contributions

by Gerard Henderson
Arundathi Roy attacks the West and supports Iraqi terrorists, yet she will be honoured in Sydney, writes Gerard Henderson.
Is it possible to be anti-war while advocating the cause of one side in a military conflict? Can a person be committed to non-violence while supporting an armed resistance movement? According to Professor Stuart Rees, director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, the answer to both questions seems to be in the affirmative.
That’s why the foundation (…)

Oliver Burkeman in Atlanta
George Bush has exploited the suffering of September 11 and turned back decades of efforts to make the world a safer place, the former president Jimmy Carter says in an interview with the Guardian published today.
Attacking Mr Bush and Tony Blair over Iraq, Mr Carter calls the war "a completely unjust adventure based on misleading statements".
He also criticises Mr Bush for "lack of effort" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and accuses him of abandoning (…)

By Ian Williams
George W. Bush so often invokes his nominal title of “commander in chief” at veterans’ rallies, on military bases and during presidential debates that he now appears like some latter-day caudillo. But his claims to be a commander of any kind in any serious way are a figment of his imagination.
Discounting that he sent American troops into Iraq on false pretenses, a real commander would fight for the welfare of his troops. But Bush has demonstrated a consistent (…)

An Essay from the Book We Are Everywhere
by he Notes From Nowhere Collective
“It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefields that tyranny is overthrown, but also by hurling ideas of redemption, words of freedom and terrible anathemas against the hangmen that people bring down dictators and empires.”
Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary, 1914
The new century is three days old when the Mexican army encampment of Amadór Hernandez, nestled deep in the Lacandón jungle of Chiapas (…)

By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms students were requested to sign.
The canvassers have visited campuses asking students to sign petitions advocating lower auto insurance rates, medical marijuana or stricter rape laws, according to elections officials.
After signing (…)

Iran on Sunday rejected European demands that it halt all uranium enrichment activities and described a proposal aimed at ending Tehran’s nuclear standoff with the international community as "unbalanced."
"The European proposal is their preliminary proposition and is not definitive but it is unbalanced," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.
Iran is also refusing to suspend indefinitely work on enriching uranium, part of the nuclear fuel cycle, as called for in the deal (…)

Exclusive: By James Cusick Westminster Editor and David Pratt Foreign Editor
Coalition claims that Iraq may still be able to hold elections in January are seriously undermined by secret intelligence material passed to the Sunday Herald which reveals the full extent of the resistance in the country.
Far from a limited number of pro-Saddam resistance groups fighting coalition forces, well-funded cells and militias representing a spectrum of Islamic groups are now spread across Iraq.
They (…)

by WILLIAM A. COOK
A pall hangs over this election, a shroud of darkness that oppresses the heart because its outcome guarantees no change, only the certainty of continued chaos if Bush should win and the unknown direction a Kerry victory might take, a direction that could continue the chaos America’s mired in, a darkness, then, to appall. I read each day the crippling accounts of soldiers caught in a maelstrom of unseen death lurking on roof tops, in narrow alleys, behind cement walls and (…)

By TIM GOLDEN
WASHINGTON - In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism.
Determined to deal aggressively with the terrorists they expected to capture, the officials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and (…)

EXPERTS TELL US that most voters have had no difficulty making up their minds in this year’s presidential election. Half the nation is passionately for George W. Bush, the pollsters say, and half passionately for John F. Kerry — or, at least, passionately against Mr. Bush. We have not been able to share in this passion, nor in the certainty. As readers of this page know, we find much to criticize in Mr. Bush’s term but also more than a few things to admire. We find much to admire in Mr. (…)