contributions

By Thomas M. Braun I am a Vietnam veteran who served honorably for my country. I was an air operations supervisor in the US Air Force, and served on Temporary Duty status at Vietnam’s Bien Hoa Air Base and Tan Son Nhut Air Base. I have great compassion and love for every single military person now serving in Iraq. I know the horrors they wake up to each day. I was the victim of a lie. They are victims of a vast lie also. I was not in combat in Vietnam, but the experience (…)

As the presidential campaign approaches its showdown, the Republicans in the state run by George Bush’s brother are up to their tricks again. Andrew Gumbel reports from the heart of Florida
In Orlando, the Florida home of Disneyworld and a vital political battleground, the campaign for the November presidential election is getting sly, nasty and very, very personal. Normally, at this stage of the proceedings, Ezzie Thomas, a well-known character on the predominantly African-American west (…)

By NANCY BENAC
WASHINGTON (AP) - This fall’s presidential debates will pit George W. Bush’s folksy manner and big-picture brand of policymaking against John Kerry’s more cerebral outlook and nuanced world view.
Each is a proven debater who knows, only too well, what personal pitfalls to avoid: Bush must stifle the smirk, for instance, and Kerry must cut short his rhetorical rambling.
They’ll be under careful scrutiny in a trio of debates, 4 hours in all, starting Thursday in Florida. (…)

By MAUREEN DOWD
It’s heartwarming, really.
President Bush has his own Mini-Me now, someone to echo his every word and mimic his every action.
For so long, Mr. Bush has put up with caricatures of a wee W. sitting in the vice president’s lap, Charlie McCarthy style, as big Dick Cheney calls the shots. But now the president has his own puppet to play with.
All last week in New York and Washington, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq parroted Mr. Bush’s absurd claims that the fighting in (…)

New voters are flooding local election offices with paperwork, registering in significantly higher numbers than four years ago as attention to the presidential election runs high and an array of activist groups recruit would-be voters who could prove critical come Nov. 2.
Cleveland has seen nearly twice as many new voters register so far as compared with 2000; Philadelphia is having its biggest boom in new voters in 20 years; and counties are bringing in temporary workers and employees (…)

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON - Early studies of the emotional ravages of the Iraq war on combat soldiers have spurred some veterans’ health advocates to question whether Americans and the U.S. government are truly prepared for the devastating and far-reaching mental health effects of war.
“We are not prepared for the body count we are seeing, mental health or otherwise,” said Sue Bailey, former assistant secretary of defense for health affairs during the Clinton administration. (…)

By Gideon Long
LONDON (Reuters) - An 11-year-old Iraqi girl who lost a leg and 17 members of her family during last year’s war has urged kidnappers to release a British hostage they have been holding for nine days under threat of death.
Zeynab Hamid Taresh, who is in Britain to have an artificial leg fitted, said on Saturday the plight of 62-year-old Kenneth Bigley reminded her of seeing kidnappers seize two of her school friends on the streets of Iraq’s second city Basra.
"I want them (…)

Nearly 400 people who were held hostage in the Beslan school siege are still unaccounted for, according to a website run by teachers who were there.
The list of killed, injured or missing on the www.beslan.ru website has 1,338 names - while the prosecutor-general’s office gave a total of 1,156.
Three local police officers have been charged with negligence over the siege, in which at least 338 people died.
A Russian parliamentary commission has started investigating the tragedy. (…)

John Kerry once took a shot at Miami’s Felix Rodriguez for his part in the Iran-contra scandal. Now the Bush family friend is shooting back.
BY BOB NORMAN bob.norman@newtimesbpb.com
The life of Felix I. Rodriguez provides a tour through the dark heart of America. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco to Vietnam to the El Salvador death squads to the Iran-contra scandal, the Cuban exile and self-described "CIA hero" was there. His most famous assassination mission came in 1967, when he led the (…)

By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER | Associated Press
BETHESDA, Md. - In the name of homeland security, America’s spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It’s watching America.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 100 employees of a little-known branch of the Defense Department called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency _ and some of the country’s most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment _ have focused on observing what’s going on in the United States.
Their work (…)