Month: November 2003

Congress is poised to approve new legislation that amounts to the first substantive expansion of the controversial USA Patriot Act since it was approved just after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Acting at the Bush administration’s behest, a joint House-Senate conference committee has approved a provision in the 2004 … Continue reading “Patriot Act Expansion
Moves Through Congress”

Balkan Express I have been reading the Balkan Express for a long time and it has been difficult to watch the downward spiral of the Balkans along with the lives and liberties of its Slavic peoples. History has shown that a nation can only extricate itself from under the jackboot of empires when that empire … Continue reading “”

The naming of an officer accused of longstanding ties to right-wing paramilitary forces as Colombia’s new armed forces commander is a "slap in the face" of the US administration, which has pressed Bogotá to improve its human rights record, says Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). The group’s condemnation of the appointment of Gen. Carlos Ospina Ovalle … Continue reading “New Colombian Military Chief’s ‘Slap’ in US’ Face”

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media’s coverage of upwards of 30,000 people marching in Miami in protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) decontextualizes the act of protest itself. To the average person watching Wolf Blitzer hem and haw over the footage of baton-wielding police regulating an unpredictable crowd, the protests mean very little. … Continue reading “A Tale of Two Americas”

The neocons, we are told by the Telegraph, are “unfazed despite war in Iraq,” as the headline put it. The occasion for this reassuring news was an interview with the combative Dark Prince of the neoconservatives, Richard Perle, who complained about all the nasty name-calling on the part of his enemies: “Fascist. Warmongerer. Imperialist. With … Continue reading “Conrad Black and the Corruption of Empire”

p align=”left”>This week’s blockbuster leak of a secret memorandum from a senior Pentagon official to the Senate Intelligence Committee has spurred speculation that neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration are on the defensive and growing more desperate. Both the committee and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation … Continue reading “New Leak Smells of Neocon Desperation”

“Par for the course,” announced the AFP headline on Sunday, October 16, as the third Serbian presidential election in a year headed to inevitable failure. By the time the polls closed, less than 40% of voters bothered to cast a ballot for either of the two major and several minor candidates, far below the 50%+ … Continue reading “Serbia’s Voting Woes”

In pursuit of their agenda, neoconservatives have shown no respect for facts or persons. Neocons have lied to the President, the Secretary of State, Congress, the UN, our allies, and the public. In order to fabricate a case for a "preemptive" US invasion of Iraq, neocons used their presidential appointments to manipulate US intelligence services. … Continue reading “Propaganda’s Forward March”

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“Watch what we do, not what we say,” was the retort of Attorney General John Mitchell to reporters questioning Nixon’s commitment to desegregation. Though mocked for cynicism, Mitchell was right. Even as Nixon’s men were railing at the radical idiocy of forced busing for racial balance, they were desegregating six times as many schools as … Continue reading “Will Bush Exit – or Escalate?”