contributions

WASHINGTON
Breaking ranks with the White House and his Republican leaders in Congress, Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska has said in a letter to constituents the U.S. military action in Iraq was a mistake.
The Iraq war was a "costly mess" with no quick way out, wrote Bereuter, vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the House International Relations Committee.
"I’ve reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty (…)

August 18, 1966 begins the Cultural revolution. In Peijing, the partisans of Mao Tsé-toung, founder of the communist dictatorship in China known as popular, mobilize youth against carried out the revisionists of president Liou Chao-chi. This one, guilty to have sacrificed the ideology to the requirements of the economic recovery, will die in prison.
Red-Color News Soldier by Li Zhengsheng A Chinese Photographer’s Odyssey Through the Cultural Revolution
Introduction by Robert Pledge (…)

by Tania Branigan
A former head of MI5 has condemned the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, where British security service officials are said to have repeatedly interrogated suspects under harsh conditions.
Dame Stella Rimington’s comments came just two weeks after Britons formerly held at the camp described how MI5 officers questioned them at length.
Their lawyers accuse the UK of "complicity" in the detention and mistreatment of prisoners by the US at its Cuban base.
"It (…)

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Israel issued tenders yesterday for 1,001 new homes in West Bank settlements, despite its commitment to a building freeze under the international "road-map" for peace. It is expected to publish another 633 within the next few months.
According to the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot daily, Ariel Sharon’s government is planning to invest 65 million shekels (£8m) in construction and to subsidise 50 per cent of the infrastructure costs. The programme was approved (…)

Two Iraqi prisoners have been killed by US troops during a disturbance at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the US military says.
The trouble began when guards saw a large group of detainees attacking a fellow inmate, a statement said.
"Lethal force" was used to bring the situation under control, it said.
Abu Ghraib prison became notorious earlier this year when shocking pictures were published showing US soldiers abusing Iraqi inmates.
Warnings
It is not clear what sparked off the (…)

Changes must not reopen gaps, he says WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed substantial reservations on Tuesday about proposals to reorganize U.S. intelligence agencies around a single director, urging that any changes be made to close gaps in intelligence collection and analysis, "not to reopen them."
But both the acting director of central intelligence, John McLaughlin, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, supported the idea of a new (…)

The Pentagon has urged Congress to authorize 500 million dollars for building a network of friendly militias around the world to purge terrorists from "ungoverned areas" — and warned Muslim clerics against providing "ideological sanctuary" to radicals.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday the money would be used "for training and equipping local security forces — not just armies — to counter terrorism and (…)

“The process of transformation [American empire building]...is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor.”
From PNAC plan entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, endorsed by neocons in the Bush Administration, the corporate media and Washington think-tanks. Ingrained in the plan are ever-increasing levels of military spending, incessant empire building, pre-emptive invasions and, (…)

By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO - A decorated U.S. combat veteran filed a lawsuit on Tuesday asserting that the government can not prevent reservists from leaving the military when their enlistment periods end.
The suit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials, names the plaintiff only as John Doe. It says he served in the Marine Corps and Army for nine years on active duty and three years as a reservist.
"This lawsuit seeks to stop the forced retention of (…)

by Blair Golson
There will be no formally sanctioned commemorations at the site of the former World Trade Center during the Republican National Convention, convention planners and government officials have told The Observer.
With the exception of demonstrators who will be allowed to gather across the street, Ground Zero-the birthplace of the war on terror, where President George W. Bush memorably threw his arm around firefighters on Sept. 14, three days after the 9/11 attacks-will remain (…)