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AUGUST
11-1, 03
Archives |
 
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Katherine Harris booed at Bradenton town hall meeting
August 11, 2003 U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who gained the
national spotlight as Florida secretary of state during the 2000 presidential
recount, was booed several times at a town hall meeting about the Medicaid
prescription drug plan being considered by Congress.
Hundreds of people showed up with detailed questions for Harris at the Bradenton
Kiwanis Hall Thursday night. The Sarasota Republican spoke for nearly half of
the allotted hour, and then didn't answer the crowd's questions until all had
been asked, the Bradenton Herald reported in Friday's edition.
The lines at the microphones were long. The boos were loud. libertyforum.org
 NEW
REVELATION SURFACES ABOUT GULF WAR II “MYSTERY ILLNESS” August
10, 2003 The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA), an independent Gulf
War Veterans’ support organization, has long searched for answers to explain
why nearly half of the 697,000 Gulf War I Veterans are now ill and why over
200,000 of those servicemen/women have requested disability, but have received
no adequate diagnosis or treatment, from either the Department of Defense (DOD),
or Veteran’s Affairs. Though there have been over 125 studies done by the
government at the cost of over $300,000,000 to the taxpayer, we still have no
answers as to what caused so many of our soldiers to become ill.
Meanwhile, the suffering veterans are receiving little, if any, medical
treatment for this illness. It seems that whenever veterans become ill,
the term “mystery illness” seems to be the first and often the only
diagnosis that is ever made. Veterans are then left to fend for
themselves, sick and unable to work, with little hope of a normal life again. gulfwarvets.com
 CIA
and DoD Attempted To Plant WMDs in Iraq —
and Failed August 10, 2003 Pentagon
Whistleblower Reveals CIA/DoD Fiascos According to a stunning report posted
by a retired Navy Lt. Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense
Department, the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq was based on a CIA plan to "plant" WMDs
inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the
plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by
"friendly fire." envirosagainstwar.org
Military Families, Veterans Demand
End to Occupation of Iraq, Immediate Return of All U.S. Troops to Home Duty
Stations August
10, 2003 Galvanized to action by George
W. Bush's inane and reckless "Bring 'em on" challenge to armed
Iraqi's resisting occupation, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for
Peace and other organizations based in the military community will launch
Bring Them Home Now, a campaign aimed at ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq
and returning troops to their home bases at a press conference on August 13
in Washington, D.C. U.S. military casualties from the occupation of Iraq
have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe
because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other
non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the
media. The other underreported cost of the war for US soldiers is the number
of American wounded-827, officially, since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
(Unofficial figures are in the thousands.) About half have been injured
since Bush's triumphant claim on board the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln at
the beginning of May that major combat was over. usnewswire.com
N. Korea next to hear U.S. war drum
August 10, 2003 By GEOFFREY YORK A senior Pentagon adviser has
given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its
regime within 30 to 60 days, adding muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S.
hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear
facilities. Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war
drums in Washington have begun pounding again. A growing number of
influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North
Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer
negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war. globeandmail.com
Family
shot dead by panicking US troops August
10, 2003 By Justin
Huggler in Baghdad Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a
father and three children in their car. The abd al-Kerim family didn't have
a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at
close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of
them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old
daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and
how they screamed for the Americans to stop. informationclearinghouse.info
Bush
tells bureau to open land August
10, 2003 ASSOCIATED PRESS The Bush administration has directed federal
land managers to remove obstacles to oil and gas development in parts of five
Rocky Mountain states. Policy directives issued to Bureau of Land
Management state directors give the officials tools to implement the
administration's long-standing goal of opening the Rocky Mountain West to
increased exploitation of oil and gas resources. washtimes.com
 Flight
93 Families Dispute FBI's Theory August
9, 2003 By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer Families of passengers
who rebelled against hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 said Friday
the FBI theory that the terrorists deliberately crashed the plane into a
Pennsylvania field was based on ``limited and questionable interpretations''
of the cockpit recording. The theory - described by FBI Director Robert
Mueller and disclosed deep within a congressional report on the Sept. 11
attacks - suggests insurgent passengers may not have successfully fought
their way into the cockpit and grappled to seize the plane's controls, as
has been popularly perceived. guardian.co.uk
Americans pay price for speaking out,
Dissenters face job loss, arrest, threats
August 9, 2003 KATHLEEN KENNA But
activists not stopped by backlash He's a Vietnam War hero from a proud
lineage of warriors who served the United States, so he never expected to be
called a traitor. After 39 years in the Marines, including commands in
Somalia and Iraq, Gen. Anthony Zinni never imagined he would be tagged
"turncoat." The epithets are not from the uniforms but the suits
— "senior officers at the Pentagon," the now-retired general
says from his home in Williamsburg, Va. "They want to question my
patriotism?" he demands testily. To question the Iraq war in the U.S.
