Following a Paper Trail to the Roots of Torture:
Justice Department memos suggested that in a war like the present one, presidential power can override both congressional laws and "customary international law": in short, that the president can choose to suspend America's obligation to comply with the Geneva Conventions if he wishes, authorize torture or detain prisoners without a hearing.
http://207.44.245.159/article8006.htm
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Imperial Delusions
By TARIQ ALI
The United States, unlike the Empires of old Europe has always preferred to excersize its hegemony indirectly. It has relied on local relays--uniformed despots, corrupt oligarchs, pliant politicians and obedient monarchs--rather than lengthy occupations and nation-building with carefully-controlled forms of elite, low-intensity democracy. It was only when rebellions from below threatened to disrupt this order that the Marines were dispatched and wars were fought.
http://207.44.245.159/article8000.htm
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Panorama: Exit strategy
BBC Video
As Iraq holds historic elections, Panorama presents a major film examining the state of Iraq today. Will the elections put the country on the road to peace - or push it deeper into war?
Click here to watch it online
http://207.44.245.159/article8003.htm
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Authorities say 22 dead from Baghdad bombing :
The US military says 21 people were killed in addition to a suicide bomber who set off explosives outside an Iraqi army recruitment center. Today's blast is considered the deadliest since last week's election violence.
http://tinyurl.com/5bst4
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Iraqi politician survives assassination attempt but loses sons:
Alusi is a controversial figure in Iraq -- he has been a vocal critic of Syria and Iran, and was widely criticised in Iraq for visiting Israel last year.
http://tinyurl.com/3lcnz
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Militant group claims it has killed Italian journalist:
On Monday, a Web posting in the name of the Jihad Organisation pledged to release Sgrena in a few days because it said an investigation had determined she was not a spy and after an appeal for her freedom by Sunni clerics.
http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=37460
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Kurds gain in election at expense of the Shias:
The results were undermined by revelations of vote-rigging and intimidation in the city of Mosul, where masked gunmen had burst into polling stations and stolen ballot boxes, stuffing them with their own papers.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1475207,00.html
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Kurdish Ticket Makes Gains in Iraq Voting :
A Kurdish ticket pulled into second place ahead of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's candidates in Iraq's national election after votes were released Monday from the Kurdish self-governing area of the north
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050207/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=2100
http://tinyurl.com/3n6tg
===
George Monbiot: Fraud and corruption :
Forget the UN. The US occupation regime helped itself to $8.8 bn of mostly Iraqi money in just 14 months
http://207.44.245.159/article8001.htm
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6 Kuwaiti prisoners allege abuse:
Six Kuwaiti prisoners said they were severely beaten, given electric shocks and sodomized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/world/10843563.htm
http://tinyurl.com/45ndw
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Dire prison conditions, violence against women persist in Afghanistans:
The UN Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan, Cherif Bassiouni, has also voiced "grave concern" over "a very unusual practice" in which foreign coalition forces have taken upon themselves the right, without legal process, to arrest people, detain them, mistreat them and possibly even torture them.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13260&Cr=afghan&Cr1
http://tinyurl.com/3pg3u
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'It's torture, it's sheer torture': :
Detainees at South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre were being psychologically tortured and humiliated, a volunteer worker at the centre said today.
http://207.44.245.159/article8004.htm
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Australia: Mental illness rife at detention centre: nurse:
Mental illness was rife at the Woomera detention centre, but went untreated because management wanted to hide it, a former nurse at the centre said today.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/07/1107625098237.html
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Sharon, Abbas Declare Cease-Fire :
Neither side signed a truce declaration at the Egyptian summit Tuesday. But the Palestinian leader described what he called a new opportunity for restoring the Middle East peace process. He then declared an end to the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-02-08voa110.cfm
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Falluja Residents Testify to the Destruction of Their City:
Three months after the American offensive and capture of the Sunni bastion, barely 20% of the population has returned. Some residents survive in the ruins. The Red Crescent tries to help, while the Iraqi Army patrols and loots whatever remains.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/020705H.shtml
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Video: Mosaic: World News Reports from Middle East TV For 02/07/05:
The nation's only uncensored compilation of daily television news reports from more than 15 countries in the Middle East. QuickTime Video.
