contributions

by Derrick O’Keefe
This week features two major celebrations in the United States, and the contrasts between the figures being feted couldn’t be starker. Thursday’s second inauguration for George W. Bush comes only three days after Martin Luther King Day was celebrated on Monday, January 17. The two celebrations couldn’t be more opposed, revealing the chasm between the ‘two Americas.’ Gay and lesbian rights, and peace and justice issues were raised in a series of marches celebrating the (…)

By Wayne Besen
In their gratuitous zeal to undermine same-sex families, Virginia lawmakers are showing about as much wisdom as Prince Harry in a costume shop. In the opening week of Virginia’s general assembly, four separate constitutional bans on the freedom to marry were introduced. This continuous drive to marginalize and stigmatize gay families may gravely damage the reputation of Virginia and cause a gradual brain drain that will hurt business interests.
Virginia is not alone in its (…)

By Justin Raimondo
The show trial of U.S. Army reservist Charles Graner had something for everyone: tragedy, comedy, pathos, and propaganda. The tragic aspect was dominant, with the photos of the disgusting abuse illustrating the theme of senseless arbitrary violence, but there was also comedy, of a sort, with Guy Womack, Graner’s lawyer, making an argument that was unusual, to say the least:
"Graner’s attorney said piling naked prisoners into pyramids and leading them by a leash were (…)

The conviction of Specialist Charles Graner for atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is a first step toward accountability for the detainee abuse scandal, but it must not be the end of the process.
Each passing day brings new evidence that the mistreatment of Muslim prisoners - far from being an isolated incident at Abu Ghraib - was widespread in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Detainees in Afghanistan were frequently beaten, held naked and deprived of sleep for (…)

A former Jordanian government minister has told The New Yorker that an American official confirmed to him that the Iraqi interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station last year.
The claim is in an extensive profile of Dr Allawi written for this week’s issue of the magazine by an American journalist, Jon Lee Anderson, the author of The Fall of Baghdad and a regular Baghdad correspondent for The New Yorker.
Writing about his research in (…)

US And Congress Knew Saddam Was Smuggling Oil Mark Turner in New York January 19 2005 The Clinton and Bush administrations not only knew but told the US Congress that Iraq was smuggling oil to Turkey and Jordan, and in both cases recommended continuing military and financial aid to countries seen as important allies. Recent revelations that Saddam Hussein was able to raise billions of dollars in illicit revenue in defiance of international sanctions have prompted savage criticism of (…)

By Manuel Valenzuela
Without justice, there can be no peace. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.... Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter... Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love... Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.... The ultimate weakness of (…)

Global poll slams Bush leadership
Negative feelings for Mr Bush extended to Americans as a whole More than half of people surveyed in a BBC World Service poll say the re-election of US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Only three countries - India, Poland and the Philippines - out of 21 polled believed the world was now safer.
The survey found that 47% now viewed US influence in the world as largely negative and such unfavourable feelings extended towards (…)

WASHINGTON — Despite President George W. Bush’s belief that by reelecting him Americans expressed support for the war on Iraq, two opinion polls published Tuesday showed the opposite: the majority think the war was a mistake and disapprove of the way he is handling things in Iraq.
Shortly before Bush’s inauguration for his second term in office, and after he said in an interview that the 2004 election result proved that electorate approved of his handling of the war, a Washington Post/ABC (…)

By Daniel Strumpf
Interviewing Greg Palast is a bit like rummaging through your mother’s nightstand-you’re bound to learn some things you’ll wish you hadn’t. As an investigative journalist seen on the BBC’s Newsnight and England’s most influential newspaper, The Guardian, Palast is most famous for exposing racist scheming behind the 2000 Florida election scandal nearly a year before the mainstream American media got around to it.
If you’ve never heard of Palast, an American himself, it’s (…)