— and individuals from Main St. merchants to Hollywood stars do — is to
be branded un-American. Dissent, once an ideal cherished in the U.S.
Constitution's First Amendment, now invites media attacks, hate Web sites,
threats and job loss. thestar.com
Father of dead soldier claims Army
coverup August
9, 2003 By Mark Benjamin The father of a soldier who
died of pneumonia this spring said Thursday the Army has excluded her death
from its investigation of deadly pneumonia because it wants to cover up
vaccine side effects. "The government is covering this up and it is a
dog-gone shame," said Moses Lacy, whose daughter, Army Spc. Rachael
Lacy, died April 4 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after getting
pneumonia. Lacy said his daughter "was a healthy young woman" but
got ill within days of getting anthrax and smallpox vaccinations on March 2
in preparation for deployment to the Persian Gulf. She was too ill to ever
be deployed. upi.com
Did EPA mislead public on water?
August 9, 2003 By Guy Gugliotta Agency audits suggest reports
overstated utilities’ record The Environmental Protection Agency’s
inspector general is investigating whether the agency is deliberately
misleading the public by overstating the purity of the nation’s drinking
water, according to EPA officials and agency documents. THE INQUIRY was
launched June 18, five days before then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd
Whitman released the “Draft Report on the Environment,” which stated
that “94 percent of the population served by community water systems were
served by systems that met all health-based standards.” Internal
agency documents, however, show that EPA audits for at least five years have
suggested that the percentage of the population with safe drinking water is
much lower... msnbc.com
Fuel Prices Move Higher, and Trend Is
Expected to Persist August 9, 2003 By
NEELA BANERJEE Notice that recent rise in prices at the gas pump?
Fuel prices have risen over the last two weeks, and analysts warn that the
increase may be an early signal that prices of gasoline and heating oil
could stay higher than usual through the end of the year, in large part
because of chronically low stockpiles of crude oil and petroleum products in
the United States. The average retail price of regular gasoline is about
$1.54 a gallon, about 2 cents higher than a week ago and 14 cents more than
a year ago, according to the Energy Information Administration, the
analytical arm of the Energy Department. nytimes.com
 Adding Indifference to Injury
At Least 20,000
Civilians Injured in Iraq War August 8, 2003 By Hamit
Dardagan, John Sloboda and
Kay Williams Iraq Body Count
Project Extraction
of media-reported civilian injuries from the Iraq Body Count database and
archive of war reports provides evidence of at least 20,000 civilian injuries on
top of the maximum reported 7798 deaths. 8,000 of these injuries were in the
Baghdad area alone, suggesting that the full, countrywide picture, as with
deaths, is yet to emerge. counterpunch.org
US occupation forces attack Iraqi
journalist August 8, 2003 By Jeremy Johnson August 2003
US occupation authorities shut down an Iraqi newspaper last month and have
stepped up the detention of journalists for reporting on the ongoing resistance.
These actions, along with many other repressive measures, indicate the true
character of the “democracy” and “freedom” the American occupiers are
bringing to the Iraqi people. wsws.org
Bomb in Jakarta Hotel Was
American/Israeli Someone in Washington has a lot of explaining to do! August
8, 2003 Joe Vialls By now we have all been saturated with the standard “War on
Terror” blurb about the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Jakarta on 5
August 2003. Speaking with a single corporate voice, the western media stated
surprisingly quickly that the bomb was the work of a lone suicide bomber working
for the “feared terrorist organization ” Jemaah Islamiah, which allegedly
and very brazenly drove a Toyota van up to the front of the hotel, where the
Toyota obligingly and predictably exploded with a loud and unmistakable bang.
Warming to this incredibly inaccurate and deceitful theme, the corporate media
then ran thousands of feet of video footage showing smoke billowing out of the
hotel, people running around in circles, “experts” from three different
continents saying how evil these Muslim Jemaah Islamiah folk really are, and so
on and so on. Then in less than 48 hours we were told that the guilty
bomber was called “Asmal”, who was unfortunately killed in the blast, making
embarrassing trials like those in Bali completely unnecessary in the future. joevialls.co
16 Words + 28 Pages = 44 Distractions
August 8, 2003 by Allen Snyder Über-indignant editorials are
flying from the right like RPG shrapnel at US troops. Wingnut pundits are
assuming full defensive posture, talking much faster and making less sense
than usual. They’re queuing up around the block rationalizing Bush’s
16-word State of the Union lie and offering up creative explanations why 28
pages in the recently released 850-page report on the intelligence failures
and governmental snafus prior to 9/11 are blacked out. Predictably,
BushCo’s lies and cover-ups religiously comply with its three cardinal
rules of political manipulation. opednews.com
"US sees atom bomb
as God" Aug 07, 2003
AFP Hiroshima's mayor lashed out at the US' nuclear weapons policy yesterday
during ceremonies marking the 58th anniversary of the city's atomic bombing,
which caused the deaths of over 230,000 people. Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said the US worshipped nuclear weapons as
"God" and blamed it for jeopardizing the global nuclear
non-proliferation regime. "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the central international
agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of
collapse," Akiba said in an address to some 40,000 people. "The chief cause is US nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the
possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed
research into mini-nukes and other so-called `useable nuclear weapons,' appears
to worship nuclear weapons as God," he said. informationclearinghouse.info
Factories Bleeding Jobs
August 7, 2003 By BARBARA NAGY
Manufacturing job losses appear to be gaining speed in
Connecticut after moderating a bit earlier this year, with companies from
auto-parts producers to makers of medical products announcing sizable cuts in
the past few weeks.
