contributions

It has become almost impossible to invoke Islam or Muslims without reference to the vague and ever changing categories of moderation and extremism.
Two years ago, the Rand Corporation, a think-tank close to decision-making circles in Washington, issued a 66-page report entitled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners & Resources, which identified three elements within the Islamic mix, "the traditionalists, the fundamentalists, the modernists and secularists".
The document recommended a (…)

Billions of dollars have disappeared, gone to bribe Iraqis and line contractors’ pockets.
by Philip Giraldi
The United States invaded Iraq with a high-minded mission: destroy dangerous weapons, bring democracy, and trigger a wave of reform across the Middle East. None of these have happened.
When the final page is written on America’s catastrophic imperial venture, one word will dominate the explanation of U.S. failure-corruption. Large-scale and pervasive corruption meant that (…)

WASHINGTON - The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago - leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent.
The Defense Department’s inspector general sent auditors into Iraq when the war started more than two years ago to ensure that taxpayers were getting their money’s worth for everything from bullets to (…)

George Bush told the Prime Minister two months before the invasion of Iraq that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea may also be dealt with over weapons of mass destruction, a top secret Downing Street memo shows.
The US President told Tony Blair, in a secret telephone conversation in January 2003 that he "wanted to go beyond Iraq".
He implied that the military action against Saddam Hussein was only a first step in the battle against WMD proliferation in a series of countries. (…)

By Sharon Behn
CARACAS, Venezuela — Flush with oil money and political power, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is firmly implanting his socialist — and anti-American — vision at home and buying influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. A former paratrooper who spent time in prison for leading a failed 1992 coup, Mr. Chavez delights in portraying himself as the Latin American counter to the United States, a modern-day Simon Bolivar — the 19th-century Venezuelan-born general who (…)

by Phyllis Bennis The constitutional process culminating in Saturday’s referendum is not a sign of Iraqi sovereignty and democracy taking hold, but rather a consolidation of U.S. influence and control. Whether Iraq’s draft constitution is approved or rejected, the decision is likely to make the current situation worse. The ratification process reflects U.S., not Iraqi urgency, and is resulting in a vote in which most Iraqis have not even seen the draft, and amendments are being reopened and (…)

By FRANK RICH
There hasn’t been anything like it since Martha Stewart fended off questions about her stock-trading scandal by manically chopping cabbage on "The Early Show" on CBS. Last week the setting was "Today" on NBC, where the image of President Bush manically hammering nails at a Habitat for Humanity construction site on the Gulf Coast was juggled with the sight of him trying to duck Matt Lauer’s questions about Karl Rove.
As with Ms. Stewart, Mr. Bush’s paroxysm of panic was (…)

By DON VAN NATTA JR, ADAM LIPTAK and CLIFFORD J. LEVY
In a notebook belonging to Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, amid notations about Iraq and nuclear weapons, appear two small words: "Valerie Flame." ADVERTISEMENT
Miller should have written Valerie Plame. That name is at the core of a federal grand jury investigation that has reached deep into the White House. At issue is whether Bush administration officials leaked the identity of Plame, an undercover CIA operative, (…)

By Derrick Z. Jackson
BY THE TIME our holy-roller-in-chief leaves office, we will really be confused about the role of religion. That is how President Bush wants it, starting with his faith-based initiatives that were merely an excuse for gutting government programs. In recent weeks, this blessed agenda has bumped up against unavoidable hypocrisy.
The most obvious is the Supreme Court. Bush named John Roberts to the court under a massive smokescreen. In July, White House spokesman Scott (…)

By Caroline Daniel and Patti Waldmeir
US social conservatives have one big objection to Harriet Miers, President George W. Bush’s beleaguerednominee to the Supreme Court:they cannot trust her to shift America’s highest court to the right on the issue of abortion.
But when it comes to defending the power of the president to wage the war on terror - even if that means making unpopular choices about the civil liberties of Americans and foreigners alike - conservatives think Ms Miers will be (…)