contributions

By Scott Ritter
The indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald provides the most cogent and visible evidence to date of the criminal mindset that exists inside the Bush administration regarding the decision to invade Iraq.
The indictment is linked to Libby’s involvement in illegally revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame, in violation of U.S. law, and the resultant conspiracy to deny and cover up the fact that this crime (…)

As someone who has to look at the eviscerated corpses, I can only shake my head in disbelief
By Robert Fisk
I wonder sometimes if we have not entered a new age of what the French call infantilisme. I admit I am writing these words on the lecture circuit in Paris where pretty much every political statement - including those of Messrs Chirac, Sarkozy, de Villepin et al - might fall under this same title. But the folk I am referring to, of course, are George W Bush, Lord Blair of Kut (…)

by Butler Shaffer
To: Lt. Col. Steve Boylan Director, Multinational Force Press Center Re: 2,000 Dead Soldiers
The media inform me that you have sent an e-mail to news reporters asking them not to treat the 2,000th American serviceman killed in Iraq as “a milestone.” You reportedly asked journalists “to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq.” You added that the 2,000 figure was “an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific (…)

By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON - In a sign of the trouble lingering for the Bush administration, the indictment handed up Friday in the CIA leak probe refers to someone at the White House known as "Official A."
The unidentified official could become a courtroom witness against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who left his job as vice presidential aide shortly after his indictment on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.
Several other unnamed officials mentioned in (…)

by Gordon Prather
The March 2005 report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction contained a scathing chapter on the "intelligence" President Bush used to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom:
As war loomed, the U.S. intelligence community was charged with telling policy-makers what it knew about Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. The community’s best assessments were set out in an October 2002 (…)

Belgian workers have caused widespread disruption with a 24-hour national strike in protest at government plans to up the retirement age from 58 to 60.
Few buses and trams were running in most cities, and Charleroi airport, south of Brussels, was shut down.
Trains were not affected as unions wanted them to keep running to carry people to protests in the capital.
Tens of thousands of protesters have been marching through Brussels to get the prime minister to reconsider.
A primary (…)

By Glen Ford and Peter Gamble
New Orleans represents a challenge to African Americans, unprecedented since the epic struggles of the Fifties and Sixties. The perverse reality, to which African Americans must rise, is that the man-made disaster in the Gulf provides what may be the last chance to build a real Movement, encompassing the broadest sectors of Black America. Cruel history presents the catastrophe as an unwanted opportunity, a test of Black people’s capacity for the operational (…)

by Wayne Besen
A New York socialite who claims a priest turned him into a sodomite is suing the Catholic Church for $5 million. J. David Enright IV, 51, says Rev. Joseph Romano molested him as a 7-year-old boy at summer camp, and as a result he was unable to live as a suburban heterosexual.
"Romano bent my life," Enright told the New York Post. "I believe my life would be very different now. I’d probably be married, living in Greenwich, with four children in boarding school. I had a (…)

The major question in the matter of Valerie Plame is not whether the vice president’s chief of staff lied to a grand jury.
It’s whether the Bush administration lied to the American people in justifying the invasion of Iraq and then tried to intimidate its critics.
Friday, a grand jury indicted I. Lewis Scooter’’ Libby Jr. on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. The indictments followed a two-year investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
All (…)

by Monica Benderman
It’s been two and a half years. There are almost 2000 soldiers deaths officially accounted for. How many family members does that come to? Is there a number?
The war has cost billions. Where did it all go? Is there an accurate number?
There are thousands of Iraqi causalties. Does anyone know their names? Has anyone counted?
In the wars before, history tells of the great loss of life the monetary cost. Are there numbers we can trust?
Hundreds of thousands (…)