contributions

Washington — Reports that the Bush administration plans to adopt a new policy that would more explicitly spell out the military’s commitment to placing offensive and defensive weapons in space are sparking an increasing debate.
Proponents say such weapons are needed to protect the U.S. homeland and satellites in space that provide such crucial military and civilian services as targeting for weapons, global positioning data and satellite TV and radio. They also point out that space has been (…)

May 19, 2005 - For over a century, our government has made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that we have done to other people in Third World countries, especially in Latin America.
With the creation of the School of the Americas, a breeding ground for assassins, and the death squads, we became the greatest human rights violators in the world.
We have become the most hated country in the world, not because we practice democracy or value our freedom. We are hated (…)

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, America naively asked in its stunned stupor, "Why do they hate us?" In consoling us, our fearless leaders appealed to our collective sense of superiority and self-righteousness by explaining that the Muslim world (a.k.a. "they") hate us because of what we stand for: freedom, democracy, Mom, baseball, and apple pie. Comforted, we patted ourselves on our collective back for being so gosh-darn wonderful and condemned the savage heathens who wanted nothing (…)

Dear President Bush
I hope this letter finds you well.
Actually, I hope this letter finds you, period. I understand that you do not read newspapers, and that you are refusing to listen to bad news. If you were still a spoiled rich kid down in Texas, I guess it would be okay for you to wall yourself off from the rest of the world, protected and insulated by the family fortune, but you are not in Texas any more, you are in MY White House, you are there to do a job, and a major (…)

ARMY RECRUITING VALUES
By Peter Fredsib
May 21, 2005
Today I listened to C-Span featuring a Major General in charge of recruiting for the U.S. Army. He was very cogent and knowledgeable. He explained the training that recruiting N.C.O.s must go through and what level of competence is expected of them. He talked about the many difficulties recruitment has faced, such as discrimination because of gender, sex, education, economics and other factors such as homosexuality. He was (…)

http://www.rickackerman.com//March05Richebacher.pdf
A comprehensive study of USA Govt manipulation on GDP, Productivity, Inflation and profits. Some comparison with Euro-Zone economy

U.S. Patriots Need a Reality Check ’We the people’ must stand up for the truth about our country’s actions by Byron Williams There are moments when a democratic society must compare the utopian ideals it committed to on paper versus the reality of its praxis. In the 229 years since declaring itself a sovereign nation, America has had several such reality checks.
Women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement are examples of America being challenged to authentically live up to the ideals (…)

Mr. Galloway Goes To Washington John Nichols May 17, 2005 Norm Coleman is a fool.
Not an ideological nut case, not a partisan whack, not even a useful idiot — just a plain old-fashioned, drool-on-his-tie fool.
The Minnesota Republican senator who took Paul Wellstone’s seat after one of the most disreputable campaigns in American political history has been trying over the past year to make a name for himself by blowing the controversy surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program (…)

Saudi Arabia, Off The Hook The 9/11 Terrorists Were Mostly Saudi. Suicide Bombers In Iraq Are Saudi. And We’re Allies? Mark Morford May 20, 2005 I am no foreign-policy expert. I am no virtuoso of nuanced and wicked international relations. I know not of intricate deal making and smarm sucking and backstabbing and glad handing and the Bushes raking in millions from clandestine oil deals with the Saudi kingdom. Ahem.
But this much I do know. This much is sickeningly, painfully obvious. (…)

A NEW chapter of horror has opened in the brutal treatment of prisoners by American guards and interrogators, this time in Afghanistan.
A leaked 2,000-page report into the deaths of two detainees details systematic and routine mistreatment at the Bagram military base, 40 miles (64km) north of Kabul.
Each man had spent most of his five days’ captivity shackled to the ceiling or wall of his cell, a technique that has since been labelled by the US military as a criminal assault. They were (…)