contributions

by Naomi Klein
My first run-in with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army came on March 31 in Baghdad. The US occupation chief, Paul Bremer, had just sent armed men to shut down the young cleric’s newspaper, Al Hawza, claiming that its articles comparing Bremer to Saddam Hussein incited violence against Americans. Sadr responded by calling for his supporters to protest outside the gates of the Green Zone, demanding Al Hawza’s reopening.
When I heard about the demo, I wanted to go, but there was a (…)

Lawyers for the British Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg say they have received the first uncensored letter from him in two-and-a-half years.
Mr Begg, 36, is being detained at the US military base without trial. Three other Britons also remain there.
The letter, seen by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, claimed he had been tortured, threatened with death and kept in solitary confinement.
Below is Mr Begg’s letter in full, dated 12 July 2004.
12th July, 2004
US FORCES (…)

Bush got his head handed to him - but why does Kerry want to flatten Fallujah?
by Justin Raimondo
George W. Bush took a terrible pummeling in Thursday night’s debate, as John Kerry took off the gloves and let him have it on the issue of the war. But was it a knockout punch?
Kerry only fumbled around for a few minutes as he got his bearings after Jim Lehrer’s uninspiring initial question: "Do you believe you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11?"
After (…)

Bush-Kerry Debate AUDIO
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES’ DEBATE, SPONSORED BY THE MICCOSUKEE TRIBE OF INDIANS OF FLORIDA, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA
SPEAKERS: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
U.S. SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (MA), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE
JIM LEHRER, ANCHOR AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, PBS’S "THE NEWSHOUR"
LEHRER: Good evening from the University of Miami Convocation Center in Coral Gables, Florida. I’m Jim Lehrer of "The NewsHour" on PBS.
And I (…)

by Manuel Valenzuela
The prevalent and continued decline of the Empire’s mind can be attributed to the evolving degeneration of American capitalism, through the inherent evils it espouses, its subjugation and control of human nature, and its consequences on a society entangled and indeed dependent on the very mechanisms of exploitation of self, addiction to materialism and the pandemic of greed. This latest stage of capitalism, the most sinister to arise from the realm of human conscious, (…)

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian aid worker held hostage last month in Iraq said guerrillas there were right to fight U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi "puppet government."
In comments that were bound to annoy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, Simona Torretta also called on Rome to withdraw the troops it sent to Iraq to support its U.S. ally.
"I said it before the kidnapping and I repeat it today," she told Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published Friday.
"You have (…)

Dear Friends,
John Kerry is a true commander-in-chief and that was clear to me last night during the debate.
I’m Jim Wasser and I was second in command to John Kerry in Vietnam on Swift Boat 44. The John Kerry I knew then is the same John Kerry I saw last night debating on the tough issues surrounding Iraq.
As a union veteran, I really love this country. Let’s face it, whoever becomes the next president has a bad situation on his hands in Iraq. But last night it was clear to me why (…)

By BARRY SCHWEID
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell ventured into the thick of the presidential campaign Friday by challenging John Kerry’s attacks on President Bush’s leadership of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At a news conference in Atlanta, Powell disagreed with the Kerry’s contention in Thursday night’s presidential debate that Bush missed an opportunity to capture terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
He also dismissed the Democratic candidate’s suggestion that (…)

Rawda Odeh embroidering in her home. (Photo: Rima Merriman)
by Rima Merriman
When Loai’s and Ubai’s mother Rawda was born in 1948, her father, Saleem Abu Khaled al Tamimi of Hebron, was in prison for his part in resisting the British plan to partition Palestine. The boys never got to know their grandfather, because he died of a stroke in Ramallah during an altercation with Israeli guards when their mother, a student at Birzeit University then (1969), was being tried because of her (…)