March 10, 2005

Ten Questions the Senate Should Ask John Bolton at his Confirmation Hearing, But Probably Won't by Phyllis Bennis Ê

March 9, 2005

Let me paint a word picture. An unarmed, wounded American soldier is lying helpless, bleeding and barely conscious on the floor of a church in a country with which the US is at war. An armed soldier of that country walks up to the wounded American. It so happens that a TV cameraman is present. He films the foreign soldier shouting, "He's fucking faking he's dead!" One of his comrades says "And he's breathing". The first soldier again yells "He's faking he's fucking dead!" He then kills the helpless, wounded man with a burst of fire that blows his head off and spatters the room with blood and tiny bits of flesh and bone. One of the foreign soldiers says "He's dead, now."Ê

Question One: What do you think the reaction of most of the American people would be to the murder of a wounded, unarmed US soldier lying helpless and barely conscious on the floor of a church in a foreign land?

Question Two: What was the reaction of most of the American people to the murder of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi lying helpless and barely conscious on the floor of a mosque in his own country? more....

March 8, 2005

George Bushâs ãOwnership Societyä Leaves Out the Things We Actually Own ÷ Our Bodies, Our Privacy, Our Dignity, Our Bedrooms.

Under George W. Bush's ownership society, a person wracked with debilitating pain does not "own" the right to go into her backyard, pick a plant and eat it to alleviate that pain. But a non-person ÷ a corporation ÷ like McDonalds has the right to "own" phrases like "Play and fun for everyone" and, "Hey, it could happen."

There is a word that describes this kind of thinking and the person who engages in it. Unbalanced. more....

March 7, 2005

The greatest impact of George W. Bush's second term will likely be from his judicial nominations, including the appointment of one or more Justices to the Supreme Court. The President's selections will have long-lasting effects on all aspects of American life, including our health, our freedoms and our privacy. Senate conservatives, led by majority leader Bill Frist, have already launched a determined campaign to insure that any potential opponents are silenced--principally by attacking the Senate's most effective tool, the judicial filibuster. A closer look shows right-wing arguments for doing so are based on a series of myths about the Constitution, history and the right wing's own conduct. more....

March 6, 2005

An Italian journalist freed from captivity in Iraq said Saturday that a "rain of fire" from a U.S. roadside patrol hit her vehicle as it slowly approached the airport in Baghdad, injuring her and killing an Italian intelligence agent also inside. Her version of events ran counter to the one U.S. officials provided a day earlier.

Giuliana Sgrena, wearing a plaid shawl draped around her shoulders, was helped down the steps of an airplane at Rome's Ciampino airport after arriving from Baghdad Saturday at noon. She later described the shooting and called the U.S. gunfire on the vehicle unjustified.

"We weren't going very fast, given the circumstances. It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that started firing right after lighting up a spotlight. The firing was not justified by the movement of our automobile," Sgrena, a reporter for the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto, told Italian investigators, according to an account related by an official who interviewed her at a military hospital.more....

March 5, 2005

China accused the United States on Thursday of using a double standard to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a list of nations suggesting that the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.

"No country should exclude itself from the international human rights development process or view itself as the incarnation of human rights that can reign over other countries and give orders to the others," Premier Wen Jiabao's cabinet declared, three days after the State Department criticized China in its annual human rights report.

The Chinese retort, which contained a long list of what it labeled U.S. human rights abuses at home and abroad, came directly from Wen's cabinet, giving it more weight than a Foreign Ministry comment or editorial. In addition, it used unusually direct language -- for example, charging that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks."

A number of other countries criticized in the U.S. report expressed a similar view, that the Bush administration has compromised on human rights and has no standing to chastise others. Such responses often follow Washington's annual report, but the reaction has become more intense and more readily voiced since U.S. abuses of Iraqi and other prisoners were publicized around the world last year. more....

March 11, 2005


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