1 Nov. 2004 | Bloomberg Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said he is trying to bankrupt the U.S. through its war on terror, a strategy he says felled the Soviet Union two decades ago in Afghanistan, according to a translation by al-Jazeera television of his full, videotaped statement.
Yearly Archives: 2004
889 posts
Even Republicans Fear Bush 31 Oct. 2004 | The Nation by John Nichols The most divisive election campaign in recent American history has not merely split the nation along party lines, it has split the Grand Old Party itself. Unfortunately, most Americans are wholly unaware of the loud dissents against Bush that has begun to be heard in Republican circles.
[ Nobel prize winners, scientists, economists, theologians, and academics in general — people who have been specially trained to think — have all come out in droves against Bush and Bush policies. Perhaps this protest led by Hawking is the icing on the cake. –BL ] Hawking to lead anti-war protest on election day 31 Oct. 2004 | The Independent by Andy McSmith Stephen Hawking, Britain’s most eminent scientist, has become the latest prominent opponent of the Iraq war by agreeing to take the lead role in a ceremonial protest to coincide with the United States presidential election. Peace protesters will […]
[ Although the executive editor of American Conservative magazine — a strong voice of the traditional conservatives abandoned by Bush — promises that, “If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward,” he laments that, [t]he only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected…. A Bush defeat will ignite … a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost […]
29 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Bush administration lawyers are now attempting to overturn decades of legal precedence by claiming that only Attorney General John Ashcroft and not individual voters have a right to ask federal courts to enforce voting rights. In legal briefs filed in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the Bush administration is arguing that the new Help America Vote Act stipulates that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights. Veteran voting rights lawyers say this would overturn decades of legal precedent and could greatly […]
Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000 27 Oct 2004 | Guerilla News Network by Russ Baker Houston – Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography [A Charge to Keep].
[ In related news, DemocracyNow! (28 Oct. 04) reports: Up to 58,000 Absentee Ballots Missing in Florida In election news, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots have gone missing in the heavily Democratic Broward County in Florida. The ballots were said to have been mailed two weeks ago but many have disappeared. The county is blaming the postal service but the post office denied it is at fault. Now county officials are attempting to get ballots sent out in time to voters. In the 2000 presidential elections Al Gore won 67 percent of the vote in Broward County. –BL ] October […]
[ The Associated Press is reporting that “the International Atomic Energy Agency warned the U.S. about explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa in Iraq after [the] April 2003 looting” of Iraq’s main nuclear complex. Thanks to Alexandra Dadlez for forwarding the first story below. –BL ] Video Suggests Explosives Disappeared After U.S. Took Control; Evidence Indicates U.S. Military Opened Al-Qaqaa Bunkers, Left Them Unguarded 28 Oct. 2004 | ABC News The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq’s Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq. Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot […]
[ From the piece: “The use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children,” Roberts [of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health] told Reuters. –BL ] Oct 28, 2004 | Reuters by Patricia Reaney LONDON – Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the U.S.-led invasion last year, American public health experts have calculated in a report that estimates there were 100,000 “excess deaths” in 18 months. The rise in the death rate was mainly due to violence and much of it was caused […]
28 Oct. 2004 | Washington Post [ page A03 ] by Guy Gugliotta Scientists have discovered a tiny species of ancient human that lived 18,000 years ago on an isolated island east of the Java Sea — a prehistoric hunter in a “lost world” of giant lizards and miniature elephants. These “little people” stood about three feet tall and had heads the size of grapefruit. They coexisted with modern humans for thousands of years yet appear to be more closely akin to a long-extinct human ancestor.
26 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! And new FBI statistics show that police arrested a record-high 755,000 people for marijuana violations last year. The pro-legalization group NORML reports a marijuana smoker is now arrested every 42 seconds in this country at a cost of approximately $7.6 billion annually. The number of marijuana arrests have nearly doubled since 1993 and now exceed the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
22 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! A new report by the Physicians for a National Health Program has found nearly 1.7 million military veterans have no health insurance or access to government hospitals and clinics for veterans. The study reported the number of uninsured veterans jumped by 235,000 since 2000 and that veterans are losing their health insurance at a rate faster than the general population.
