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AWOL and desertion are chronic problems; all any Army can hope for is to keep them at manageable levels, not to lose soldiers needlessly. The Army admits that youth, lack of a high-school diploma, coming from "broken homes," and having early scrapes with the law make a soldier only "relatively more likely" to go AWOL or to desert. In fact, the Army is careful to note, "the vast majority of soldiers who fit this profile are not going to desert."
Yet the Army used that very same profile to (…)

A transcription of the first twenty-five minutes of the Congressman’s speech given on Saturday March 12, 2005, 2:30 p.m. at St. Luke’s AME Church, located on 1872 Amsterdam Ave., NYC.
Mr. Rangel is a gifted orator. The audience was receptive and engaged. During the question and answer phase, there were no questions regarding the West Side Stadium for which the Congressman is now on record as supporting.
Vin -
(audience applause)
Thank you pastor. I don’t normally get this close to (…)

Shipping was extra - a lot extra
WASHINGTON - Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there - quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel.
In the latest revelation about the company’s oft-criticized performance in Iraq, a Pentagon audit report disclosed Monday showed Halliburton subsidiary KBR spent $82,100 to buy liquefied petroleum gas, better-known as LPG, in Kuwait and then 335 times that (…)

US Response Has Worsened Terror Risk: CSIS Official Canadian Press March 14, 2005 Toronto - The U.S.-led war on terrorism has made al-Qaeda an even more dangerous organization, a senior Canadian intelligence official said Monday. The blunt assessment of the group’s increased “lethal effectiveness” came during a bail hearing for an Egyptian national detained as a threat to Canada’s national security.
U.S. action in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks “significantly (…)

RePort @
Deceit UNveiled: -’Peak’ is PreText ’ PiLL’ Forcing the ’UNavoidable’ ? die-off Plan/Scam
One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century.
So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd ’Fossil Fuel’ theory, of course — the same theory that the ’Peak Oil’ doomsday warnings are based (…)

WASHINGTON - U.S. Representatives Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Jim McDermott (D-WA), John Conyers (D-MI), and Danny Davis (D-IL) today announced that they will vote against President Bush’s request for $81 Billion to continue war in Iraq. The war in Iraq has not made America safer, the supplemental request lacks accountability and the President has failed to plan for the return of U.S. troops. The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on President Bush’s (…)

By Richard Owen and Michael Evans
BOWING to popular pressure, the Italian Government said last night that it would start pulling its more than 3,000 troops out of Iraq in September.
The surprise announcement by Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, came less than two weeks after US troops shot dead Nicola Calipari, Italy’s top intelligence officer in Iraq, as he escorted a freed Italian hostage to safety.
Italy has 3,200 troops and Carabinieri paramilitary police in al-Nasiriyah, a (…)

Democracy Fails: Corporations Win
Democracy in the United States is only a shadow in a corporate media cave of deceit, lies and incomplete information. We stand ignorant of what the powerful are doing in our name and how the corporate media ignores key issues affecting us all.
A young professional couple from San Diego stated the weekend before the election, "we don’t think voting will make any difference so why bother?" Over 80 million eligible voters joined them by refusing to (…)

Fewer Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job than at any time since shortly after Republicans impeached President Clinton, a Gallup Poll finds.
Only 37% of Americans gave Congress a high approval rating, down from 45% last month, the poll taken last week showed. A total of 53% disapproved, up from 48% in February.
It was the worst showing for Congress since September 1999, the year after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Clinton.
Even then, (…)

Friend Abroad, Enemy At Home George Bush Is Freedom’s Biggest Supporter Abroad, But He Is Actively Eroding Our Freedoms Here At Home Michael Coblenz March 11, 2005 On his recent European trip, President George Bush took every opportunity to praise liberty, democracy and “freedom.” He frequently mentioned that the United States and most European nations share common traditions of democracy and freedom. Bush even lectured Russian President Vladimir Putin on freedom and democracy. (And no (…)