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News Releases

  • * Tax Cuts * Greenspan * Jobs

    ELLEN FRANK Professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston and author of the forthcoming book Money Illusions, Frank said today: “Bush’s economic plan is unlikely to create jobs or growth as he claims. His plan centers on giving more money to wealthy investors with the supposition that they will invest this excess windfall in projects which will create jobs and growth. The reality is that wealthy investors are already swimming in money and unable to find sustainable growth avenues for their excess cash…. The terrible job market may squeeze wages, and with proposed tax cuts and federal spending increases…

  • U.S. Bases: Interviews Available

    JOSEPH GERSON Editor of The Sun Never Sets, a book about U.S. military bases worldwide, Gerson is director of the Peace and Economic Security Program at the American Friends Service Committee. He said today: “Behind the rhetoric of ‘liberation’ and not staying ‘a day’ longer than needed, the Bush administration is clearly working to create a client government which will allow the U.S. to maintain military bases for the long term, as it has recently done in Central Asia. The U.S. government, in effect, will be transforming Iraq into an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier for the United States.’ The U.S. government…

  • * Humanitarian Crisis * Lifting the Sanctions

    On Thursday, less than 24 hours after issuing a press release highlighting the apparent failures of the U.S. military’s humanitarian operations in Iraq, the international group Voices in the Wilderness was banned from meeting with the U.S. Civil Military Operations Center or with international journalists at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The group asks: “If the freedom to critique U.S. policies in Iraq regarding humanitarian issues is being curtailed already, then exactly what does this mean for building ‘democracy’ there?” A photo of the military’s listing of which groups are allowed into the hotel (noting in capital letters that Voices…

  • “NASA’s Strategic Plan”

    Today, NASA administrator and former Secretary of the Navy Sean O’Keefe addressed the National Press Club about “NASA’s Strategic Plan.” The following analysts are available for interviews: ALICE SLATER Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater said today: “NASA’s strategic plan involves the acceleration of militarizing space. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was head of U.S. Space Command when it published its 1998 ‘Visions for 2020’ report which talked of ‘dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment.’ In January 2001 the space commission chaired by Donald…

  • * Syria * Iraq * Antiquities * Terrorist Groups

    JAMES ABOUREZK A former U.S. senator, Abourezk has met with high-ranking Syrian officials, including President Bashar Assad. He said today: “The proposal that Syria is reportedly putting forward at the U.N. for a Mideast free of weapons of mass destruction is a very good one.” Abourezk is in D.C. on Wednesday and Thursday. More Information SCOTT C. DAVIS Author of the new book The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria, Davis recently returned from Syria; he spent the first several days of the invasion of Iraq in Syria. He has visited Syria repeatedly over the last 15 years and…

  • * Why War? * WMD * Oil * IMF — World Bank

    BILL FLETCHER President of TransAfrica Forum and co-chair of United for Peace and Justice, Fletcher said today: “The military action against Iraq is not just about controlling oil and not even just about empire. It’s about economic competition with other powers; about the Bush administration framing global capitalism in an image that it wants with its ‘new international economic architecture’ via the IMF and World Bank…. This will exacerbate the increasing economic polarization of the last 20 years, further impoverish much of the globe and send a message to all: displays of resistance will be met with force.” More Information…

  • Iraq: From Tyranny to What?

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus, is closely following events in the Arabic-language as well as English-language media and can address changes in Iraq and the region. He is author of the book Bin Ladin, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism.” LAMIS ANDONI An independent journalist and analyst who has covered the Mideast for over two decades, Andoni is also monitoring the Arabic-language media. She knew Tareq Ayub, the Al Jazeera correspondent who was killed yesterday by the U.S. military. [The web page http://english.aljazeera.net is back up after being hacked.] Andoni said…

