26 Nov. 2004 | Washington Post by Colum Lynch UNITED NATIONS — The Republican-controlled Congress has stepped up its campaign to curtail the power of the International Criminal Court, threatening to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to governments that refuse to sign immunity accords shielding U.S. personnel from being surrendered to the tribunal.
Brendan
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[ Nice brief, except the part in which Cole allocates all blame to the Administration, and none to the media. –BL ] November 26, 2004 | Juan Cole’s Informed Comment CBS has elicited from the Pentagon the real figure of US casualties in Iraq, which is more like 25,000. That number includes the 1230 or so killed and the 9300 classified as “wounded in battle,” but also 17,000 classified as non-combat sick or injured, of whom 80 percent do not return to their units in Iraq. Although some of the 17,000 are victims of disease, some unspecified number have actually been […]
[ Visit the U.S. Campaign to Ban LandMines website to take action. –BL ] US urges ban on antitank mines but happy with anti-personnel varieties November 27, 2004 | Agence France-Presse The United States, stung by insurgent attacks in Iraq, has urged the international community to consider banning all sales of anti-tank and other heavy landmines, but ruled out its participation in an international conference on mines designed to maim or kill people. Members of the so-called Ottawa Convention will gather in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday to review implementation of the 1997 accord that bans use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer […]
[ If Republicans muster the 60 votes required to kill a filibuster, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might be plundered for oil — enough to supply the U.S. with a mere 10-month supply … 10 more months the U.S. can keep its head in the ground, ignoring the need to come up with a serious energy policy to mitigate coming crises. –BL ] Nov. 22, 2004 | Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and ConocoPhillips are among companies poised to realize a decades-old dream of drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, thanks to Republican gains in this month’s U.S. Senate […]
[ This thought-provoking position paper defends a strategy based on urban values, even if it is, as Bob Lee points out, a little mean. Thanks to Bob for passing this article along. –BL ] THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO 17 Nov. 2004 | The Stranger [ Seattle ] by The Editors of The Stranger It’s the Cities, Stupid. There are two maps on this page. The one at the top should be familiar. It’s one of those red-state/blue-state maps that have been tormenting Democrats, liberals, and progressives since November of 2000. Over the 36 days that George W. Bush and Al Gore fought […]
Dead-Check in Falluja: Embedded with the Marines in Iraq 24 Nov. 2004 | Village Voice by Evan Wright In April 9, 2003, the day the statue of Saddam Hussein was being toppled in Baghdad, symbolizing the promised liberation of Iraq, I was embedded with a Marine unit engaged in fierce combat about 30 miles north of the city, on the outskirts of Baquba. Late that afternoon, the Humvee I was in was following about 50 feet behind a Marine Light Armored Vehicle when it pulled alongside a Toyota pickup pushed to the side of the road, its doors riddled with […]
The New Southern Democrats November 24, 2004 | AlterNet by Traci Hukill Fed up with the neoliberal policies advocated by Washington and the IMF, Latin America is turning to the left. The question now is, can it last? In “The Motorcycle Diaries,” director Walter Salles’ tribute to Che Guevara, the hero speeds up the spine of the Andes clinging to his buddy on the back of a wheezing Norton. The year is 1952 and it is dawning on the young Che that the gorgeous vistas of his beloved Latin America conceal a corrosive cancer of greed and oppression. He dedicates […]
by Brendan Lalor In a Nov. 22 story, I conveyed word from the Friends Committee on National Legislation about a victory for nuclear disarmament. Here is a correction they have sent out: Initially, FCNL was informed by congressional sources that there would be no funds allocated for “advanced test readiness.” However, we now know that $22.5 million–$7.5 million less than the Bush administration’s budget request–has been appropriated to prepare the Nevada Test Site for a nuclear test explosion. While the Bush administration contends that it has no plans to end the 12-year-old nuclear testing moratorium, the administration had asked for […]
excerpted from 23 Nov. 2004 | ZNet by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Let’s assume for a second, as the law does, that a corporation is a person. If a corporation is a person, then how come we don’t see biographies of corporations? …. Now comes Jack Doyle. Doyle is trying to make a career out of writing critical corporate biographies. In 2002, under contract with the Environmental Health Fund, Doyle wrote his first corporate biography, titled Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell & The Fossil Fire. Now, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, Doyle is […]
