contributions

by John Hanchette
OLEAN. More disturbing news from Iraq: Now United Nations auditors are complaining the Bush administration is holding back information concerning more than $1 billion in reconstruction contracts awarded to several well-connected American firms without competitive bidding.
The complaints come from the International Advisory and Monitoring Board - a bookkeeping creation of the UN Security Council that includes members from the International Monetary Fund and the World (…)

These documents, obtained by The Washington Post, are the offical English translations of previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Some of the names have been withheld from these statements by washingtonpost.com because they are alleged victims of sexual assault. These files are in PDF format.
Some of the descriptions in these statements may be disturbing because of their sexually explicit or graphic nature.
Nori Samir Gunbar AL-YASSERI, Jan. 17 (…)

by Nat Hentoff
More than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Put it this way, they’re no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. - President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, February 4, 2003
These are people who were captured in different places in the world-in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Indonesia-handed over to the U.S., and never heard from since. In some cases, we know that (…)

The final justification for war on Iraq rests with finding Saddam guilty of genocide - and that’s no longer a sure thing
by RICHARD GWYN
Authoritative reports have now been issued in London as well as in Washington - by Lord Butler and by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee - that confirm what has been obvious for some time:
Saddam Hussein posed no threat whatever with weapons of mass destruction, nor had any ties to Al Qaeda; thus there was no justification for the attack on him in (…)

The toll from fighting in Samarra has risen to five dead and eight wounded, according to Iraqi police sources.
An AFP correspondent in the city said powerful explosions rocked Samarra’s northern edge near al-Qadisiya neighbourhood starting at about 7pm (1700 GMT) on Tuesday, and mosques later urged residents to donate blood .../...
– http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exe...

BY TAREK EL-TABLAWY AND OMAR SINAN
Along the banks of the Tigris River, a young man high on despair and cheap whiskey stares blankly into the evening sky. This is the highlight of his day. Hussein Ali tells a man beside him that death would be welcome.
Across town, outside a rundown theater, a movie poster promises women in lingerie. It’s enough to convince a large group of equally despondent Iraqis like Nazar Flayieh to settle into the cinema’s backbreaking seats.
It’s an escape (…)

Need we say more?

Bush will beat Kerry in this years election because more people use oil than ketchup in their cars!

It’s interesting to note something that is a nearly completely un-mentioned aspect of corporate class warfare on the U.S. middle class.
By moving our manufacturing base overseas the corporate powers are slowly doing two things. First, they are moving a huge portion of their wealth to countries where they believe it will be easier to control the populace. Assets in foreign nations are very difficult for a U.S. government driven by angry citizens to clamp down on. This would require the (…)

The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution demanding that Israel comply with a world court ruling to dismantle its West Bank barrier.
The vote was passed with 150 in favour, 6 opposed and 10 abstentions.
All EU countries voted in support after agreeing changes to the text with Arab states, but the US opposed it.
The resolution, which is non-binding, was drafted after the International Court of Justice ruled the barrier illegally cut into Palestinian land.
’Perversion of (…)