Aljazeera by Roshan Muhammed Salih 14 Aug 2004

An American soldier who was imprisoned for refusing to fight against fellow Muslims in Iraq has said the US army has a moral duty to release him.

There has been much discussion over the years as to how to resolve the crisis in the occupied state of Palistine. Noah Cohen has challenged the conventional wisdom of Noam Chomsky in this article published on axisoflogic.com. Chomsky's reply and Cohen's follow up will leave you with plenty to think about on this complex subject.

A later story by Todd May follows below.

The Record | 13 September 2004 A11
|
By Lynn Myers

Despite the billions of dollars spent to date, the system (American ballistic missile defence program) does not work.
Most of it hasn't even reached the drawing-board stage, let alone passed the
testing stage.

The planned deployment of two missile interceptors in mid-September seems
cynically calculated to win a partisan political advantage in the run-up to
the November elections in the United States, rather than a serious attempt
to increase American security.

September 11, 2004

The editor of a political magazine who was kidnapped in May apparently has
been killed and his body burned - the fourth journalist investigating
corruption to be killed in Mexico this year.

"My 21-year old daughter disappeared from NYC last Tuesday afternoon when walking with friends through a park where no protest was being held -- and was held prisoner -- without being charged -- by the NYPD for three days. The first day and night she spent in an unsafe and inhumane facility at Pier 57 ("Little Guantanamo") provided by the Republican Party....Yes, it was managed by the Republican National Committee. It was leased by the RNC to hold political dissenters who disagreed with the Bush administration."

"(W)e are reverting to the sort of guilt-by-association that marked the ideologically-driven anti-communist crusades of the Cold War era. Given that orientation, it is not surprising that the FBI was targeting groups of anarchists even before they traveled to NYC to take part in the protests. And, once they were near the RNC, police preemptively arrested a number of the known anarchists, charging them with outlandishly made-up charges."

"Two shocking manifestos were published this week. Both call for comment....One of them declares that dismantling the settlements in the Gaza Strip is a "crime against humanity". It does not mention that they were set up on the land reserves of a million Palestinians crowded in the tiny strip, and rob them of their scarce water....The second manifesto declares that the Halakha (Jewish religious law) commands the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians if this helps to save Jews. It is signed by the heads of the "Arrangement Yeshivot", the West Bank settlement rabbis and other religious leaders."

Tens of thousands of PSAC federal government workers are on strike nationwide, with more on the way. Struggles continue for other workers, while others have ended in victory.

Two Middle-Eastern men were physically assaulted outside a bowling alley in front of a group of witnesses on March 6, 2003. When the men filed a civil suite against the cops, the prosecutor piled on an additional 8 charges in an attempt to have the men deported.

No source.

by Robert Jensen; September 13, 2004 - Znet  

I'm a former full-time journalist turned journalism professor. I continue to commit occasional acts of journalism, and I retain a deep affection for, and commitment to, the craft and its ideals. That's why it pains me to say this: The performance of the U.S. corporate commercial news media after 9/11 has been the most profound and dangerous failure of journalism in my lifetime.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the void is being filled by other institutions, including the Media Education Foundation with its new documentary, "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire."

For those who have studied the historical record of the US prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia, neither the Republicans nor Democrats have confronted the full measure of those atrocities and what their legacy is especially in the war on Iraq....While Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have touted the "clean" weapons used in Iraq, the fact is that aerial cluster bombs and free-fire zones have continued to be part of present day military operations. Villages throughout Iraq, from Hilla to Fallujah, have borne and are bearing US attacks that take a heavy civilian toll.

The Skwelkwekwelt Protection Center, along with various support groups, held a rally at Sun Peaks on August 29 to protest the on-going expansion of the Sun Peaks Ski Resort. On the same day, Secwepemc members and their invited guests began construction of what was to be a permanent structure. This structure was to monitor environmental damage at Skwelkwekwelt, inform visitors and investors of the on-going unsettled land issue in the area and assert and exercise our Secwepemc Title and Rights to our unceded lands by occupying our lands. Demo information for today follows.

By Chris Spannos
|
ZNet
|
September 8th, 2004

With up to 13,802 Iraqi civilian deaths to date, Canadians will now be providing one of the most basic necessities for the US occupation forces in Iraq: bullets. The Canadian company SNC Technologies Inc. (SNC TEC) is now part of a multinational consortium of small-caliber ammunition producers whose purpose is to supply between 300 million -500 million more bullets to occupation forces per year, and potentially for at least five years.

by Arundhati Roy

Radical change cannot and will not be negotiated by governments; it can only be enforced by people. By the public. A public who can link hands across national borders.

So when we speak of "Public Power in the Age of Empire," I hope it's not presumptuous to assume that the only thing that is worth discussing seriously is the power of a dissenting public. A public which disagrees with the very concept of empire. A public which has set itself against incumbent power - international, national, regional, or provincial governments and institutions that support and service empire.