[ It could be that more academics are liberal because that’s what (generally) happens to people who devote their lives to the expansion of the mind. Thanks to Michael Roselius for passing this article along. –BL ] November 18, 2004 | New York Times by JOHN TIERNEY BERKELEY, Calif. – At the birthplace of the free speech movement, campus radicals have a new target: the faculty that came of age in the 60’s. They say their professors have been preaching multiculturalism and diversity while creating a political monoculture on campus. Conservatism is becoming more visible at the University of California here, […]
Report from the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia November, 2004 | School of the Americas Watch Over 16,000 people from across the Americas — including actors Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and George Wendt and musician Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls — gathered this weekend outside the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia in the largest and most diverse demonstration yet of opposition to the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC! The gathering culminated on Sunday with a solemn funeral procession to the gates of Fort Benning. Fifteen people were arrested in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, many negotiating a 10-foot-high barbed-wire […]
22 Nov. 2004 | Los Angeles Times by Scott Gold SPRING, Texas — Outside the Spring Church of Christ, a large roadside sign says a lot about the prevailing sensibility in this cordial town. It reads: “Support New Testament Morality.” This is the home and powerbase of Terri Leo, a state Board of Education member representing 2.5 million people in East Texas. At the urging of Leo and several other members — who describe themselves as Christian conservatives — the board this month approved new health textbooks for high school and middle school students after publishers said they would tweak […]
[ See also the Washington Post’s piece. –BL ] 22 Nov. 2004 | Friends Committee on National Legislation [ The Quaker Lobby ] [ Here is the content of the email sent out by FCNL: ] Congratulations! You won an important victory for nuclear disarmament! On November 20, Congress said ‘NO’ to new nuclear weapons! The omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2005 deleted all funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) and advanced concepts for nuclear weapons. In addition, there will be no funds allocated for “advanced test readiness,” a program that reduces the time needed to prepare for a nuclear explosion at […]
November 16, 2004 | Columbus Dispatch by Joe Blundo The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O’Reilly. Canadian border farmers say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.
by Brendan Lalor As The Telegraph (20 Nov. 2004) and others are reporting, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is once again sounding the alarm, this time claiming not only that Iran is producing materials for use in nuclear weapons, but that it “is studying how to equip a missile with a nuclear bomb.” Is this another move to justify an attack on Iran? If you feel a sense of déjà vu, that’s probably because it was Powell who made a presentation before the U.N. in February of 2003 — based on evidence recognized as bogus then — in order […]
20 November 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Rick Kelly According to official figures, the Iraq war has so far seen 9,000 US soldiers wounded in action, in addition to the more than 1,200 troops killed. These wounded, whose numbers may well be underestimated, include those with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, lost limbs and other injuries caused by landmines and bombs. Less well known, however, is the terrible toll enacted through brain and psychological injuries, which frequently have devastating and permanent effects.
18 Nov. 2004 | United Press International WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is spending more than $5.8 billion a month on the war in Iraq, according to the military’s top generals. That is nearly a 50 percent increase above the $4 billion-a-month benchmark the Pentagon has used to estimate the cost of the war so far. The Army alone is spending $4.7 million a month while the Air Force is spending $800 million a month transporting soldiers and flying combat missions. The Marine Corps is spending $300 million a month, the four service chiefs told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. […]
3 Nov. 2004 | Rolling Stone by PAUL ALEXANDER The nineteen months since the war in Iraq began, some of the most outspoken critics of President Bush’s plan of attack have come from a group that should have been the most supportive: retired senior military leaders. We spoke with a group of generals and admirals that included a former supreme Allied commander and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and they all agreed on one thing: Bush screwed up.