Economists suspect many had been putting off layoffs on the expectation that
business would improve and orders would pick up. That hasn't happened, leading
many to finally resort to job cuts. ctnow.com
"Leave No Tree
Behind" Bush's War on
National Forests August 7, 2003 By CHRISTOPHER
BRAUCHLI Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees. The revelation of St. John the Divine
Once
again the Bush administration has demonstrated creativity in dealing with
problems caused by the environment. Trees are one problem and roads are a
solution. Each has been addressed within the last two months. A part of the
Healthy Forest initiative addresses the tree problem. The way it works is this. Lumber companies cut down lots of old growth trees. Once
they are gone there are fewer trees and the ones left are healthier. Pursuant to
a new policy described on May 31, 2003, environmental studies before logging or
burning trees will no longer be required. Consultations about the effects of
those activities on endangered species will no longer be required if Forest
Service or Bureau of Land Management biologists determine endangered species
will probably not be harmed. Cutting and burning excess trees on up to 190
million acres of federal land can take place without environmental studies.
Trees can be cut from up to 1,000 acres without environmental studies and
controlled burns can be used on up to 4,500 acres. counterpunch.org
Global warming may be
speeding up, fears scientist August 7, 2003 John
Vidal Alarm at 'unusual' heatwaves
across northern hemisphere.
One of Europe's leading scientists yesterday raised the possibility that the
extreme heatwave now settled over at least 30 countries in the northern
hemisphere could signal that man-made climate change is accelerating. "The present heatwave across the northern hemisphere is worrying. There
is the small probability that man-made climate change is proceeding much faster
and stronger than expected," said Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief
scientific adviser to the German government and now head of the UK's leading
group of climate scientists at the Tyndall centre. Prof Schellnhuber said "the parching heat experienced now" could be
consistent "with a worst-case scenario [of global warming] that nobody
wants to come true". guardian.co.uk
Rigged Elections On The Horizon August
7, 2003
With the 2004 Presidential election campaigns gearing up in the U.S., some
voters and many activists are becoming alarmed over news stories about new
voting machines failing
inspections, being susceptible to tampering
and leaving no paper
trail. Some even believe the systems are designed
for corruption. To make matters worse, voting experts trying to raise
awareness of this flaw were recently barred
from an election officials conference in Colorado. http://indymedia.org/
GOP Memo Suggests Bush
Orchestration Of California Recall August 7, 2003 Throught His Longtime Press Spokesperson,
Current "Campaign Operative" Minday Tucker While White House and national GOP officials insist they won't get involved
in the California recall, a memo obtained by The Chronicle outlines a Republican
strategy to oust Gov. Gray Davis and help President Bush before the 2004
presidential election. The memo by California GOP organizer Julie Leitzell, who
heads a political action committee called CommonSense Direction,...clearly
suggests the imprimatur of the White House. bushwatch.net
Uncle Sam shocks some veterans with recall to duty
August 7, 2003
By TOM DAVIS Army Capt. Richard Hinman says he's a "draftee" serving in a
volunteer army. Think about it, says Hinman. The West Point graduate, who left the military
in 1999, didn't want to go to Iraq and Kuwait. But he got his orders on Feb. 8
and was sent overseas in May. "I wanted to get out of this kicking-in-doors-with-guns kind of
thing," said Hinman, who was looking forward to more time with his two
children but is now serving at Camp Doha, Kuwait. "It was a real
surprise." And a shock, Hinman said in a telephone interview from Kuwait, because he was
so unprepared. Even his old uniforms had been thrown away. Hinman is an Individual Ready Reservist, one of about 300,000 former service
members available for active duty in a time of crisis, according to the
Pentagon. Each year, as thousands of military personnel finish their terms of
active duty, they are placed on IRR status for a period that varies according to
agreements they signed when they joined the service. In some cases, a person on IRR status can be called up as many as 10 years
after departure from the armed forces, the Pentagon says. bergen.com
Immunity for Iraqi Oil Dealings Raises Alarm
August 7, 2003 By Lisa
Girion Some contend Bush's order grants U.S. firms a
broad exemption, a view the government rejects. An executive order signed by President Bush more than two months ago is
raising concerns that U.S. oil companies may have been handed blanket immunity
from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in connection with the sale of Iraqi oil.
