contributions

by Jeffrey Fleishman BERLIN - The white guard shack still stands, but the American GIs have long since departed and there’s a nostalgic cheapness to the postcards, gas masks, helmets and rusted Maxwell House coffee tins. Checkpoint Charlie, the fabled slice of concrete and barbed wire that epitomized the Cold War, seems an innocent artifact in a world awash in new dangers.
"There was a time when World War III could have started right here," said Juergen Thiel, standing amid bits of the (…)

by Judy Ettenhofer SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Every Sunday morning at 8, a squad of volunteers fans out across a section of beach next to the famous Santa Monica Pier.
In the shadow of the Ferris wheel and the trinket stands, they carefully push more than 1,000 white crosses into the sand, methodically placing them in straight rows, using a string grid system as their guide.
After the crosses are planted, they set out a flag-draped coffin with an empty pair of combat boots in front and a (…)

by Peter Beaumont
American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials, it is alleged by international aid workers in Sudan. Washington’s desire for a regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports, it is claimed.
The government’s aid agency, USAID, says that between 350,000 and a million people could die in Darfur by the end of the year. Other officials, including Secretary of State Colin (…)

by Masuda Sultan
When U.S. bombs hit my home country of Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, I was in an Afghan restaurant in New York with other Afghan-Americans grieving over Sept. 11. We weren’t surprised that the old country was being bombed. We all knew it would happen.
Yet it was still shocking to see it happen on television. We worried about friends and loved ones who still lived there. As I watched, I remembered the hospitality and love of my aunt and her seven children, whom I had (…)

Bush-Kerry Debate AUDIO
Bush-Kerry Debate VIDEO
by RadioFreeUSA
There is one obvious reason that George Bush did so badly in the debate: he wasn’t wearing his usual earpiece connecting him to advisors in a back room. Prediction: Next time he’ll be wearing it and everyone will be amazed at how much better he does...
An email to Meet The Press asking whether Bush wore an earpiece during the interview received a lightning quick response from Executive Producer Betsy Fischer: "The (…)

By Touching on Bush’s Ambivalent Relations with His Father, Kerry Exposed His Delusions about Iraq
by Sidney Blumenthal
After months of flawless execution in a well-orchestrated campaign, President Bush had to stand alone in an unpredictable debate. He had traveled the country, appearing before adoring pre-selected crowds, delivered a carefully crafted acceptance speech before his convention, and approved tens of millions of dollars in TV commercials to belittle his opponent. In the (…)

by Martin Bright
Prisoner interrogations at Guantánamo Bay, the controversial US military detention centre where guards have been accused of brutality and torture, have not prevented a single terrorist attack, according to a senior Pentagon intelligence officer who worked at the heart of the US war on terror.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who retired last June after 20 years in military intelligence, says that President George W Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have (…)

By WILLIAM S. LIND
When asked for their solution to the mess in Iraq, both of America’s presidential candidates—Tweedledumb and Tweedlephony—advance the same line: "train more Iraqi security forces." Once enough Iraqis have been trained, they suggest, American troops can be withdrawn and our puppet Iraqi government can stand on its own six legs.
Unfortunately, the problem is not training, but loyalty. All the training in the world is worthless if the people being trained have no reason (…)

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Enough weapons-grade plutonium to make more than 15,000 nuclear bombs will be vulnerable to hijack by terrorists and rogue states as the result of a disarmament initiative.
An unprecedented shipment of 300lb of the material from the United States was last night heading towards the French port of Cherbourg on two British ships. The shipment is the first instalment of 68 tons of plutonium from US and Russian weapons stockpiles to be put on to the (…)

by Arianna Huffington
Leave no sucker punch unthrown. That seems to be the scorched earth mantra of the GOP campaign as it heads into the final rounds. But if you’re thinking these guys can’t go any lower, guess again. George Bush doesn’t just have his head buried in the sand - he’s let his integrity sink below sea level, as well.
The latest dirty blows are a contemptible one-two combination with which Team Bush has portrayed John Kerry as both the enemy of God and, if not exactly the (…)