26 October 2004 | IraqBodyCount.net Today the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website has published its analysis of the civilian dealth toll in the April 2004 siege of Falluja. This analysis leads to the conclusion that betweeen 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children.
[ Rumsfeld’s plan to “take” Iraq with a minimum number of U.S. troops — against the advice of the military leadership — has probably helped terrorists gain access to unguarded explosives south of Baghdad. From the piece: “[T]he U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Monday that about 380 tons of explosives are missing from an Iraqi military complex” …. David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, said he was not at all surprised at the report, which was initially revealed in Monday’s New York Times. “Al-Qaqaa had been heavily looted in April and May,” said Kay, who left […]
26 October 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Patrick Martin The shortage of flu vaccine has become a major social issue in the United States, with thousands of elderly people?those most at risk of life-threatening complications from influenza?lining up to receive vaccinations at the limited number of clinics and hospitals that have a supply. The total number of vaccines available in the US is estimated at barely 60 million, compared to the 90 million people in the categories most at risk, such as the elderly, small children, pregnant women and people with respiratory ailments. Nearly half the total supply, […]
[ Donald Rumsfeld has famously learned to ease consciences around him: “Things happen in war”; “People get hurt.” Apparently, innocent civilians’ moral weight is easily ignored if you just keep muttering platitudes. This might be why the U.S. military doesn’t see that it’s adding insult to injury when, after killing and injuring tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians during its bombing campaign, it continues to deny most claims of Iraqis seeking compensation on the grounds that they do not provide sufficient proof of having been harmed! One marine commander who supervised claims payments in Iraq [said,] “As soon as they […]
[ Although the timing of the “Levin” report — as its critics charge — is probably political and even gets some of its facts wrong (e.g., pertaining to the timing of meetings), it defends important conclusions that cannot be dismissed on the basis of technicalities. Thanks to Alexandra Dadlez for forwarding this editorial. –BL ] October 23, 2004 | New York Times It’s long been obvious that the allegations about Saddam Hussein’s dangerous weapons and alliance with Osama bin Laden were false. But as the election draws closer, the remaining question is to what extent President Bush’s team knew the allegations […]
22 Oct. 2004 | Reuters NEW YORK – The Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, according to a report published Friday.
5 October 2004 | USA Today by Youssef M. Ibrahim DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The costs and benefits of America’s occupation of Iraq vary, according to proponents and opponents, except when it comes to oil exports. The U.S.-led invasion has resulted in the loss of an average of 2 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil from world markets. That is a significant number with huge consequences for economies around the globe. Instead of rosy promises by the neoconservatives of the Bush administration who pushed for the invasion — partly on the premise that they would turn it into […]
[ Thanks to Bill Bryant of Oklahomans for Global Solutions for passing this article along. –BL ] From the “10 Stories the World Should Hear More About” series 2004 | United Nations In an often overlooked phenomenon, the resources needed to help keep the peace are being strained by so much peace to keep. Recent headlines may seem to contradict it, but today fewer people are being killed by war than at almost any time in the past century. Some 25,000 were killed in armed conflict in 2002, barely one tenth the number killed each year during the 1990s. Even 9/11, […]
October 21, 2004 | AlterNet.org by Jim Lobe, AlterNet.org Do the supporters of President Bush really know their man or the policies of his administration? Three out of 4 self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them. According to a new survey published Thursday, the same number also believes that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided “substantial support” to al Qaeda.