The Bush administration said Wednesday that the immunity wouldn't be nearly so
broad.
But lawyers for various advocacy organizations said the two-page executive order
seemed to completely shield oil companies from liability — even if it could be
proved that they had committed human rights violations, bribed officials or
caused great environmental damage in the course of their Iraqi-related business.
latimes.com
Rumors from inside the beltway -- August may be hell
August 7, 2003
by Whispers in the dark posted on 4-8-2003 at 12:43 PM Post Number: 133732
Whispers --
Chaos on Capital Hill.
The football has been replaced by a dummy for the dummy.
Doves are fighting but hawks are regrouping.
The commander-in-chief takes a little time off. A trip. Out-of-the-hill. Just
like before 9-11.
Who has the football? Why?
Rumors. Whispers. Fears.
Watch Jakarta.
Hello again ATS. An old friend returns in time of need.
Initially we expressed great skepticism at the posts, they followed a time worn
trail of giving a little infomation and then clamming up with the hard
questions. As a result we (the moderators and admin) took little notice of posts
such as these: Here,
and Here,
and Here.
There it would have ended, except for two posts, which ended with a warning to
watch Jakarta for a supposed terrorist activity. Sixteen hours after these posts
the bomb exploded there outside the hotel. stuffucanuse.com
Washington and Canberra seize on Jakarta bombing to further justify “war
on terror” August 7, 2003 By Peter Symonds
At least 14 people are dead and almost 150 injured after the blast from a
large car bomb ripped through the ground floor of the luxury JB Marriott Hotel
and surrounding buildings in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta at lunchtime on
Tuesday. The bomb left a crater two metres in diameter, pierced through to the
parking lot in the basement of the hotel, blew out windows and incinerated cars
parked in the area. At this stage it is not clear who was responsible. But this brutal murder of
innocent people is a profoundly reactionary act, which will be seized upon by
Jakarta to bolster its repressive apparatus and by Washington and its allies as
a pretext for the “global war on terrorism”. wsws.org
'Dr Strangeloves' meet to
plan new nuclear era August 7, 2003 Julian Borger
US government scientists and Pentagon officials will gather today behind tight
security at a Nebraska air force base to discuss the development of a modernised
arsenal of small, specialised nuclear weapons which critics believe could mark
the dawn of a new era in proliferation. The Pentagon has not released a list of the 150 people at the secret meeting,
but according to leaks, they will include scientists and administrators from the
three main nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore,
senior officers from the air force and strategic command, weapons contractors
and civilian defence officials. guardian.co.uk
Alaskan Conservationists Tell Secretary
Norton: 'It's Time to Start Listening to Alaskans About Protecting Alaska's Wild
Places' August 7, 2003 U.S. Newswire ANCHORAGE,
Alaska Alaskans want the state's
wildest places to stay wild, a gathering of conservationists from around the
state told Interior Secretary Gale Norton in a brief private meeting in
Anchorage today. In the 30-minute conversation, representatives of 12 Alaska
conservation organizations voiced deep concerns about the Bush administration's
short-sighted Alaska policies. "From the Arctic Refuge to the Tongass and Chugach, Alaskans feel like
the natural and culturally rich state we love is under siege," said Eleanor
Huffines, Alaska regional director for The Wilderness Society. usnewswire.com
Call
to arms: volunteers sign-up at the Ahrar Mosque. Who is the Mahdi? |
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Iraqis
flock to Mahdi's Shia army
August 6, 2003 Telegraph A militia of
mostly Shia men is growing in response to a call to arms made by a maverick
young cleric. Harry de Quetteville in Baghdad reports on Muqtader al-Sadr's
army against US occupation. As evening falls in the poor Shia suburb of
Baghdad once known as Saddam City, dozens of volunteers queue under the
watchful gaze of a local imam to sign up for the army. But this is not the new
Iraqi army sponsored and approved by the American-led administration.
