contributions

By Barton Gellman
The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said.
Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer (…)

Everyone needs to realize that "history does repeat itself", or does it have to? Therefore, by studying history, we can hopefully avoid the many disasters that have already happened. Or can we? IT’S TIME TO START TAKING THE THEOCRATS SERIOUSLY by Randolph T. Holhut
DUMMERSTON, Vt. - The nexus of evangelical Christianity and Republican politics is a force that is transforming the United States, and not for the better. As someone who firmly believes that church and state should be (…)

By Solomon Moore and T. Christian Miller
Ziad Cattan was a Polish Iraqi used-car dealer with no weapons-dealing experience until U.S. authorities turned him into one of the most powerful men in Iraq last year - the chief of procurement for the Defense Ministry, responsible for equipping the fledgling Iraqi army.
As U.S. advisors looked on, Cattan embarked on a massive spending spree, paying hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts, according to (…)

By Phil Davison
George Bush presumably knew before this weekend that the "hand of God" could be merciless. He certainly does now. Maradona, rather than Iraq, was uppermost on the US President’s mind this weekend as he attended a summit of leaders from the Western hemisphere in the Argentinian beach resort of Mar del Plata.
As domestic polls informed him that he was increasingly mistrusted by his fellow Americans, Mr Bush was clearly mortified to be called "human trash" by Latin America’s (…)

by RHIANNON EDWARD
AS HURRICANE Katrina battered New Orleans, the man in charge of the US government’s response was sending e-mails to colleagues about his fashion sense and how he looked on television.
On 29 August, the day Katrina struck the United States, Michael Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), wrote to a fellow official: "I am a fashion god."
The correspondence emerged as a congressional panel released 23 pages of internal e-mails offering (…)

Thanks to a powerful indigenous movement from Colombia to Bolivia, US free-trade policies are in tatters
by Naomi Klein
When Manuel Rozental got home one night last month, friends told him two strange men had been asking questions about him. In this close-knit indigenous community in south-west Colombia, ringed by soldiers, rightwing paramilitaries and leftwing guerrillas, strangers asking questions is never a good thing.
The Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, which (…)

On November 2, the Washington Post carried an explosive front-page story about secret Eastern European prisons set up by the CIA for the interrogation of terrorism suspects. While the Post article, by reporter Dana Priest, gave readers plenty of details, it also withheld the most crucial information—the location of these secret prisons—at the request of government officials.
According to the Post, virtually nothing is known about these so-called "black sites," which would be illegal in the (…)

By Phillip Reese
The Sacramento City Council called Tuesday night for the "rapid and comprehensive withdrawal of United States military personnel and bases from Iraq," citing the financial and human costs of the war on local resources.
The resolution, sponsored by council members Lauren Hammond and Ray Tretheway, puts Sacramento on a short but growing list of cities nationwide pressing for a quick withdrawal. Chicago’s council recently approved a similar measure. San Francisco made the (…)

by Patrick Apel-Muller
Situation assessment, sad! French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed that efficiency shall guide his policy... But the impacts of his provoking statements, of his visits in the neighbourhoods where he nags the populations, of his shying away from prevention policy can be measured against burned cars, stones and fire bombs thrown at civil servants, and increasing unrest in some French cities.
Situation assessment, sad! French Interior Minister, Nicolas (…)

WASHINGTON - The United States has raised the prospect of a military invasion of Saudi Arabia.
The House Armed Services Committee considered the possibility of a Saudi coup and U.S. response during a hearing on Oct. 26.
Saudi Arabia, with 200,000 military and National Guard troops, is the largest oil producer and exporter, with an output of nine million barrels of oil per day, according to Middle East Newsline. The Arab kingdom is the third largest supplier of oil to the United States, (…)