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by Bob Herbert As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor (…)

Halliburton Could Get $1.5bn More Iraq Work
Halliburton, under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, would receive an extra $1.5 billion as part of the Bush administration’s additional war spending proposal for fiscal 2005, a senior US Army budget official said.
Halliburton, once led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is the largest corporate contractor in Iraq and has drawn fire for its no-bid contracts there, with auditors charging its Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit overcharged for some (…)

Towns to vote on antiwar resolution
By Sarah Schweitzer
Vermont’s town meetings next week will offer the nation one of the first popular referendums on the Iraq war.
In one-fifth of the state’s 251 towns, residents on Tuesday will be asked to vote on a resolution that calls upon President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq and urges the state’s elected leaders to reconsider the use of Vermont’s National Guard in the war.
The state has borne a heavy burden from the Iraq conflict. (…)

Smoking gets own ’Kyoto treaty’
By Nick Triggle
By 2020 the mortality rate will have doubled - the equivalent of 10 million a year.
To tackle the rise, which is expected to be felt hardest in developing countries, the World Health Organization’s tobacco control treaty comes into force on Sunday.
It is regarded as smoking’s answer to the Kyoto agreement - only with teeth.
Ratified by 57 countries, including the UK, the document sets out a programme to reduce the number of people (…)

An Update From the Colombia Support Network
On February 21, 2005 , the 11th Brigade of the Colombian Army, based in the state of Cordoba, massacred 7 people of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, among those one of its founders, LUIS EDUARDO GUERRA. Luis Eduardo, age 35, was killed with his 11-year old son, DEINER GUERRA ; his companion, BELLANIRA AREIZA- GUZMAN, 17 years old; a leader of the Mulatos settlement and its Peace Community, ALFONSO BOLIVAR TUBERQUIA -GRACIANO, age 30 ; (…)

It’s now clear how the Bush administration sees things: Canadian sovereignty exists only at its pleasure. If we do what Washington wants, we retain our sovereignty. If we don’t, all bets are off.
This is what U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci clarified last week in his angered response to Paul Martin’s announcement that Canada won’t join the U.S. missile defence scheme. Cellucci noted that Washington would simply deploy its anti-missile system over Canadian airspace anyway, and expressed (…)

by Ben Frank
The United States interim government, the CPA, run by Paul Bremer, and Dick Cheney’s firm Halliburton have been shamed by whistleblowers documenting blatant fraud. The whistleblowers have provided evidence of massive, systematic (ie intentional) fraud at Halliburton. The US Inspector General just reported $9 billion is missing, the CPA lost it - no trace of it whatsoever - yet Bush and his lapdog Congress want our children to pay $82 billion more for this illegal and immoral (…)

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition urges participation in actions in New York & San Francisco & Los Angeles and elsewhere in solidarity with the Haitian people on the first anniversary of the US coup and kidnapping of democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
IN NEW YORK Indoor Rally in Brooklyn to Premiere New Video of Haiti Coup
On the 1st anniversary of Haiti’s latest coup d’état and for the first time in New York, the Haiti Support Network (HSN) and the (…)

I’m not a real Democrat, I just play one on tv.
Im really fed up with the pathetic assortment of Democratic Party leaders were subjected to nowadays. Pitiful few can even remember what are party stands for. Goodness gracious, dont mention poverty or homelessness. That makes you a dreaded liberal. Dont say youre against the war in Iraq. That makes you a freedom-hater. Dont whisper that unions might be good for Wal-Mart workers, that means you hate anyone who owns a business. Dont say (…)

by Thom Hartmann
This weekend - February 27th - is the 72nd anniversary, but the corporate media most likely won’t cover it. The generation that experienced this history firsthand is now largely dead, and only a few of us dare hear their ghosts.
It started when the government, in the midst of an economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small (…)