[ This piece by Mark Roche, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame, follows up an earlier piece on increases in abortions under Bush. Roche, who condemns abortion, writes: … many Catholics seem to think that if they are truly religious, they must cast their ballots for Republicans. This position has … problems…. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent. There […]
[ See the IraqBodyCount.net database for data on Iraqi deaths by U.S. airstrikes. Many children have been killed by so-called “precision strikes” targeting the elusive Zarqawi. –BL ] ‘US war planes wipe out family of six’ 20 Oct. 2004 | Agence France-Presse BAGHDAD- US warplanes have struck targets in rebel-held Fallujah. Two “terrorist safe houses” linked to Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, were destroyed, the US military said, although residents claimed a family of six were wiped out in the air strike. “The house was completely destroyed by a missile dropped from an American plane and we […]
[ From the article: We in America could save kids [in the Sudan]. This wouldn’t require troops, just a bit of gumption to declare a no-fly zone, to press our Western allies and nearby Arab and African states, to impose an arms embargo and other targeted sanctions, to push a meaningful U.N. resolution even at the risk of a Chinese veto, and to insist upon the deployment of a larger African force. Instead, President Bush’s policy is to chide Sudan and send aid. That’s much better than nothing and has led Sudan to kill fewer children and to kill more […]
Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties; President’s response: ‘We’re not going to have any’ 19 Oct 2004 | CNN.com NEW YORK — The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, “We’re not going to have any casualties.” Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as “the most self-assured man I’ve ever […]
18 Oct. 2004 | UN Observer Rampant voter fraud in Florida will disqualify 200,000 mainly Democratic and African American voters on November 2, according to an article in next week?s Harper?s by Greg Palast, the BBC investigative reporter who in 2000 broke the original story regarding the infamous felon list in Florida. Palast?s findings were echoed in the October 14 New York Times Op Ed by Paul Krugman…. In the Harper?s article, Palast illustrates how Bush has a ?head start? on the voting before the first ballot is cast: ? Palast documents that 180,000 votes will be cast but not […]
Oxfam America: ‘Where’s the Moral Fiber?’ October 18, 2004 | Oxfam America WASHINGTON – International agency Oxfam is concerned that the United States has signaled its intention to fight to defend its massive cotton subsidy program that is causing suffering to millions of poor African farmers. The US announced today that it is appealing a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that had declared the majority of US cotton subsidies illegal. In a new report today, Oxfam details how US subsidies encourage overproduction and facilitate the dumping of excess cotton overseas, undermining the livelihoods of poor farmers in the developing world. […]
[ While George W. Bush repeatedly insists that his Administration has given the military everything it needs in Iraq, the story below is one of a persistent stream of reminders that Bush’s claim is false and that troop safety is less important than many other priorities of his Administration. From the piece: … the unit’s trucks were not yet armored… None of the trucks in his command were armored when they arrived in Iraq, General Chambers said. A sampling of related stories from the last year and a half: Bio/Chem Attack Protection Questioned (14 Feb 2003) U.S. Troops Buying Own […]
by Brendan Lalor In a land in which presidential candidate G.W. Bush delivers campaign speeches in halls to which only adoring fans are granted entrance, the crackdown against dissent continues. To point to just a couple representative cases from the regular slew of cases: “Police in riot gear fired paintballs filled with cayenne pepper Thursday night to disperse a crowd of protesters assembled in this historic gold mining town where President Bush was spending the night after a campaign appearance.” (Associated Press, 15 Oct 2004) “Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and thrown out of the President Bush […]
[ From the piece: 2,500 ex-felons on the list had had their voting rights restored. Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics, who often vote Republican in Florida, were almost entirely absent from the list due to a technical error. –BL ] October 17, 2004 | Associated Press Tallahassee, Fla. — Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday.