These soldiers will receive no monthly salary of £40. Here, prospective
warriors are ready to serve, and die, for nothing. This is "Mahdi's
army", a growing militia of mostly Shia men who have responded to the fiery
call to arms made by a maverick young cleric, Muqtader al-Sadr, two
weeks ago in the Shia holy city of Najaf. Since then al-Sadr has led anti-US
demonstrations and encouraged worshippers to resist the US
"invaders" and Iraq's "Zionist" governing council,
appointed by the coalition. Now the ranks of this religious army, named
after an ancient imam who Shias believe will return to save the world, have
swollen into tens of thousands, perhaps more. "On the very first day
after the call, up to 1 million people signed," claimed Sheikh Hassan
al-Zurgani, a Baghdad representative of the Hawza, a Shia seminary based in
Najaf. "The official Iraqi army is the puppet of the USA," he
added. "Now our people are willing to be martyrs and the USA must fear
us." telegraph.co.uk
The Gulf War Story No One Would Publish Operation Black Dog
August 6, 2003 By David Guyatt Deep Black Lies.co.uk
August 6, 2003 Source "B" was shaken but not stirred when we first met. The odour of
fear and uncertainty was palpable - a fact that was no surprise in view of what
I was about to be told. This wasn't my first 007 Bond-like covert rendezvous,
but it would certainly be my most startling. We had agreed to meet in order that
the source could tell me about a highly secret and even more highly sensitive US
operation known as "Black Dog." Neither of us trusted electronic
communication and, therefore, a face-to-face meeting was essential. rense.com
The Burning Bush The Rest of Us Don't Have a Prayer
August 6, 2003 by
James Ridgeway Bush
has been kissing Christian ass ever since he took the oath of office. There are
19 million voters whom Karl Rove considers "religious conservatives,"
but only 14 million of them voted in 2000, and the president's campaign
strategists want to get them hopped up enough to vote in huge numbers in the
unlikely event of a close election next year. villagevoice.com
August 6, 2003 by Jeff Chester and Steven Rosenfeld
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War
casualties overflow Walter Reed hospital August
5, 2003 By Jon Ward
Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are referring some outpatients
to nearby hotels because casualties from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq
have overloaded the hospital's convalescence facility. "We have an
informal agreement with any number of hotels in the area. If we come to this
point, they will take [patients] for us," said Walter Reed spokesman
Jim Stueve. "They're very supportive and cooperative when we need that
assistance." Mr. Stueve could not specify how many soldiers are in
hotels, but said Walter Reed is referring about 20 patients or their
relatives to hotels each day. washingtontimes.com
Sensational Memos Lift the Lid on
News Control August 05, 2003 By Henry
Makow Ph.D. "It seems that guerrilla warfare is a real thing.
Too much looting, assaulting Iraqi women, too much Muslim-bashing. No
discipline in the US forces and the commanders have a hard time in
controlling their men. Protestors are to be shown to be "die-hard
Baathist supporters of the evil Saddam" and show pictures of a
"commando" camp with pictures of Saddam and anti-US slogans."
(June 12) Since April, The Barnes Review News web site (www.tbrnews.org)
has posted memos like this from an executive at a major TV network to
selected News Division staff. If they are authentic, these memos represent
the most important revelation of government deception since the Pentagon
Papers, and suggest the "news" is little more than mass
psychological control. There are shocking references to cover-ups of
government domestic terrorism, SARS, Mad Cow, and events in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Korea, Iran and much more. savethemales.ca
Coalition forces hunt Saddam, one
Iraqi killed at checkpoint August
5, 2003 A 75-year-old farmer was shot dead and his son wounded Sunday
after being turned back at a coalition checkpoint west of Fallujah, 50
kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad, the farmer's family told AFP. As they
prepared to turn around, they came under fire from the checkpoint. The
father died on the spot while his son was hit in the jaw and left hand. The
US army had no immediate comment on the incident. story.news
It's
unstoppable: High tech jobs ditching US August
5, 2003 The need to stay competitive will benefit
countries such as India, China and even Singapore, where labour costs are
lower EVEN though the United States' ailing technology sector looks
poised to recover, the bad news for job-seekers in the world's largest
economy is that they won't benefit. Faced with intense competition and the
need to cut costs, one in 10 technology jobs is likely to move overseas
within the next 18 months, says research firm Gartner. The beneficiaries
will be countries such as India, China, Vietnam and Singapore, which are
seen as being able to deliver cheaper and faster software development,
manufacturing and tech support. The trend appears to be an unstoppable
force, and that not just infuriates jobless workers but also worries some
economists who say it may ultimately hinder the US economic recovery. straitstimes.asia1.com
"A Drumbeat to War"
August 5, 2003 By B. Rehak It's one of those little things Mr. Bush
says that crosses the news wires, and unless you're looking really close
your eyes might miss it, or more probably, your brain simply rejects it. The
folks who wind him up and send him out are depending on that. It's very
difficult to get Mr. Bush to go on the record about anything, and access to
