MADE IN THE USA

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 — The number of Americans living in poverty rose by 1.3 million last year, to 35.9 million, while those without health insurance climbed by 1.4 million, to 45 million, the Census Bureau reported today.

The New York Times
August 26, 2004

THE WARLORDS OF AMERICA

"The real debate is neither Bush nor Kerry, but the system they exemplify; it is the decline of true democracy and the rise of the American "national security state" in Britain and other countries claiming to be democracies, in which people are sent to prison and the key thrown away and whose leaders commit capital crimes in faraway places, unhindered, then, like the ruthless Tony Blair, invite the thug they instal to address the British Labour Party conference.

The real debate is the subjugation of national economies to a system dividing humanity as never before and sustaining the deaths, every day, of 24,000 hungry people. The real debate is the subversion of political language and of debate itself and perhaps, in the end, our self respect."

from The Warlords of America
by John Pilger
The New Statesman
Monday 23rd August 2004

HUMAN RIGHTS?

Almost 3 years ago, we asked, "Does the western world still take human rights seriously?" (…) The answer to our question posed three years ago is clearly "no"; human rights have become a casualty in the desperate attempt to get results in the war against terrorism.

The Lancet

A WAR OVER OIL AND MONEY

Maxine Gentle, whose brother Gordon, aged 19, was killed in June by a roadside bomb in Basra, delivered a letter to Downing Street in which she criticised the Prime Minister for dispatching troops to "a war over oil and money".

In her letter, Maxine told the Prime Minister: "My big brother died at the age of 19, and what for? A war over oil and money, that's what I think the war is all about. There was no such thing as weapons of mass destruction.”

The Independent
20 August 2004

OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN IN UNIFORM

American and British troops in Iraq have been killing, raping, torturing innocent men, women and children since this racist fool crusade started. Too many in the West, even on the left, even within the anti war movement, refer to “our brave men and women in uniform”.

How “brave” to rape child prisoners one must be!