contributions

By Dustin Langley
The bloody colonial occupation of Iraq continues to take a heavy toll. Since the June 28 hyped "handover of power," the occupation forces have lost an average of more than two soldiers a day. As of July 21, some 900 U.S. troops and over 11,000 Iraqi civilians had died in Iraq since the U.S. launched the invasion.
The Iraqi resistance is so widespread and has so much support among the Iraqi people that it "cannot be defeated militarily," according to U.S. military (…)

Do you think Bush is winning a "war on terror"? It’s truer to say he is the most terrifying threat to peace in the world.
He invaded, attacked, conquered and occupied (and is now filling with American military bases) the sovereign nation of Iraq, and he justified that brutality with false allegations.
He said the Iraqis were collaborating with Osama bin Laden, but a congressional commission of inquiry finds there was no collaboration. He said the Iraqis had WMD, but an independent (…)

by Jamie Tarabay
On a Sunday afternoon, attendance at mass at St. Peter and Paul’s Cathedral in Baghdad was decidedly thin.
A handful of Syrian Orthodox loitered on the steps of the church afterward, women removing their dainty white lace veils as they chatted with friends. For many, church on Sunday is the only time they can really socialize because of safety fears.
Most Christians blame concern over a tumultuous security situation for keeping them away from church, but it’s only a (…)

by Dave Zweifel
In the days leading up to World War I, "Fighting Bob" La Follette and the man who started this newspaper, William T. Evjue, railed about the rush to go to war.
Those at the forefront of that rush back in 1917-18 were many of the nation’s big corporations, those that made steel, guns, munitions and the dozens of other products that would be needed at the front.
"War profiteers," La Follette and Evjue called them. After the nation did go to war, La Follette produced lists (…)

On the same day the 9/11 Commission released its long-anticipated report, another government commission quietly released the results of its study. Whereas the 9/11 report is widely praised for its openness and fairness, the U.S. Army’s investigation of military treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan appears to be a whitewash.
Critics rightly questioned whether the Army report was released the same day as the 9/11 commission report so it wouldn’t get the careful media attention it (…)

There are conflicting casualty tolls from the fierce battles between US occupation troops in the Buhruz area, south of Baquba, and Iraqis who resisted American troops’ attempts to search civilian homes.
US military officials say Iraqi security forces killed 13 "insurgents" on Sunday - a considerably higher toll than the one given by Iraqi medics.
Qaysar Hamid, an emergency worker at Baquba General Hospital, said two people, an Iraqi police officer and a civilian, were killed while six (…)

by WILLIAM O’ROURKE
The report last week that Iraq’s recently installed prime minister, Iyad Allawi, was setting up a new security service, the General Security Directorate, to "annihilate" terrorists, rang a bell. It was a very loud bell — and it needed to be, in order to be heard over all the other alarms competing for attention.
Allawi’s new initiative followed on the heels of his earlier announcement of granting himself emergency powers, such as banning groups considered seditious, (…)

by LUIS TEODORO
U.S. President George W. Bush said something the other day Jay Leno could have used for his Tonight Show. If Leno hasn’t, he’s missed an opportunity to get a laugh at the expense of someone who truly deserves global derision.
For the information of noncable TV subscribers, comic Leno has been the subject of the ire of our instant nationalists — some of the very same people who cheered Bush when he visited last year, but who are bristling in indignation over Leno’s remark (…)

By Raymond Whitaker
A leading nuclear expert has pointed out a technical error in the Butler report on WMD intelligence in Iraq, and criticised the committee’s finding that intelligence on Saddam Hussein seeking uranium from Africa was "credible".
The Butler report demolished the most controversial allegation in the Government’s September 2002 WMD dossier - that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes - but observers were surprised that the uranium claim passed (…)

AMMAN: Iraqi lawyers have asked to join Saddam Hussein’s legal team and are willing to work under foreign lawyers appointed by the wife of the deposed Iraqi dictator, a Jordanian attorney said yesterday.
"There are 90 lawyers who submitted requests to the Iraqi Bar Association and we expect them to join our defence team soon," said Ziad Al Khasawneh, one of 20 non-Iraqi lawyers appointed by Saddam’s wife, Sajidah. Al Khasawneh said that another 43 attorneys from Iraq’s western Anbar (…)