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  • US Soldier Deaths have more than Doubled over 2004
    2 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    6 comments

    by Ben Frank
    In the first two months of 2005 US casualties in Iraq have more than doubled over the first two months of 2004.
    If this pattern continues, more than 100 US troops will die next month, and more than 200 will die in April.
    The Question of the Day is:
    Why does the United States continue to send young Americans and billions of dollars to Iraq? Are US soldiers really ’spreading freedom’ ... or is this about oil and strategic positioning via the 14 ’enduring bases’ the US is (…)

  • What A Rich Nation Should Really Be Doing About Social Security
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    by Gar Alperovitz Listening to the debate between the Administration and even its most adventurous critics one would imagine that only an extremely limited range of Social Security options are even conceivable. One would also imagine that we live in an extremely poor society which is ultimately going to have to find ways to squeeze its seniors financially or somehow we will all perish. The truth is radically different.
    This is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. A serious (…)

  • Bush Administration using Social Security Administration to scare up support for privatization
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    15 comments

    New Report Details the Politicization of the Social Security Administration Under President Bush
    WASHINGTON - Today Reps. Henry A. Waxman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, and Rep. Sander M. Levin, along with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, and Reps. Obey, Miller, and DeLauro, released a new report that shows how the Social Security Administration has modified its communications strategy to undermine public confidence in Social Security.
    The report, based on a review (…)

  • Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed for Sec of Veterans Affairs departure
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    7 comments

    Project Censored Award Winner
    Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.
    Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special (…)

  • White House Must Charge Or Free Suspect
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Mark Sherman WASHINGTON - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Monday to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 2 1/2 years in custody.
    U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., said the government can not hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002.
    "The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor (…)

  • Top Former CIA Agent Condemns New Terror War
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Davud Pratt, Foreign Editor A running joke in Washington late last year held that Langley, the CIA’s home in Virginia, was changing its name to Fallujah after the restive Iraqi town then held by insurgents. Like Fallujah, Langley - according to some White House wags - was full of rebels that needed to be cleared out. This would inevitably lead to lots of casualties along the way. But putting the jokes and bravado aside, many at the CIA’s longtime base already knew that the winds of (…)

  • In Vermont, A Town-Meeting Revolt Over Iraq War
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Sara B. Miller HUNTINGTON, VT. - This is a town with no diners, one church, two general stores, and 1,800 people. When the kindergarten teacher’s son returned from Iraq after 10 months, the potluck church dinner in his honor was so packed no one had room to sit. Only a handful of the more than 200,000 men and women who have been deployed to Iraq come from this sleepy whistle-stop. But everyone seems to know someone who has served, even died, there: a friend’s husband, a neighbor, the (…)

  • It’s Called Torture
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Bob Herbert As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
    When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor (…)

  • Halliburton Wins in Iraq
    28 February 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    Halliburton Could Get $1.5bn More Iraq Work
    Halliburton, under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, would receive an extra $1.5 billion as part of the Bush administration’s additional war spending proposal for fiscal 2005, a senior US Army budget official said.
    Halliburton, once led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is the largest corporate contractor in Iraq and has drawn fire for its no-bid contracts there, with auditors charging its Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit overcharged for some (…)

  • For many Vermonters, Iraq is on the ballot
    28 February 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    Towns to vote on antiwar resolution
    By Sarah Schweitzer
    Vermont’s town meetings next week will offer the nation one of the first popular referendums on the Iraq war.
    In one-fifth of the state’s 251 towns, residents on Tuesday will be asked to vote on a resolution that calls upon President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq and urges the state’s elected leaders to reconsider the use of Vermont’s National Guard in the war.
    The state has borne a heavy burden from the Iraq conflict. (…)