him by the working press is more restricted than any leader in American
history. By this time in Bush 41's Presidency, he'd staged 61 full press
conferences, and Bill Clinton had done 33 in the same period during his
first term. leftwords
The
unreported cost of war: at least 827 American wounded
August 4, 2003 Julian Borger US military casualties from the
occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have
been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents,
suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely
unreported in the media. Since May 1, when President George Bush declared
the end of major combat operations, 52 American soldiers have been killed by
hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures quoted in almost all the war
coverage. But the total number of US deaths from all causes is much higher:
112. The other unreported cost of the war for the US is the number of
American wounded, 827 since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. guardian.co.uk
470,000 stopped looking for work in
July Long-term unemployment on the rise in US
August 4, 2003 By Shannon Jones Job-cutting and downsizing among US
manufacturing corporations and retail establishments continued in July,
wiping out tens of thousands more jobs and further belying claims of an
economic recovery. It marked the 36th consecutive month in which
manufacturing employment has fallen. Among the major companies announcing
job cuts in the last several weeks are Pillowtex, the manufacturer of home
textiles, which declared bankruptcy and announced the planned closure of its
16 plants, employing 6,500 workers. Retailer Lord & Taylor is closing 32
stores and laying off 3,700 workers, while film and camera maker Kodak is
preparing to eliminate up to 6,000 jobs. wsws.org
Religious
zealotry and the crisis of American democracy
August 4, 2003 Khoren Arisian The
danger of religious fundamentalism has been present in the American
political bloodstream since the arrival of the Puritans. Now, with a
government of religious conservatives locked in a polarising mindset of
us-them and good-evil, the threat it poses is not just to American freedom,
but to the world’s. We cannot understand what is really going on
in American politics today without a critical and unblinking examination of
its enduring religious basis and the theological presuppositions that
support it. Consider President George W. Bush’s current nominee for the
11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Alabama Attorney General William
H. Pryor, Jr., who deems it “acceptable to execute the mentally
retarded,” replace the Constitution with the Bible, and asserts that “We
derive our rights from God and not from government.” informationclearinghouse.info
 GOD SPOKE TO ME LAST NIGHT. BUSH IS A LIAR!
August 3, 2003 by
Dan Dvorak
I
couldn’t make this up. Tossing
and turning all night has become the norm these past few months so nothing
unusual was happening or so I thought.
The
story of George Bush telling the world that he was carrying out God’s
directives in bombing
Afghanistan
and
Iraq
suddenly popped into my mind and there is
where it started. What kind of god would order the destruction of life and
property, the massacre of women and children and the poisoning of life for all
future generations, especially when it turns out there was no reason for action
of that kind? Surely God knew there was no connection to 9-11, and for sure He
knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. What Christ would lend his name
and authority for such atrocities and what followers whose belief is symbolized
by the word which bears the name “Christian” could possibly believe that
Bush’s claims are consistent with the Word and teachings of their Lord and
Savior?
thepeoplesvoice.org
"The Kingness of Mad
George" August 3, 2003 By B.
Rehak columnleft.com
LOS ANGELES, The Founding Fathers wanted this democracy to last forever
because they understood that mere empires come and go. To that end, they
established an intricate system of historic checks and balances to make sure
the sort of tyranny they'd just fought to defeat never rose up again. They
gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to guarantee our freedoms.
Americans would never have a king, but instead a popularly elected
President, and they'd always be free to openly express their opinions,
especially about the government and its policies. The people would be the
master of their own rulers. It was a unique experiment in liberty which
evolved and endured for more than two centuries, until one day in November
2000. leftwords
An Interview with Award Winning Muck
Raker Journalist Greg Palast August 3,
2003 By Rob Kall editor, OpEdNews.com
The media sources and journalists he respects and trusts, the people that
make up his idea of an “Evil Empire,” and his latest take on threats to
honest voting and elections. You’ve characterized most US News like
Pravda. What, if any US media, do you respect?
There’s only one print today that I would read, and that’s the Wall
Street Journal, and that’s because they follow the money and that’s the
number one rule for information.
For example one document I got which was vitally important news was the
state department’s secret plan to steal all the assets of Iraq, which was
long before the war...opednews.com
ALMOST EVERY DAY TERRORISTS ARE KILLING
AMERICANS August 3, 2003 by Rob Kall
OpEdNews.com The
Failed Myth of Republicans as better Defenders is Being Replaced by Right
wingers as Bumbling Keystone Cops. Just because terrorists are not attacking
our embassies, and haven't flown any planes into buildings lately does not
mean we are not being attacked, literally on a daily basis, by terrorists.