October 17, 2004 | New York Times by RON SUSKIND Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ”if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.” The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion. ”Just in the past few months,” Bartlett said, ”I think a light has gone off for people […]
16 Oct 2004 | Boston Globe by Bryan Bender WASHINGTON — About half of the roughly $5 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds disbursed by the US government in the first half of this year cannot be accounted for, according to an audit commissioned by the United Nations, which could not find records for numerous rebuilding projects and other payments. One chunk of the money — $1.4 billion — was deposited into a local bank by Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq but could be tracked no further: The auditors reported that they were shown a deposit slip but could find no […]
[ This follows up articles printed here on the economic attack on Iraq. –BL ] Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us? 16 Oct 2004 | Guardian Naomi Klein Iraqis are still being forced to pay for crimes committed by Saddam Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world. If that seems backwards, it’s because it is. Iraqis have never been awarded reparations for any of the […]
October 15, 2004 | Guardian by Alan Travis George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries – including some of its closest allies – growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office. According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month’s US presidential election. The poll, conducted by 10 of the world’s leading newspapers, including France’s Le Monde, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, […]
SICKENED COSTA RICAN BANANA PICKERS FILE SUIT AGAINST TWO CHEMICAL COS. AND U.S. FRESH PRODUCE FIRMS October 6, 2004 | Reuters Thousands of banana pickers in Costa Rica have filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against two chemical companies and three major U.S. fresh produce companies, claiming exposure to a toxic pesticide caused a range of reproductive disorders. The suit — filed against Dole Food Co., Chiquita Brands International Inc., Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Chemical Co., a subsidiary of Royal Dutch/Shell Group — accuses the companies of using dibromochloropropane on bananas in Central America […]
Scaring children is yet another way of dispiriting Palestinians 13 October 2004 | Aljazeera If Americans appreciated the scale of human-rights abuses committed by Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, they would condemn the journalists who keep them in the dark, a US peace activist says. Kim Lamberty, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), has told Aljazeera.net on Tuesday that a cruel and criminal practice is largely going unreported: settlers are routinely attacking children on their way to school. And Lamberty should know. Unable to walk since a vicious attack on 29 September by Jewish colonists, she says physical […]
[ Unfortunately, these stories are all too common; and equally unfortunately, they are not carried by major U.S. media. This “blackout” aids both Bush and Kerry, neither of whom intend to meaningfully address this problem. –BL ] 14 October 2004 | Islam-online.net “Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it suspended an officer under investigation for firing at the dead body of 13-year-old girl, who was riddled with 20 bullets …” GAZA CITY – A 10-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl died Wednesday, October 13, of her wounds after Israeli occupation troops shot her in the chest while sitting inside a United Nations school in a […]
13 October 2004 | Los Angeles Times by Steven J. Ross One of the marks of authoritarian regimes is their effort to stop the spread of knowledge and free speech. In May 1933, Nazi sympathizers in Berlin burned 20,000 “degenerate” books, many of them written by Jews and anti-fascists such as Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka. Here at home, slaveholders were so frightened by the power of the word that throughout the antebellum South legislatures made it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Now, Lynne Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife and the former head […]
[ There is an alternate source of the video clip of what Bush actually said in 2002, but denied saying at last night’s “debate.” –BL ] October 14, 2004 | Misleader.org At last night’s debate President Bush claimed that, contrary to Sen. John Kerry’s assertion, he never said he was “not that concerned” about Osama Bin Laden. Bush chastised Kerry saying, “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden. That’s kind of one of those exaggerations.”1 Bush was completely wrong. At March 13, 2002 press conference, Bush said “So I don’t know where he [Osama […]
[ For more on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, visit Serge Helfrich’s page. Thanks to Jared Childers for forwarding the article. –BL ] Oct. 13, 2004 | Wired by Wendy M. Grossman Proving that a new approach can secure victory in a classic strategy game, a team from England’s Southampton University has won the 20th-anniversary Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma competition, toppling the long-term winner from its throne. The Southampton group, whose primary research area is software agents, said its strategy involved a series of moves allowing players to recognize each other and act cooperatively.
[ Here’s an interesting piece presenting an argument that if you are “prolife,” you ought to vote against Bush because of the relationship between increased abortion and decreased funding for social programs. From the piece: “[Anti-abortion] rhetoric is hollow … without health care, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and support for prospective mothers.” –BL ]13 October 2004 | Sojourners by Dr. Glen Harold Stassen I am a Christian ethicist, and trained in statistical analysis. I am consistently pro-life. My son […]
October 12, 2004 | The Guardian by Alan Freeman Is social justice possible in a world dominated by corporate globalisation? This Friday, more than 20,000 people, drawn from social movements, peace organisations and trade unions across Europe and the world, will converge on London for the third European Social Forum to debate how to change direction. The experience of two countries, in particular, poses the question most starkly: Germany’s welfare state reforms under Gerhard Schr?der, and the transformation of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. The fundamental issue is: does society serve the economy, or should the economy serve society?