18 Nov. 2004 | USA Today by Kevin Johnson A day after Attorney General John Ashcroft told the nation’s largest association of law enforcement executives that the Bush administration had made the nation more secure from terrorist attacks and violent criminals, the group lashed back at the White House on Tuesday. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) said that cuts by the administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever to public safety threats. The 20,000-member group also said in a statement that new anti-terrorism duties for local cops — […]
excerpted from 17 November 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by David Walsh Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against the ongoing destruction of Fallujah. While much of the world recognizes something horrifying has occurred, the US press does not bat an eye over the systematic leveling of a city of 300,000 people…. In none of the US media commentaries is there a single expression of concern about not merely the moral, but the legal issues involved in the attack on Fallujah. The American military operation in the city is an illegal act of […]
[ In an astonishing attempt to play to the U.S. propaganda media machine, “The Iraqi Interim prime minister Eyad Allawi alleged that he does not believe that there are civilians who were killed in the attack” on Fallujah (16 Nov. 2004, ArabicNews.com). “A high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that ‘at least 800 civilians’ have been killed in Fallujah so far.” (16 Nov. 2004, Inter Press Service). Amnesty International and others have of course confirmed the civilian deaths. But in the U.S., a disingenuous public is eager to hear it is not so. –BL ] 16 Nov. […]
November 18 Research Team Calls for Investigation BERKELEY, CA — Today the University of California’s Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study – the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting – reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods – what the team says can be deemed a “smoke alarm.” […]
GOP Looking to Repeal Food Labeling Law November 18, 2004 | Associated Press by LIBBY QUAID WASHINGTON – Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in competition with imports that Congress two years ago ordered the food industry to do it. But meatpackers and food processors fought the law from the start, and newly emboldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before Thanksgiving.
[ To tell Congress not to “drop support for needed action in Darfur,” visit the Citizens For Global Solutions action page. Thanks to Bill Bryant for passing this message along. –BL ] 16 Nov. 2004 | Washington Post By Emily Wax NEW AL-JEER SUREAF, Sudan – The Bush administration has called it genocide. Other governments have labeled it ethnic cleansing and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. There have been calls for collective action and promises of relief. There have been somber reminders of the slaughter in tiny Rwanda a decade ago and solemn vows not to let such a thing happen […]
Company spent $260,000 lobbying for herbicide Oct. 27, 2004 | Associated Press by FREDERIC J. FROMMER WASHINGTON – The manufacturer of a herbicide that has been linked to frog deformities has spent $260,000 lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency and other government officials, an Associated Press review of disclosure forms shows. Syngenta Crop Protection, which makes the herbicide atrazine, enlisted former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to meet with White House officials on at least one occasion. Dole represents the U.S. affiliate of Swiss-based Syngenta as well as the Kansas Corn Growers.
16 Nov. 2004 | Organic Consumers Association Study Launch Date Suspended Until Early 2005 Offers Public Comment Period The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), led by Bush appointees, is seeking input on a new proposed study in which infants in participating low income families will be monitored for health impacts as they undergo exposure to known toxic chemicals over the course of two years. The study entitled Children?s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) will look at how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed by children ranging from babies to 3 years old. For taking part in these studies, each family […]
[ It might not be a bad idea to find the conscientious objection organization in your state, analogous to the Oklahoma Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Thanks to Bob Lee for passing this article along. –BL ] Government looking at military draft lists 15 Nov. 2004 | Brownsville Herald [Texas] Keywords: draft selective service by ALMA WALZER McALLEN — It’s taken one year, seven months and 19 days of combat in Iraq for the Lone Star State to lose 100 of its own. Texas is the second state, after California, to lose 100 service members, according to The Associated Press. With continuing […]
[ Here’s a copy of the email I sent to New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent: Mr. Okrent, I urge you to call for the investigation of why your paper treats credible reports of hundreds of civilian casualties in Fallujah as “unconfirmed.” After the Judith Miller incidents, you ought to be on your guard against being a mouthpiece in the Bush Administration propaganda war. Sincerely, –Brendan Lalor –BL ] November 16, 2004 | Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting In three recent reports about the military invasion of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the New York Times has misreported the facts […]
November 14, 2004 | Times Online by Stephen Grey AN executive jet is being used by the American intelligence agencies to fly terrorist suspects to countries that routinely use torture in their prisons. The movements of the Gulfstream 5 leased by agents from the United States defence department and the CIA are detailed in confidential logs obtained by The Sunday Times which cover more than 300 flights. Countries with poor human rights records to which the Americans have delivered prisoners include Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan, according to the files. The logs have prompted allegations from critics that the agency is […]
15 Nov. 2004 | TruthOut.org For the latest, see results on http://news.google.com Green Party Campaign Raises $150,000 in 4 Days, Shifts Gears to Phase II WASHINGTON — There will be a recount of the presidential vote in Ohio. On Thursday, David Cobb, the Green Party?s 2004 presidential candidate, announced his intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline. That question has been answered.