Americans are being killed by terrorists almost every day. The emperor
Bush'ss idiocracy of neoconmen and far right court jesters were wildly
successful getting us quagmired in Iraq,and now, almost every day, one or
more US soldiers are killed-- killed, most likely, not by regular Iraqi
soldiers-- but rather, by terrorists who have bled through the leaky borders
of Syria, Iran, Jordan... even Turkey. So... what we have is a
situation that George Bush created in which almost every day, another
American is killed by terrorists. And of course, we have George Bush to
blame for this. opednews.com
US anti-war activists hit by secret
airport ban August 3, 2003 By Andrew
Gumbel in Los Angeles After more than a year of complaints by some US
anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport
security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds
or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special
scrutiny at airports. The list had been kept secret until its disclosure
last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate
from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers
about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could
endanger the safety of their fellow passengers. The strong suspicion of such
groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the
government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to
target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal
ways. independent.co.uk
Senate GOP Blocks Minimum Wage Hike
August 3, 2003 By Helen Dewar Senate Democrats yesterday launched a
new drive to raise the minimum wage but ran into a roadblock from
Republicans, who sidetracked a major foreign operations bill so it could not
be used as a vehicle for votes on the wage proposal and other Democratic
initiatives. Democrats argued that a minimum wage increase, last approved by
Congress seven years ago, is long overdue and complained that Republicans
were refusing to allow the Senate even to consider the issue. washingtonpost.com
Sen. Clinton Says Supreme Court Still
Merits Mistrust
August 3, 2003 Recent Decisions on Gays,
Affirmative Action Does Not Outweigh 'Dubious Rulings,' She Says. Sen.
Hillary Clinton said Friday that Supreme Court victories this year for gay
couples, minorities and women do not erase the distrust created by other
"legally dubious" rulings, including the Bush v. Gore presidential
election case. washingtonpost.com
Global strife swells Exxon's coffers
August 3, 2003 David Teather Exxon Mobil, the largest publicly
quoted oil company, yesterday reported a 58% increase in profits to $4.2bn (£2.6bn)
during the second quarter, on the back of soaring energy prices. The sharp
growth continued a trend seen in the past two quarters at Exxon Mobil and
was recorded in the face of turbulent conditions, including a national
strike in Venezuela and disruptions in North Sea and west African
operations. Revenues were 13% higher than a year ago at $57.2bn. The war in
Iraq and subsequent difficulties in getting oil production back up to
pre-war levels, as well as civil unrest in Nigeria and the Venezuelan
situation have kept prices high. The company said earnings had improved
across all parts of the business, even though production was flat. guardian.co.uk
Afghanistan: Report documents violence and
repression by US-backed warlords August
3, 2003 By James Conachy The interviews and testimony conducted by
HRW suggest an atmosphere of unchecked violence, theft, intimidation and
sexual abuse of the population by the militias. This takes place in front of
US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, who are a main military and political
prop for the Northern Alliance’s despotism over the Afghan people. In
Kabul province, a former delegate to the loya jirga told HRW that “there
are arbitrary arrests all the time—people held by the authorities for
money.” According to HRW, the various militias enforce mafia-style
protection and extortion rackets in the areas they rule. Vehicles are
regularly stopped at checkpoints and forced to pay either money or in goods
to pass through. A shopkeeper in Kabul testified that Interior Ministry
police collected protection money from him “every Thursday at around 3:00
p.m.” Another told HRW: “If you do not pay, they close your shop and
lock it with their lock. If you break it open, they will arrest you and put
you in jail.” In two cases cited by HRW, troops believed to be on
Sayyaf’s payroll forced homeowners to tell where their money was by
stabbing them with bayonets. The report also cites witnesses alleging young
women and boys have been raped in their homes or kidnapped off the street
and sexually assaulted. The report outlines the systematic political
intimidation of the few political and media figures who have dared raise
public criticism of the “interim government.” wsws.org
GOP-Led Congress Increasingly Defies Bush
August 3, 2003 By Janet Hook A feisty Congress has left for a summer
recess with a blunt reminder to President Bush: Republican control of the
House and Senate does not give him carte blanche on Capitol Hill. The
GOP-controlled Congress has in recent weeks defied Bush on domestic policies
ranging from drug imports to media deregulation to tax credits for the
working poor. latimes.com
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GIANT
SUCKING SOUND' OF LOST JOBS GETS LOUDER
August 2, 2003 by Randolph T. Holhut "The
recession is over." So says the National
Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of U.S. business cycles.