12 Oct. 2004 | The Scotsman by IRWIN ARIEFF in New York Key points UN nuclear watchdog reports nuclear bomb materials disappearing from Iraq Satellite images show entire buildings full of materials have been dismantled Warning comes after CIA report on insurgents trying to get hold of WMDs
[ After helping orchestrate and support a coup against Aristide, the democratically elected leader of Haiti, U.S. officials have the audacity to complain that Haitian supporters of their former leader have still not accepted the U.S. interference in their country’s political process! Also notice how the Reuters piece below lets stand Boucher’s deceiving, propagandistic characterization of Aristide as using “street gangs to spread violence and political repression.” The article implies that the murders are committed by supporters of Aristide, but fails to mention the fatal attacks against hundreds of Aristide supporters after the U.S. coerced Aristide out of the country […]
12 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! The Senate yesterday approved a $137 billion corporate tax cut marking the biggest restructuring of the corporate tax code in two decades. One of the biggest winners is the tobacco industry which will receive a $10 billion buyout. Senator John McCain described the bill as a “disgrace” and a “complete sellout to the tobacco companies.” Originally Congress planned to give the tobacco industry $10 billion in exchange for allowing the Food and Drug Agency to increase regulation of their products. But legislators removed the FDA provision while preserving the tax break. The Center for American […]
[ I have not noticed much coverage of this story by major media in the U.S. –BL ] 13 October 2004 | World Socialist Web Site WSWS correspondent The US government move to shut down nearly two dozen antiwar, anti-globalization web sites on October 7 is an unprecedented exercise of police power against political dissent on the Internet. The World Socialist Web Site denounces the attack on the Indymedia sites and demands a halt to all such attempts at suppressing political criticism of the US government.
[ Should Kerry get equal time? According to The Guardian (12 Oct. 2004), Under US broadcasting rules, the film actually gives airtime to Mr Kerry. Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who heads the Media Access Project watchdog, said: “The way our equal time law works depends on what candidate is appearing on the air – so the equal time rule would run to Bush, not to Kerry. It does not provide Kerry a right to reply.” –BL ]12 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! The nation’s largest local television chain, the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, has ordered its 62 television stations to pre-empt its regular prime-time […]
11 Oct. 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Joseph Kay and Samuel Davidson With US Airways? decision to file for bankruptcy on September 12, the crisis in the US airline industry has reached a new stage. The seventh-largest airline in the country now joins United Airlines, the second-largest, in Chapter 11 court proceedings. The country’s third-largest carrier, Delta Airlines, is threatening to declare bankruptcy as well.
10 October 2004 | New York Times by BENEDICT CAREY In 2001, two researchers and a Columbia University fertility expert published a startling finding in a respected medical journal: women undergoing fertility treatment who had been prayed for by Christian groups were twice as likely to have a successful pregnancy as those who had not. Three years later, after one of the researchers pleaded guilty to conspiracy in an unrelated business fraud, Columbia is investigating the study and the journal reportedly pulled the paper from its Web site. No evidence of manipulation has yet surfaced, and the study’s authors stand […]
[ From the article: In the wake of the report, President Bush has reframed the way he characterizes his rationale for the launching the war. A review of his public statements before the war and this week shows how broadly his public argument has shifted, away from warnings that Hussein actually possessed horrible weapons in favor of talking almost exclusively about the dictator’s intent. –BL ] 10 October 2004 | Washington Post [Page A32] by Glenn Kessler In announcing 19 months ago that the United States was poised to invade Iraq, President Bush told the nation: “Intelligence gathered by this and […]
[From the piece: Iraq is hardly the only country where American troops are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of Georgia, U.S. personnel are also spending their days and nights protecting pipelines and refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to this mission. American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other sea routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In fact, the American military is increasingly being converted into […]
