contributions

By BILL MAHER
John Kerry has waded into an issue raised by Michael Moore in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," namely, President Bush’s sitting for seven minutes in a Florida classroom after being told "the country is under attack." Republicans are waxing indignant, of course. But the criticism is richly deserved.
The fact that Bush wasted 27 minutes that day - not only the seven minutes reading to kids but 20 more at a photo op afterward - was, in my view, the most outrageous thing a President (…)

The United States said Thursday that its military operations in Iraq are not covered by the so-called Olympic truce that it signed on to last year at the United Nations.
On the eve of the opening of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the State Department said US soldiers now fighting in Iraq would not be bound by the terms of the truce that calls for all nations in conflict to observe a traditional ceasefire during the Games.
"I reject the notion that somehow we are violating any Olympic (…)

by Michel Chossudovsky
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO407A.html
Two weeks before 9/11, Porter Goss, the White House nominee for the CIA Director of Intelligence was being "briefed on the growing threat of al Qaeda" (WP, 5/04/03) by a Pakistani General who "ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban." (WP, 5/18/02)
Following George Tenet’s resignation as Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA, the Bush administration (…)

Do actions and policies tacken by the President of the United States affect your life? If so, would you like to have a say in this election? Even if you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you can still make an immediate difference in this election.
#1 George Bush has, through horribly-flawed foreign policy, embarrassed American expatriates around the world. Many, if not most, of these expatriates (and their accompanying spouse+children) are now targets for all the (…)

Next Sunday, August 15th, a national referendum is scheduled to take place in Venezuela to decide whether democratically-elected revolutionary president Hugo Chávez should remain in office. However, what is happening in Venezuela, far from being an electoral process determining the destiny of a leader, is a confrontation between the popular movements of Venezuela against the Capitalist Empire. This confrontation, however, won’t be decided on the ballots, but on the streets...
There is (…)

Nicolas Rothwell
AT LEAST 165 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in heavy fighting across Iraq over the past 24 hours as US marines moved to wipe out Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia forces in the holy city of Najaf.
As US tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships attacked the radical cleric’s Mehdi Army, the rebels fired mortar rounds from the courtyard of the Imam Ali mosque, one of the holiest Shi’ite sites.
Within hours of the onslaught, US marines claimed to control the (…)

By Safa Haeri
PARIS - Already clouded, relations between Iran and neighboring Iraq have darkened further in the past week with the kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat and arrest of intelligence officers, and renewed charges by Iraqi officials that the Islamic Republic is interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs.
On Monday, Hazem Sha’lan, the Iraqi Defense Minister, again described Iran as Iraq’s "number one" enemy and accused Tehran of sending weapons to followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the (…)

Several Iraqi officials working within the interim government have resigned in protest of the US-led assault on Najaf and Kut.
Sixteen of Najaf’s 30-member provincial council resigned in protest at the US-led assault on the Najaf as fighting between the Mahdi Army loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr and US occupation forces entered its eighth day.
"We have decided to resign due to what has befallen Najaf and all of Iraq from the hasty US invasion and bombardment of Najaf," the council said in a (…)

By Gail Appleson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has less than two weeks to start giving civil rights groups documents about the torture of prisoners held by U.S. forces at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, a federal judge ordered on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein expressed impatience with the government and said prosecutors must start handing over certain papers identified by the American Civil Liberties Union by Aug. 23 unless they can show the (…)

By Michael Schwartz
The administration of US President George W Bush has embarked on a desperate military adventure in hopes of creating the appearance of a pacified Iraq. The assault on the holy city of Najaf, with its attendant slaughter of combatants and civilians, its destruction of whole neighborhoods, and its threat to Shi’ite holy cities, is fraught with the possibility of another major military defeat.
But the military commanders are hoping it will instead produce a rare military (…)