[ Doctor Ahmed Ghanim told the Los Angeles Times (15 Nov. 2004), “I think if the Americans let us treat the injured, even in the streets, we could have saved hundreds.” Yet the U.S. military denies there are families trapped inside Fallujah! According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, “bodies … are being eaten by dogs and cats in the streets, as reported by refugees just out of the city, as well as residents still trapped there” (Electronic Iraq, 15 Nov. 2004). –BL ] AP Photographer Flees Fallujah 14 Nov. 2004 | Associated Press by KATARINA KRATOVAC BAGHDAD, Iraq – In the […]
November 10th, 2004 | DemocracyNow! Earlier this week on Democracy Now!, we reported on a story in Ohio’s Franklin County. In one precinct, 638 people cast ballots. Yet, George W Bush got 4,258 votes to John Kerry’s 260. In reality, Bush only received 365 votes. That means Bush got nearly 3,900 extra votes. And that was just in one small precinct. This in a state that Bush officially won by only 136,000 votes. Elections officials blamed electronic voting for the extra Bush votes. Now, questions are being raised across the state of Ohio. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the County’s website […]
[ Bush is once again purging elements that threaten his ideologically-driven agenda; he has no tolerance for facts or for dissent. –BL ] 14 Nov. 2004 | Newsday by KNUT ROYCE WASHINGTON — The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources. “The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior […]
[ Try telling Ayisha Saleem (BBC 12 Nov. 2004) and the masses of other victims about the so-called “precision strikes.” –BL ] Civilian cost of battle for Falluja emerges November 14, 2004 | The Observer by Rory McCarthy in Baghdad and Peter Beaumont The full cost of the battle of Falluja emerged last night as large numbers of wounded civilians were evacuated to hospitals in Baghdad, as insurgents stepped up retaliatory attacks in other cities. As the first Red Crescent aid convoy was allowed into Falluja, Iraq’s Health Minister, Alaa Alwan, said ambulances had begun transferring a ‘significant number’ of injured […]
by Brendan Lalor In case you have not heard about the Sorry Everybody website, and the subsequently released Apologies Accepted response site, they’re worth a quick look.
[ See also Pepe Escobar’s piece, “A Thousand Fallujahs,” in the Asia Times (12 Nov. 2004). –BL ] 15 Nov. 2004 | New Statesman by John Pilger Mainstream media speak as if Fallujah were populated only by foreign “insurgents.” In fact, women and children are being slaughtered in our name. Edward S Herman’s landmark essay, “The Banality of Evil,” has never seemed more apposite. “Doing terrible things in an organised and systematic way rests on ‘normalisation’,” wrote Herman. “There is usually a division of labour in doing and rationalising the unthinkable, with the direct brutalising and killing done by one set […]
from the book Triumph of the Market and ZMag, April, 1991. by Edward S. Herman The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt’s thesis was that people who carry out unspeakable crimes, like Eichmann, a top administrator in the machinery of the Nazi death camps, may not be crazy fanatics at all, but rather ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises of their state and participate in any […]
by Brendan Lalor Against the backdrop of a state of emergency declared by the unelected Iraqi government, Aljazeera (12 Nov. 2004) is reporting, Iraq’s Media High Commission this week “demanded news media ‘differentiate between the innocent Falluja residents who are not targeted by military operations and terrorist groups that infiltrated the city and held its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad’” and asked “media to set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear. We hope you comply … otherwise we regret we […]
[ Palast argues that Ohio Republicans, simultaneously in charge of both the Bush-Cheney get-out-the-vote drive and the state’s vote-counting rules, doggedly and systematically insured the spoilage pile would be as high as the White House. And the color of most of those who cast the spoiled votes is Black. –BL ]November 12, 2004 | In These Times Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry. Here’s how the votes vanished. by Greg Palast This February, Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State, told his State Senate President, “The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state?s primary voting device invites a […]
Eyewitness: Smoke and corpses 11 Nov. 2004 | BBC US troops, backed by Iraqi forces, are locked in a fierce fight to wrest the city of Falluja from rebel control. The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi journalist and resident of Falluja who reports regularly for Reuters and the BBC World Service in Arabic. We are publishing his and other eyewitness accounts from the city in order to provide the fullest possible range of perspectives from those who are there: A row of palm trees used to run along the street outside my house – […]
[ On the eve of Veterans Day in the U.S., the U.S. military fatalities now total more than 1,143 due to the Iraq War, while Iraqi civilian deaths exceed 14,248, and one study concluded that overall Iraqi deaths exceed 100,000. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other groups are concerned about the violence in Falluja. Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city. (Al Jazeera, 9 Nov. 2004) “Body parts everywhere!” […]
by Brendan Lalor A right-wing in-law asked me the other day whether I accept the election outcome, given that 59.5 million people voted for Bush. My response was two-fold: First, it’s still not clear how many people voted for Bush, given that Broward County, FL voting machines subtracted from candidates’ tallies once they reached 32,000 votes; the machines in a precinct in Franklin County, OH credited Bush with 4,258 although “only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct”; voting machines in many counties in Florida registered massive Republican wins in Democratic districts; most ballots “spoiled” due to hung or pregnant […]
5 Nov. 2004 | Palm Beach Post by Eliot Kleinberg FORT LAUDERDALE — It had to happen. Things were just going too smoothly. Early Thursday, as Broward County elections officials wrapped up after a long day of canvassing votes, something unusual caught their eye. Tallies should go up as more votes are counted. That’s simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone . . . down. Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward.
