contributions

By Thomas Harding in Baghdad
Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.
Iraq is losing the educated elite of doctors, lawyers, academics and businessmen who are vital to securing a stable future. There is also fear that their departure will leave a vacuum to be filled by religious extremists.
Outside the shelter of the Green Zone, home to the American and Iraqi political leadership, (…)

By William Fisher
In our country, we seem to revere only a few presidential speeches ? Waashington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural, John F. Kennedy’s “Ask Not”, and a few others.
But I have to confess that, while I have written thousands of words about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it has been many years since I actually listened to the words President Lyndon B. Johnson used to introduce this legislation.
I did that (…)

This song is dedicated to Cindy Sheehan. You GO girl!!!
My Country Went to War Sung to "My Country Tis of Thee"
by Justis Suffram
“My Country Went To War” (sung to “My Country ‘Tis of the Thee”) My country went to war Just to please Cheney’s whore Hal-i-bur-ton. Out near the Euphrates Destroy antiquities And murder everyone you please Oh, don’t forget the oil.
My country lied to me But it won’t cop a plea We’ll stay the course. Bomb them until they’re free We’ll win their liberty (…)

What Are They Afraid Of? The 9-11 Op-Ed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Refuses to Run By Rep. CYNTHIA McKINNEY
Note: It’s a shame that the Atlanta Journal and Constitution seems incapable of running factual coverage of important events for the people in the Atlanta area. Their coverage of our historic Capitol Hill 9-11 briefing, laden with commentary and innuendo, bore no resemblance to the content of the actual event. They refuse to retract that story—as I have requested them to do—or (…)

Uncle Jeff was just one of about 55,000 Americans whose lives were wasted killing about 2,000,000 Vietnamese people in the 1960s and ‘70s. Someone once told me in all seriousness that my uncle had died defending America, but I just laughed, and that wasn’t even a political response. I chuckled because anyone thinking my uncle died defending America had to be crazy or joking. I remember my Uncle Jeff’s dog and his car, but I don’t remember my Uncle Jeff. He had raised the dog from a pup, a (…)

Hi, I’m a mainstream pundit. You may remember me from such commentaries as "The GOP and Its Acronym" and "Why Must the Poor Have Such Bad Taste in Clothes?" As a pundit, one of my duties is to impart to you my sense of stylish pique concerning the war in Iraq. The war, when you think about it, is really quite tragic.
That’s where I come in. I persuade you not to think about it. I put the grief and uncertainty you may be feeling about the bombings and the deaths into a slick, cutting-edge (…)

This is my apology for Christians in the US to Muslims, the Arab World, and particularly Palestinians. Too many of my co-religionists have made a travesty of the Golden Rule which unequivocally compels us, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
For example Ed McAteer, founder of the Moral Majority, and a Christian Zionist who doesn’t believe Israel should relinquish any of the illegally occupied territories, was asked by Bob Simon of CBS News: "What about the three million (…)

"I just want to get it done, come home, and continue my life."
Those were just about the last words that Gennaro Pellegrini, Jr. — a 31-year-old Philly cop and up-and-coming boxer — said to us when we spoke last last November. In less than 48 hours, Pellegrini was about to step onto an airplane bound for Iraq, along with the rest of his Pennsylvania National Guard unit from Northeast Philadelphia.
For anyone who’s worried about the return of a military draft, Pellegrini was living proof (…)

by Michael P. Wright Norman, Oklahoma, USA mpwright9@aol.com
In the fall of 2001, a librarian at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, in an informal conversation, told me that she was present when FBI agents showed up to interview about the fact that an airline ticket for a 9/11 hijacker was purchased from a computer terminal in the campus library. It was for United flight 93, the one which crashed in Pennsylvania.
This is very important. She said he was not a hijacker. He was a white (…)

Direct from the drainage ditch, the intrepid protester says "Our spirits are great," but Bush "doesn’t have enough courage to face someone who actually disagrees with him ..."
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
Cindy Sheehan and others are at Bush’s Crawford, Texas, vacation location, bringing a message to Bush that it’s time to bring the troops home. She is a cofounder of Gold Star Families for Peace and the mother of Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, killed in Baghdad April 4, 2004.
Intrepid, courageous, (…)