contributions

By Robert Freeman Is Cindy Sheehan the Rosa Parks or the Jane Fonda of the War in Iraq? Is she the lonely sentinel, standing righteously against injustice? Or a self-centered publicity seeker, endangering American soldiers in the War?
The question is something of a political Rorschach test, telling us more about ourselves and our appraisal of America’s wars than about Sheehan. But asking it and understanding the issues behind the question might help us find a solution to the illegitimate (…)

By Dick Polman
Bedeviled by the mounting casualties in Iraq and increasingly confused by the mixed messages emanating from war leaders, Americans in large numbers are losing confidence in the mission.
New polls report that, for the first time, a majority of Americans reject President Bush’s contention that the war over there is making us safer over here. Indeed, barring major immediate progress in Iraq, 2005 may well be remembered as the year when public opinion went south and never came (…)

By Stephanie Ho
Iran is warning the United States that any military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would backfire. At the same time, Tehran says it will not suspend conversion of uranium ore, days after the International Atomic Energy Agency appealed for the country to halt all nuclear activities.
In a news conference in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said any U.S. military action to stop Tehran’s nuclear program would be a mistake.
Mr. Asefi said, if (…)

By Peter Phillips
In the fall of 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won Florida and should have been President. However, coverage of this report was only a small blip in the corporate media as a much bigger story dominated the news after September 11, 2001.
New research compiled by Dr. Dennis Loo with the University of Cal Poly Pomona now shows (…)

By Dennis Loo, Ph.D. Cal Poly Pomona
ddloo@csupomona.edu
"Alice laughed: "There’s no use trying," she said; "one can’t believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven’t had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." (Through the Looking Glass)
In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of (…)

Bring ’Em On! The Bush Administration’s Top 40 Lies About War and Terrorism (links-annotated version) by Steve Perry 1) The administration was not bent on war with Iraq from 9/11 onward. Throughout the year leading up to war, the White House publicly maintained that the U.S. took weapons inspections seriously, that diplomacy would get its chance, that Saddam had the opportunity to prevent a US invasion. The most pungent and concise evidence to the contrary (…)

The ninth day ended in the most awesome way. We were out at Camp Casey and it was sprinkling a little bit and it really looked like the rain was going to start pouring down anytime. We looked over into the next cow pasture and there was a full rainbow. If that wasn’t a sign from the universe than I don’t know what is.
I was being interviewed by Alex Jones and he asked me what I thought the rainbow signified. I told Alex that I was positive that it means we are going to be victorious. (…)

By Greg Moses
CAMP CASEY, TX (Part Three) Penny strides into the front lawn of the Crawford Peace House talking about that time up in Racine five weeks before the alleged re-election when she stood along the street with firemen and everybody, and flipped the President the bird. “Thank you,” is what Penny recalls the President saying to her. “God, what a weak man!”
Like Cindy Sheehan, Penny is motivated by the death of her son, but Penny’s son was not killed in an overseas war. He lost (…)

Cindy, Don, and George On Being in a Ditch at the Side of the Road
By Tom Engelhardt
Retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey to Time Magazine: "The Army’s wheels are going to come off in the next 24 months. We are now in a period of considerable strategic peril. It’s because Rumsfeld has dug in his heels and said, I cannot retreat from my position."
Cindy Sheehan testifying at Rep. John Conyers public hearings on the Downing Street Memo: "My son, Spc Casey Austin Sheehan, was (…)

U.S. corporations march into Baghdad, at the expense of self-determination.
By Antonia Juhasz, ANTONIA JUHASZ is a scholar with the think tank Foreign Policy In Focus. Her book "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time" will be published by Regan Books in 2006.
ON MONDAY, Iraq’s National Assembly will release a draft constitution to be voted on by the people in two months. Since February, vital issues have been debated and discussed by the drafting committee: the role (…)