It announced on July 17 that the recession that began March 2001 ended eight
months later in November 2001. The 2001
recession was one of the briefest since World War II, but the bureau also
found that it was followed by one of the weakest recoveries. In the months
that followed the end of the 2001 recession, the supposedly recovering
economy grew at half the rate of previous upturns. That
might explain why there now are 9.3 million Americans that are jobless and
why the U.S. unemployment rate is currently at 6.4 percent - the highest it
has been in nearly a decade. In the 19 months since the end of the 2001
recession, more than 2 million jobs disappeared. This
year, President Bush has promised that his $330 billion "jobs and
growth" tax cut plan will create 1.4 million new jobs by the end of
next year. The
U.S. economy would have to generate an average of 300,000 new jobs a month
from now until the end of 2004 to create 5.5 million new jobs - that's the
promised 1.4 million from the tax cuts and the 4.1 million that White House
economists earlier this year predicted would be gained with or without the
tax cuts. http://www.sianews.com
The Shame of Pride August
2, 2003 by: Jonathon Vreeland "Love it or leave it"!,
"Proud to be American"! or "Support Our President!",
most American peace activists have heard these slogans yelled. Often
accompanied with a shaking fist or an "I'll kick your ass!" It's
quite shameful, but many people in the U.S.A. still feel great pride in the
current state of our country. To be fair, others have a nervous look in
their eyes and have removed their multitude of flags, indicating they intuit
something is wrong. And any even vaguely intelligent American is aware of
the dark imperial agenda controlling in the U.S. government. But let's
examine the origins (etiology) of the disease called pride that causes the
most malformed citizens to chant USA! USA! empirewatch.org
US bartering arms for soldiers for Iraq
August 2, 2003 By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS - Faced with a
rising death toll among its soldiers in Iraq, the United States is trying to
"buy" foreign troops for a proposed 30,000-strong multinational
force in Baghdad. "When they were seeking UN support for a war on Iraq,
they were twisting arms," one Asian diplomat said. "Now they are
offering carrots in exchange for our troops." atimes.com
Iraq:
soldiers doling out "Dirty Harry" style vigilante justice
August 2, 2003 BAGHDAD (AFP) At the checkpoint, the Americans found
a handgun, ordered the 56-year-old man out of his car and proceeded to bash
his head with a rifle butt. Rahim Nasser Mohammed points to his right
temple, the side of his mouth and lifts his shirt, to show the spots where
the soldier cudgeled him again and again nearly a month ago. His story
-- that of a government employee pulled over in his car by the US army --
seems one in a thousand as reports mount of beatings and sometimes deaths of
Iraqi civilians at the hands of US soldiers. informationclearinghouse.info
Iraqi civilians gunned down in US
military raids August
2, 2003 By Kate Randall The US
military is continuing its campaign of preemptive raids in Iraq, rounding up
Iraqi civilians and suspected “Baath Party operatives.” In the most
recent operation, dubbed Soda Mountain, US forces picked up 600 individuals,
many of whom are being detained in deplorable conditions at the Baghdad
airport and other locations. In the aftermath of the July 22 killing of
Saddam Hussein’s sons, US military actions have grown increasingly
provocative and brutal. On July 28 alone, US forces conducted 29 raids and
arrested 241 people. wsws.org
Russian Hospital Blast Kills at Least
33 August
2, 2003 By SERGEI VENYAVSKY, ROSTOV-ON-DON,
Russia A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with explosives through
the gates of a Russian military hospital near Chechnya on Friday, destroying
the building and killing at least 33 people.Seventy-six others were wounded
in the attack, the latest in an upsurge of suicide bombings that have killed
more than 100 people since May. story.news.yahoo.com
Families
criticize Bush on 9/11 report August 1,
2003 by Tim Wheeler Families of the 3,000 people who died in the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack welcomed release July 24 of a House-Senate
intelligence report that outlined specific warnings to the FBI and CIA of an
imminent attack which they did nothing to prevent. David Potorti,
spokesperson for September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, whose brother
died in the World Trade Center, was at the Capitol Hill news conference
where the 900-page report was released. “We met with FBI Director Robert
Mueller,” he said. “We met with Sen. Bob Graham. We attended the press
conference. Everyone said ‘This is not about blame.’ It was so odd that
nobody is being blamed. How can this many people die and it’s nobody’s
fault? Unless we have some kind of accountability I fear it could happen
again.” pww.org
US scraps nuclear weapons watchdog August
1, 2003 Julian Borger A
US department of energy panel of experts which provided independent
oversight of the development of the US nuclear arsenal has been quietly
disbanded by the Bush administration, it emerged yesterday.
The decision to close
down the national nuclear security administration advisory committee -
required by law to hold public hearings and issue public reports on nuclear
weapons issues - has come just days before a closed-door meeting at a US air
force base in Nebraska to discuss the development of a new generation of
tactical "mini nukes" and "bunker buster" bombs, as well
as an eventual resumption of nuclear testing. guardian.co.uk
Israel imposes 'racist' marriage law
Palestinian-Israeli couples will be forced to leave or live apart August
1, 2003 By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem - Israel's Parliament has
passed a law preventing Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in
Israel. The move was denounced by human rights organizations as racist,
undemocratic and discriminatory. Under the new law, rushed through
yesterday, Palestinians alone will be excluded from obtaining citizenship or
residency. Anyone else who marries an Israeli will be entitled to Israeli
citizenship. independent.co.uk
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