August 2004 | MuseLetter No. 149 by Richard Heinberg To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. –Thomas Jefferson For decades the US dollar has served as the world’s default currency. The phrase "sound as a dollar" has expressed the faith and confidence of generations, not only of Americans, but people worldwide. That situation is coming to end, and the consequences will be far-reaching. A Brief History of Money In order to understand why this sea change is about to […]
5 Oct. 2004 | DemocracyNow! A new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has found that 41 percent of the fatalities in Gaza over the past week have been civilians. The group estimates Israeli forces have killed 75 Palestinians – 31 of whom were civilians. Among the dead were 19 Palestinian children aged 17 and under. The group says 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza are living under complete siege without water and electricity and little food. B’Tselem also reports Israeli forces have demolished 55 houses in the Jabaliya refugee camp and another 50 additional houses have been severely damaged. […]
5 October 2004 | DemocracyNow! Report: Iraqi Resistance Uniting Against U.S. & Zarqawi A leading Kuwaiti newspaper is reporting that a number of Iraqi resistance groups are planning on uniting under a single umbrella group to oppose the US presence in Iraq. The paper reports the resistance group will command a total of 7,000 fighters across Iraq. In addition, the resistance groups are threatening to take up arms against suspected Al Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi unless he stops carrying out attacks against Shiite Iraqis. A source for the new unity group said, “If Zarqawi does not abandon his plans […]
excerpted from 6 Oct. 2004 | MoveOnPac.org Email [Of the recent] vice presidential debate … CBS News reported … that Edwards “continued the Democratic ticket’s winning streak,” beating Cheney by 13 percentage points in a post-debate poll of uncommitted voters.[1] Again and again, Cheney tried to mislead the public about the war in Iraq and our economic problems here at home. He even claimed that he’d never met Edwards before when he had, in public, twice. But John Edwards wouldn’t let him get away with it: when Cheney tried once again to link al Qaeda and 9/11, Edwards said, “Mr. […]
Fox – the naked truth 5 October 2004 | The Guardian by Zoe Williams It’s rare for Fox, Rupert Murdoch’s American news channel, to admit that a story is total fabrication, but a recent report on John Kerry was so wild, and its falsity so easily verifiable, that an apology was the only option. The story was written by Carl Cameron, who has been following Kerry’s campaign trail. He attributed to him this remark: “I’m metrosexual – [Bush is] a cowboy,” following it with a swift, if curious, left hook to the candidate’s sexuality by saying that he liked manicures.
War Veterans Overloading VA 4 Oct. 2004 | HeraldNet
Rumsfeld: Iraq/al-Qaida remarks ‘misunderstood’ October 5, 2004 | The Guardian by Simon Jeffery The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, today attempted to distance himself from his earlier comments that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
5 October 2004 | Misleader.org Vice President Cheney and President Bush have repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein which justified the invasion of Iraq. The key piece of evidence Cheney and President Bush have used to support this claim was that Hussein harbored Abu Musab al Zarqawi – a suspected associated of al-Qaeda. For example, on 6/21/04 Cheney said “Mr. Zarqawi, who is in Baghdad today, is an al Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq.”1 President Bush said on 6/15/04 “Zarqawi’s the […]
A Man of His Words September 8, 2004 | Alternet.org by George Lakoff, AlterNet The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of “Don’t Think Of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate,” published by Chelsea Green Publishing. Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse January 21, 2004 — On this date I spoke extemporaneously to a group of about two hundred progressive citizen-activists in Sausalito, California. When I teach the study of framing at Berkeley, in Cognitive Science 101, the first thing I do is I give my students an exercise. The exercise is: Don’t […]
[ I ran another great piece on the pillaging of Iraq in June. Here’s Naomi Klein from the article below: In June, Bremer [former leader of the U.S. occupation of Iraq] flew to an economic summit in Jordan and announced that these firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery.” It would be the largest state liquidation sale since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Bremer’s economic engineering had only just begun. In September, to entice foreign investors to come to Iraq, he enacted a radical set […]
by Bob Lee Did you catch the part of the debate where Cheney referred viewers to “factcheck.com”? I knew he had meant factcheck.org, which is critical of both campaigns, but I thought I would see what factcheck.com had to offer. Turns out, factcheck.com takes you to GeorgeSoros.com, where it says in all caps at the top, “WHY WE MUST NOT RE-ELECT PRESIDENT BUSH,” and the top column on the page is entitled, “President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.” How true; I hope everyone watching checked out factcheck.com.
