contributions

From Karin Laub in Jerusalem
OFFICIALS today confirmed a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington met several times with a Pentagon analyst being investigated by the FBI on suspicion he passed classified information on Iran to Israel.
But Israel’s foreign minister - denying allegations of espionage - said such meetings were commonplace and the two governments routinely shared secrets.
"Israel and the United States have intimate ties ... and the information being exchanged is much more (…)

After marching in Sunday’s protest, Fred Faveluke was struck by the participants’ maturity and seriousness
by JEFF MAPES
NEW YORK — Electrician Fred Faveluke has often participated in antiwar protests back home in Portland, but he said he never saw anything quite like the march he took part in Sunday in New York City.
Besides its sheer size, Faveluke said he was impressed by the seriousness and maturity of the demonstrators who sought on the eve of the Republican convention to show the (…)

by Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation and is demanding records regarding Internet postings by critics of the Bush administration that list the names of Republican delegates and urge protesters to give them an unwelcome reception in New York City.
Federal prosecutors said in a grand jury subpoena that the information was needed as part of an investigation into possible voter intimidation. Protesters and civil rights advocates argued (…)

BY NANCY DILLON, RALPH R. ORTEGA and DAVE GOLDINER
They came from around the corner and across the country to make their voices heard on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Here’s a look at the stories of some of the faces in the crowd at yesterday’s protest:
* * *
Sue Niederer, 55, wore the floppy desert camouflage Army hat her son wore before he was killed in Iraq six months ago.
She rode from Pennington, N.J., because she says she cannot shake the sound of her (…)

By Karen Freifeld
Newsday photographer Moises Saman - who spent eight days in an Iraqi prison in 2003 - was arrested Sunday in Times Square while covering a protest related to the Republican convention.
"I was photographing a guy getting arrested and somebody grabbed me from the back with a lot of force and made me fly backwards," said the award-wining photographer, who was working at 45th Street and 7th Avenue at about 5 p.m. when the incident occurred. "I turned around and it was a (…)

By Michael Cudahy
A former staffer for Bush I says that the RNC isn’t the best place to look for a clear sense of the GOP’s agenda.
While aides say that Bush will present a a detailed second-term agenda in his nomination speech, viewers are likely to find themselves questioning the president’s sincerity. Will we see the tax-cutting George Bush who seeks severe restrictions on stem cell research, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and who is working to replace the IRS tax (…)

By SAM HUSSEINI
[This survey of Israeli spying on the US was compiled in 1997.]
The Washington Post reported in a front-page story on May 7th, 1997 that US intelligence had intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega"— apparently a codename for (…)

The use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States, defying all international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so with full knowledge of its destructive potential.
by LEUREN MORET
Since 1991, the United States has staged four wars using depleted uranium weaponry, illegal under all international treaties, conventions and agreements, as well as under the US military law. The continued use of this (…)

Poisonous Uranium Munitions Threaten World
by Christopher Bollyn
The use of weapons containing uranium violates existing laws and customs of war
and “constitutes a war crime or crime against humanity,” according to a leading
U.S. expert on humanitarian law .../...
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/pentagon_brass.html

The death agony of the neoconservatives is going to be a prolonged and quite ugly procedure, painful not only for them but for the entire country - which will learn, to its chagrin and growing anger, how and by whom they were lied into war. It started late Friday, when Lesley Stahl of CBS News reported that the FBI has "solid evidence" that a spy, embedded in the top echelons of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership, handed over classified documents, including the draft of a presidential (…)