 384 McGraw-Hill 6,336.0 911.0 385 Amerigroup 6,318.4 195.6 386 Anixter International 6,270.1 188.2 387 Precision Castparts 6,267.2 1,013.5 388 Mattel 6,266.0 768.5 389 Omnicare 6,239.9 86.9 390 Corn Products International 6,219.4 415.7 391 Symantec 6,190.0 597.0 392 Advance Auto Parts 6,170.5 394.7 393 Core-Mark Holding 6,163.4 26.2 394 CC Media Holdings 6,161.4 -302.1 395 Expeditors International of Washington 6,150.5 385.7 396 Mylan 6,129.8 536.8 397 Wesco International 6,125.7 196.3 398 Cognizant Technology Solutions 6,121.2 883.6 399 Consol Energy 6,117.2 632.5 400 PetSmart 6,113.3 290.2
Rank ▾ Company Revenues ($ millions) Profits ($ millions) 401 WellCare Health Plans 6,106.9 264.2 402 CF Industries Holdings 6,097.9 1,539.2 403 UGI 6,091.3 232.9 404 Hershey 6,080.8 629.0 405 Group 1 Automotive 6,079.8 82.4 406 MeadWestvaco 6,079.0 246.0 407 Ryder System 6,050.5 169.8 408 Eastman Kodak 6,022.0 -764.0 409 NiSource 6,019.1 299.1 410 Rockwell Automation 6,000.4 697.8 411 Mutual of Omaha Insurance 5,974.1 130.0 412 Shaw Group 5,937.7 -175.0 413 Harris 5,924.6 588.0 414 Newell Rubbermaid 5,923.4 125.2 415 Pepco Holdings 5,920.0 257.0 416 CBRE Group 5,912.1 239.2 417 Dr Pepper Snapple Group 5,903.0 606.0 418 Avis Budget Group 5,900.0 -29.0 419 PVH 5,890.6 317.9 420 Pacific Life 5,879.0 679.0 421 General Cable 5,866.7 84.1 422 Exelis 5,839.0 326.0 423 Health Management Associates 5,822.1 178.7 424 O'Reilly Automotive 5,788.8 507.7 425 Fidelity National Information Services 5,757.4 469.6 426 SLM 5,756.0 633.0 427 Seaboard 5,746.9 345.8 428 Emcor Group 5,731.7 130.8 429 Auto-Owners Insurance 5,709.5 69.1 430 SanDisk 5,662.1 987.0 431 Ralph Lauren 5,660.3 567.6 432 Mohawk Industries 5,642.3 173.9 433 Sealed Air 5,640.9 149.1 434 Starwood Hotels & Resorts 5,624.0 489.0 435 Foot Locker 5,623.0 278.0 436 Domtar 5,612.0 365.0 437 St. Jude Medical 5,611.7 825.8 438 Spectra Energy 5,602.0 1,184.0 439 Booz Allen Hamilton Holding 5,591.3 84.7 440 CH2M Hill 5,555.2 113.3 441 Kelly Services 5,551.0 63.7 442 Avaya 5,547.0 -863.0 443 Laboratory Corp. of America 5,542.3 519.7 444 Kindred Healthcare 5,523.3 -53.5 445 Western Union 5,491.4 1,165.4 446 SPX 5,461.9 180.6 447 NCR 5,443.0 53.0 448 Allergan 5,419.1 934.5 449 Rock-Tenn 5,399.6 141.1 450 Live Nation Entertainment 5,384.0 -83.0 451 Graybar Electric 5,374.8 81.4 452 Momentive Specialty Chemicals 5,352.0 118.0 453 Centene 5,340.6 111.2 454 Owens Corning 5,335.0 276.0 455 Catalyst Health Solutions 5,329.6 67.0 456 Clorox 5,326.0 557.0 457 Bemis 5,322.7 184.1 458 Harley-Davidson 5,311.7 599.1 459 Con-way 5,290.0 88.4 460 Insight Enterprises 5,287.2 100.2 461 Pitney Bowes 5,278.0 617.5 462 Wynn Resorts 5,269.8 613.4 463 BrightPoint 5,244.4 48.8 464 Frontier Communications 5,243.0 149.6 465 Gannett 5,240.0 458.7 466 Dick's Sporting Goods 5,211.8 263.9 467 Big Lots 5,202.3 207.1 468 Allegheny Technologies 5,183.0 214.3 469 Telephone & Data Systems 5,180.5 200.6 470 Timken 5,170.2 454.3 471 W.R. Berkley 5,156.0 394.8 472 Fidelity National Financial 5,153.7 369.5 473 Casey's General Stores 5,140.2 94.6 474 NetApp 5,122.6 673.1 475 FMC Technologies 5,099.0 399.8 476 Biogen Idec 5,048.6 1,234.4 477 CVR Energy 5,029.1 345.8 478 United Stationers 5,005.5 109.0 479 Host Hotels & Resorts 5,003.0 -15.0 480 SunGard Data Systems 4,991.0 -149.0 481 Meritor 4,990.0 63.0 482 Western & Southern Financial Group 4,986.4 450.4 483 Yahoo 4,984.2 1,048.8 484 Vanguard Health Systems 4,895.9 -10.9 485 Charles Schwab 4,884.0 864.0 486 Susser Holdings 4,873.8 47.5 487 YRC Worldwide 4,868.8 -351.3 488 El Paso 4,860.0 141.0 489 CIT Group 4,855.3 26.7 490 MetroPCS Communications 4,847.4 301.3 491 Alliant Techsystems 4,842.3 313.2 492 Celgene 4,842.1 1,318.2 493 MRC Global 4,832.4 29.0 494 Aleris 4,826.4 161.6 495 J.M. Smucker 4,825.7 479.5 496 Rockwell Collins 4,825.0 634.0 497 Erie Insurance Group 4,824.0 169.0 498 Nash-Finch 4,807.2 35.8 499 KeyCorp 4,780.0 920.0 500 Molina Healthcare 4,769.9 20.8