Study: Arctic warming at twice the global rate; Species, including polar bears, may go extinct as ice melts 8 Nov. 2004 | Reuters OSLO, Norway — Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens millions of livelihoods and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, an eight-nation report said on Monday. The biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists, said the accelerating melt could be a foretaste of wider disruptions from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
[ In a story related to the AP wire story below, BlackBoxVoting.org is taking a stand: Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence — red flags, exit polls — but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the […]
by Brendan Lalor Here’s the body of an email I sent out this morning to TrueMajority, MoveOn, Voice4Change, United for Peace and Justice, Common Dreams, Information Clearing House, and Global Exchange. Admittedly, there’s some hype here, but it’s point is worth considering, since — as I wrote to the Kerry campaign — “an actual count [or at least the exposure of foul play] surely has more legal weight than a mis-informed concession speech!!!!” Hello, progressives! If I am right, we have to ACT FAST! I just received a forwarded email which originated with one Cheryl Gutmann, who is a member […]
Exit Polls Right, Tallies Wrong? November 5, 2004 | Alternet by Thom Hartmann The rallying cry of the emerging “honest vote” movement must become: Get Corporations Out of Our Vote! The hot story in the blogosphere is that the “erroneous” exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren’t erroneous at all – it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it’s […]
4 Nov. 2004 | TomPaine.com by Greg Palast Kerry won. Here’s the facts. I know you don’t want to hear it. You can’t face one more hung chad. But I don’t have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it’s my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
by Brendan Lalor We’re angry that Black voters in Ohio cast votes against Bush that were likely ignored. We’re angry because giant media corporations won’t investigate the story. We’re worried about the further erosion of checks and balances, now that right-wing extremists exercise even more significant control over every branch of government. We’re worried about Bush pulling out all the stops and moving to implement more of his domestic shock and awe program: discriminatory amendments to the Constitution, privatization of Social Security, more military and economic dominance in the Middle East, more undermining of the U.N., more taxpayer dollars transferred […]
[ Note the speculation about the voting machines “below the fold” … For more, see also the Reuters piece today titled, “U.S. Voters Report Problems with Computer Systems.” Thanks to Bob Nichols for passing this article along. –BL ] by Peter Phillips, Project Censored Director Democracy in the United States is only a shadow in a corporate media cave of deceit, lies and incomplete information. We stand ignorant of what the powerful are doing in our name and how the corporate media ignores key issues affecting us all. A young professional couple from San Diego stated the weekend before the election, […]
[ Stauber argues that a more progressive Democratic candidate could have won in swing states Kerry lost. Look at what happened in Wisconsin, where voters re-elected their progressive anti-war, pro-civil liberties Senator, Russ Feingold by a relatively comfortable margin: It appears Kerry won the presidential contest there by a razor-thin margin, perhaps unable to muster support from progressives. Much of the blame for the loss surely goes to the Democratic Party leadership, which, together with the media, sunk Ship Dean, which was on course to mobilize many more young voters. –BL ] 3 Nov. 2004 | Alternet by John Stauber Only […]
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.
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 […]