4 October 2004 | DemocracyNow! The New York Times has published a major 10,000 word investigation into how the Bush administration ignored claims from within its own government that Saddam Hussein did not have an active nuclear program before the invasion of Iraq. The article examines the story behind the claim that Iraq possessed aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration repeatedly cited the existence of the tubes as definitive evidence that Iraq had a nuclear program. But what the Bush administration never revealed was that the top officials inside the Energy Department […]
US bases in Iraq: sticky politics, hard math September 30, 2004 | Christian Science Monitor by David R. Francis If a new Iraq government should agree to let American forces stay on, how many bases will the US request? One, as the United States Army currently maintains in Honduras? Six, the number of installations it lists in the Netherlands. Or maybe 12? The Pentagon isn’t saying.
30 Sept. 2004 | GregPalast.com by Greg Palast Our President told the debate audience, “You cannot lead if you send mexxed missiges.” I certainly hope not.
30 Sept. 2004 | EnvironmentalDefense.org NY – Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp praised the Russian Government’s decision today to submit the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change to the Russian Duma for ratification. “It’s the first clear sign since May that Russia is committed to taking the steps to usher in the age of carbon limits and climate stabilization. Sadly this leaves the U.S. isolated in its refusal to join the international effort to reduce greenhouse gas pollution,” said Krupp. “Russian ratification will bring into force a landmark international treaty under which for the first time nations will work together to […]
30 Sept. 2004 | DemocracyNow! The New York Times is reporting a major new governmental study has found that global warming is likely to produce a significant increase in intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades. The study is being described as the most comprehensive computer analysis of hurricanes to date. It was done in Princeton at the Commerce Department’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. One leading scientist at MIT said the study offers a definitive link between global warming and larger hurricanes. Hurricane expert Dr. Kerry Emmanuel said “This clinches the issue.” The study did not determine whether hurricanes […]
excerpted from September 28, 2004 | TomPaine.com by Paul Rogat Loeb In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office? Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter…. Last year, when millions of us rose up against the Iraq war, many felt like their […]
Oct. 1, 2004 | Toronto Star MICHELLE SHEPHARD The White House has endorsed a proposed bill that would make it legal for U.S. intelligence officials to deport individuals to countries known to use torture to extract information.
[ Once again, U.S. reports of casualties may be too rosy: According to doctors on the ground, about half of the bodies are noncombatants’. From the piece: An American spokesman … insisted that almost all the Iraqi dead were combatants. But according to doctors at the Samarra general hospital, of the first 47 bodies brought in, 11 were women, five children and seven elderly men. The hospital said it was running out of emergency supplies as more and more casualties arrived…. Homes were flattened and dozens of cars were set alight in yesterday’s operation. The people of Samarra, their electricity […]
27 September 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Joseph Kay The current issue of Forbes Magazine contains the publication?s annual list of the wealthiest Americans, ranked by net worth. While one?s first instinct might be to turn away in disgust from such a flaunting of individual wealth and greed, it is instructive to consider the figures, for they provide an important indication of the nature of American society. According to Forbes, ?The economy?s recovery may be a little shaky, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at this year’s Forbes 400. The combined net worth of the nation’s wealthiest […]
[ As DemocracyNow! (1 Oct. 2004) reports: Bush Campaign Helped Write Allawi Speech The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush’s reelection campaign were “heavily involved” in drafting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s speech before the U.S. Congress last week. Unnamed administration officials told the Post that Dan Senor sent Allawi recommended phrases and helped him rehearse the speech. Senor is the former spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority during the official U.S. occupation of Iraq. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the British Foreign Service also reportedly helped Allawi with the text […]
9 Sept. 2004 | East Hampton Star by E.L. Doctorow I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear. But this president does not know what […]
by Quentin Pratt Bill O’Reilly repeatedly insulted the Daily Show’s audience during an interview with John Stewart, referring to them as “stoned slackers” several times during the interview. This prompted some research which found the following: Viewers of Jon Stewart’s show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch “The O’Reilly Factor,” according to Nielsen Media Research. “Daily Show” viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O’Reilly’s audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling. On top […]
29 September 2004 | The Independent Pregnant chads, vanishing voters… the election fiasco of 2000 made the Sunshine State a laughing stock. More importantly, it put George Bush in the White House. You’d think they’d want to get it right this time. But no, as Andrew Gumbel discovers, the democratic process is more flawed than ever …