contributions

Dear friends of Venezuela,
Following a massive outpouring of opposition, H. Con. Res. 328 (the Mack resolution) was withdrawn from the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs in the House Committee on International Relations. Due for a vote today, Rep. Mack (R-FL) and his supporters pulled the resolution before a vote could take place. Clearly, they felt that the resolution would now fail.
In recent weeks the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, VoteNoWar.org, the Venezuelan Information Office (…)

PARIS, March 16 - Once again, students are on the barricades in France, evoking comparisons to the uprising of May 1968. But this is not a revolt. It is not 1968 revisited.
Certainly, students are taking to the streets and shutting down universities, and tear gas penetrated the heart of Paris. Today, hundreds of thousands of protesters, most of them students, filled the streets and marched in cities throughout France. With teachers, workers, labor union leaders, the jobless, even retirees (…)

William Pfaff: When a young Frenchman’s fancy turns to revolution
Governments in France are unwise to launch initiatives affecting students and the young when springtime approaches and the sap rises. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has put himself in a difficult situation at a moment when the French already suffer depression connected with unemployment, a sense of economic vulnerability and what seems like political futility. This week, Villepin confronts street demonstrations of (…)

Students want a controversial labour law scrapped
French students have clashed with riot police across the country, as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched against a new government youth employment plan.
At least 250,000 people took to the streets on Thursday in up to 80 towns and cities across France, according to police. Organisers put the figure as high as half a million.
Student leaders said 120,000 people marched through Paris’s university quarter, although police said (…)

If you were President George W. Bush with all available US troops tied down by the Iraqi resistance, and you were unable to control Iraq or political developments in the country, would you also start a war with Iran?
Yes, you would.
Bush’s determination to spread Middle East conflict by striking at Iran does not make sense.
First of all, Bush lacks the troops to do the job. If the US military cannot successfully occupy Iraq, there is no way that the US can occupy Iran, a country (…)

Helen Thomas: "Does the President know that he’s in violation of international law when he advocates preemptive war? The U.N. Charter, Geneva, Nuremberg. We violate international law when we advocate attacking a country that did not attack us.
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I would just disagree with your assessment. First of all, preemption is a longstanding principle of American foreign —
Q It’s not a long-standing principle with us. It’s your principle.
MR. McCLELLAN: Have you asked your (…)

Tom Harkin: Why I Fully Support Bush Censure
We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises - and broken faith - with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.
In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct (…)

Senator Frank Church chaired the Senate Hearings on the FBI’s Cointelpro operation, which spied upon & attempted to INFILTRATE, DISRUPT & DISCREDIT the peace movement, even Martin Luther King Jr.
if a dictator ever took over, the NSA “could enable [him] to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”
From James Bamford’s NSA, the agency that could be Big Brother, Senator Church:
“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and (…)

Deja Ides of March
By Peter Fredson
March 16, 2006
Is it that time again? We realize that for George Bush it has never stopped being that time. The neocon cowardly war-hawks, who love aggression, bullying, preemption, blood and thunder (as long as it does not personally touch them), instead of lust for sex, have lust for power, wealth and world dominion. Back in 2000 A.D. the Leo Straussian fans were convinced that preemptive strikes were necessary on Iraq, Iran, Syria and any others (…)

By Sheila Samples
"They’re blowin’ this town all to hell" -Bo Hopkins in Sam Peckinpah’s "The Wild Bunch"(1969)
Senator John Warner (R-Va.) has the unexpected problem of a foreign state-owned company taking over operations at U.S. ports all figured out. The dour, self-righteous chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced from the Senate floor on March 9 that Dubai Ports World (DPW), one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE), "has decided to transfer (…)