NEW DELHI - Ahead of the Indian government's proposed move to repeal a draconian anti-terror legislation, a new report says the law is used to settle personal vendettas, frame children, torture prisoners and systematically target the minority Muslim community. Lashing...
The Vote for Gulf War II
The Select Committee on Intelligence has just issued a report [pdf] highly critical of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002, which served as the basis for the "Congressional Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces...
Where Is This ‘Safer’ America?
President George Bush says that America is safer because of our war against Iraq. I respectfully disagree. For one thing, our "shock and awe" campaign has turned into a show and tell of America's military limitations. We have not been able to defeat the Iraqi...
Terrorism and the Election: Trial Balloons and Spin
Tom Ridge, the federal official in charge of defending the United States against terrorism, was on message when he told a July 14 news conference: "We don't do politics at Homeland Security." Such high-level claims of patriotic purity have been routine since 9/11. But...
Whom Did Martha Stewart Kill?
Martha Stewart has been sentenced to 5 months in prison and two years of supervised release for not telling the truth about a legal stock tip. The only thing she has been found guilty of is lying about a noncrime. Mrs. Stewart was neither charged with, nor found...
Biotech Art Case Continues; Artist Restricted
At a June 29 arraignment hearing, a judge ordered that University of Buffalo art professor Steven Kurtz report all future purchases of bio-matter to university and government agents, Assistant United States Attorney William Hochul, Jr., told The NewStandard. Kurtz,...
Bush on the Bus
If Dick Cheney isn't F-you-ing Democrats on the floor of the U.S. Senate, George W. Bush is flipping off teenage boys in East Lampeter, PA, as the Bush-mobile swings through town and the residents come out to greet their sovereign Lord: "The action got started...
Role Reversal: A Response to Readers
In my June 29, 2004, column, "Role Reversal," I pointed out that now it is the Republicans who argue that government can be trusted with any amount of power in the name of the "war on terror." I quoted from Al Gore's speech at Georgetown University Law Center, in...
US, Israel Against the World on Wall
UNITED NATIONS - Lobbying has shifted into high gear on a resolution to be brought before the UN General Assembly on Friday that will call on Israel to tear down a wall it is building around the West Bank and pay reparations to affected Palestinians. The motion will...
Fourth Generation War In the Sudan
The international goo-goos (Tammany Halls old name for the "good government" types) need their humanitarian crise du jour, and the Sudan currently fills the bill. The usual celebrities are wringing their hands and we are all supposed to care, deeply. The realist...