http://tinyurl.com/3j3g4
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Hamas says not bound by cease-fire declarations:
Hamas said on Tuesday that it will not be bound by Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire declarations made at the Sharm el-Sheik summit, the group’s representative in Lebanon said.
http://tinyurl.com/4mj2u
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Egypt, Jordan envoys to return to Israel:
Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab countries to sign peace treaties with Israel, have not had ambassadors in Israel since early in the Palestinian uprising which broke out in 2000.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8D318B4D-069D-4BC3-BAE7-FD8410BA3F31.htm
http://tinyurl.com/5f3k2
===
Sharon visit stirs protests in Egypt:
University students staged demonstrations on campuses across the country and the journalists' syndicate organised a two-hour sit-in at its headquarters in downtown Cairo to register disapproval at the visit.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E8A7A116-A965-48DF-B2A5-E9FF3FCF1F10.htm
http://tinyurl.com/5s7s9
===
WMD official cautions US over Iran:
The US official who declared the White House's hunt for illicit weapons in Iraq to be a failure driven by faulty intelligence has warned the Bush administration against repeating its mistakes in the current war of words with Iran.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6DF7B6F-83F9-4BB0-902B-26D6A5CBA19B.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6d2cc
===
US nuclear upgrade may violate test ban:
As it accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, America is preparing to upgrade and renew parts of its own ageing nuclear arsenal. Critics believe the upgrades could lead the US to breach the treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=608874
http://tinyurl.com/6d3my
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/support.htm
===
Judge Rejects 'Stop Loss' Suit Vs. Army :
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Army's right to force soldiers to serve past the dates of their enlistments, the so-called ``stop loss'' policy that can keep men and women in uniform during war or national emergencies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4784778,00.html
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Is the Army’s Manpower Problem So Bad it Must Now Recall the Injured?:
Apparently—as that is what it has done to Adam Mowery
http://207.44.245.159/article8007.htm
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Back from Iraq - and suddenly out on the streets:
Social service agencies say the number of homeless vets is rising, in part because of high housing costs and gaps in pay.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p02s01-ussc.html
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Gimme Shelter:
Some Iraq veterans are returning home, only to face homelessness and mental problems. Meanwhile, the VA is MIA.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21191/
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Bush Budget Raises Prescription Prices for Many Veterans:
President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050207/ZNYT04/502070314/1004/LOCAL
http://tinyurl.com/6mu4f
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Despite Proposed Cuts, Bush Budget Is Bigger:
Even as President Bush proposes deep cuts in healthcare, farm subsidies and other domestic programs, his new budget makes one thing clear about the legacy of his first term in the White House: The era of big government is back.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/latimes21.htm
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Bush budget: Military wins:
Bush proposed a $2.57 trillion budget for 2006 on Monday that would erase scores of programs, cull savings from Medicaid and cut housing for the disabled and many other programs. Its fate will be decided by Congress over coming months.
http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2698887,00.html
http://tinyurl.com/5y6o9
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Bush's budget axe to fall on poor :
President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early reports of today's White House budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1407400,00.html
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Paul Krugman: Spearing the Beast:
President Bush isn't trying to reform Social Security. He isn't even trying to "partially privatize" it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn't provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.
http://207.44.245.159/article8005.htm
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Antiwar Protesters to Use New Peace "Tax Return" :
Thousands of U.S. taxpayers opposed to the war in Iraq are expected to use a new "Peace Tax Return" as a means to protest-or even resist-the spending of their federal tax dollars for the war.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0206-01.htm
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"As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only doing their duty, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil: George Orwell London. UK. 1941
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"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." : Sir Josiah Stamp (1880-1941) President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain
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"Endless money forms the sinews of war." : Marcus Tullius Cicero - (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
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