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Wars and conflicts

  • The Politics of the Antiwar Movement: THE QUESTION OF INTERNATIONAL A.N.S.W.E.R.
    8 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By Bill Weinberg
    THE SEPT. 24 ANTIWAR protest in Washington, D.C., was hailed as a revival of a movement which had become somewhat moribund even as the quagmire in Iraq deepens with horrifying rapidity. The march brought out 300,000 protesters, by organizers’ estimates, making it the largest since the start of the U.S. invasion in March 2003. After a summer in which Cindy Sheehan’s campaign to demand personal accountability from the vacationing George Bush had riveted the nation, the march (…)

  • Helen Thomas: Journalists are Now ’Soul Searching’ After ’Playing Dead’ Since 9/11
    8 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    Helen Thomas, arguably the nation’s best known print journalist and dean of the White House press corps, told a Falls Church audience last week that “there is a lot of soul searching going on now” among news professionals about uncritical coverage since 9/11 of the Bush administration and its policies.
    “The press has rolled over and played dead,” Thomas said of its behavior in recent years. “Our main weapon is skepticism. It is our indispensable role to protect the people’s right to know,” (…)

  • War Crimes, USA. Could administration officials be called to account?
    7 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    by Mark Engler
    In normal times, suggesting that the leaders of our country might have committed war crimes would violate a firm taboo in American political discussion. Yet in the post-Abu-Ghraib era-and especially as President Bush has quarreled with Congress over the McCain amendment prohibiting abuse of all detainees in U.S. custody-observers can no longer profess shock at the idea that criminal breaches of humanitarian law have occurred. According to a recent editorial in the Washington (…)

  • No peace with Sharon
    7 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    The Gaza withdrawal has been a veil for continued persecution and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
    by Gerald Kaufman
    I know the attractive Israeli seaside resort of Netanya well, having stayed several times at my niece’s flat there. Not long ago I heard on BBC radio a series of interviews with residents of Netanya, which has in the past suffered a number of terrorist attacks. They rejoiced at how much easier the situation had become following the building of the Israeli separation wall, (…)

  • Rice signs US-Romania bases deal
    7 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has signed a deal allowing the US to use military bases in Romania.
    It is the first such deal to be signed with a former communist country in eastern Europe.
    Ms Rice arrived in Romania from Germany, on the second leg of a European tour overshadowed by a controversy about CIA operations.
    She stressed that the US does not carry out or condone torture, but did not comment on alleged secret CIA prisons.
    She has defended the CIA practice of (…)

  • Foreign Fighter Lie Exposed: 1300 insurgents arrested- all Iraqis, no foreigners
    7 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    Iraqis, rather than foreign fighters, now form the vast majority of the insurgents who are waging a ferocious guerrilla war against United States forces in Sunni western Iraq, American commanders have revealed.
    Their conclusion, disclosed to the Sunday Telegraph in interviews over 10 days in battle-torn Anbar province, contradicts the White House message that outsiders are the principal enemy in Iraq.
    Of 1,300 suspected insurgents arrested over the past five months in and around Ramadi, (…)

  • 20,000 Troops Hospitalized after given Anthrax Vaccine
    7 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who’d taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises that such cases would be publicly disclosed.
    Instead, a parade of generals and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving the shot from 1998 through 2000.
    They also showed Congress written policies that required public reports to be filed for (…)

  • Rep. Smith back from Iraq "most troops now say they want to come home"
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    Rep. Smith says vote in favor of war a mistake
    By MATTHEW DALY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
    WASHINGTON — Just back from Iraq, Rep. Adam Smith says he is encouraged by the progress U.S. troops are making there. But Smith, one of two House Democrats from Washington state to vote in favor of the war, said Friday if he had to do it over, he would change his vote.
    "I wanted to give our commander in chief a certain amount of trust," Smith said of his October 2002 vote authorizing President Bush (…)

  • An International Peace Movement Building
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By David Swanson
    On Saturday, December 10, in London, England, leaders of the peace movement against the Iraq war from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Iraq will meet to strategize. There is hope that the tide has already turned against the occupation, and that a coordinated international effort will be able to mobilize sufficient public pressure to bring the war to a complete end.
    If you can make it to London, sign up here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk
    If you can’t make it, I (…)

  • To heal or to patch? Military mental health workers in Iraq
    6 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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    by Stephen Soldz
    The Wall Street Journal has a new article on the role of mental health professionals in treating war trauma in Iraq Therapists take on soldiers’ trauma in Iraq. The military has caught on to how these workers can aid the war effort and has increased their per capita numbers. Rather than seeking the best treatment to help traumatized soldiers recover from their stressful and horrific experiences, these professionals attempt to patch soldiers in order to return them to (…)