  • * After Saddam * Garner and Chaliabi * Rachel Corrie’s Legacy

    ANDY SHALLAL Founder of Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives, Shallal said today: “People are happy not just because Saddam is out, but also because they anticipate the end of 12 years of economic sanctions and the bombing…. When I was a kid in Iraq, we had coups and I would go out and jump in the street because it was the coolest thing. It’s like D.C. when the Redskins win the Super Bowl. The problem is what comes after.” RICK McDOWELL Working with American Friends Service Committee, McDowell is in contact with many relief organizations in Jordan trying to get humanitarian…

  • Bush and Blair in Belfast

    SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni has specialized in Northern Ireland as well as the Middle East and can compare and analyze the two. She is a professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle East politics at Evergreen State College and executive director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development. MAIREAD CORRIGAN McGUIRE A Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her work in Northern Ireland and co-founder of the Peace People, Mairead Corrigan McGuire has been on a liquid fast since the invasion of Iraq began. She is holding a silent vigil in front of the White House every day from…

  • War Crimes?

    “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” — International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946 [ www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/nurletter.htm] “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…” — U.N. Charter (Chapter I, Article 2) [www.un.org/aboutun/charter] “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as…

  • Bombing Afghanistan

    JOHN QUIGLEY Professor of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley said today: “We have to ask, ‘Will this protect the U.S. from further attacks?’…. Military action should have been done through the Security Council at the United Nations. As it is — a U.S. and U.K. military action — it is illegal under international…

  • First Casualties of War

    ROGER NORMAND Executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights, which has recently put out several fact sheets on Afghanistan, Normand said today: “Afghanistan was one of the world’s poorest and most devastated countries even before this crisis. The UN has abandoned its relief operations, and all neighboring countries have sealed their borders.…

  • Foreign Policy and Terrorism

    ZIEBA SHORISH-SHAMLEY Founder and director of the Women’s Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan, Shorish-Shamley said today: “It is unfortunate that it took a tragedy of this magnitude for the world to take notice of the ongoing tragedy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Several years ago, I quit my position as a university professor…

  • Opponents of Terrorism and War

    THOMAS GUMBLETON A Catholic Bishop from Detroit, Gumbleton said today: “The Pope has called for ‘peaceful negotiations and dialogue’ in the current crisis…. Some have rushed to portray us who are opposed to the Bush administration’s plans as naïve and lacking realism. But if you look at the facts, it is clear that it is…

  • Preventing Further Disaster

    HARVEY WASSERMAN A specialist in nuclear issues, Wasserman warns of the possibility of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility. More Information CHRIS TOENSING Toensing is editor of Middle East Report. More Information PERVEZ HOODBHOY Hoodbhoy is a professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. More Information REV. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER Pastor at the Plymouth…

  • “Not in Our Names”

    Some family members of the victims killed in the September 11 attacks are speaking out in opposition to the administration’s apparent military plans. Judy Keane, who lost her husband Richard, said: “Bombing Afghanistan is just going to create more widows, more homeless, fatherless children.” [CNN, 9/25] Jill Gartenberg, whose husband Jim was killed, said that…

  • Legal Issues: * Where’s the Evidence? * Civil Liberties

    On Monday, President Bush said: “We’re acting based on clear evidence, much of which is classified, so it will not be disclosed.” Today, Attorney General Ashcroft testified in favor of granting the government new powers. The following legal analysts are available for interviews: JOHN QUIGLEY Professor of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley said…

  • The Economy: Now What?

    ROBERT POLLIN Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Pollin wrote “Economic Slide Makes Spending Respectable” in today’s Los Angeles Times. He said today: “U.S. economic policymakers have failed for almost a year to respond adequately to the looming global recession. As the stock market plunge makes clear, the calamitous events of…

  • Critical Voices

    PHYLLIS BENNIS Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader, Bennis said today: “In Bush’s speech we got no doctrine, no strategy, no evidence. What we did get was a lot of Wild West rhetoric — dead or alive material. In Afghanistan, 25 percent of the…

  • Military Options: Where Would They Lead?

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL Associate professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus and fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil is author of the article “Islam and the Study of Central Asia.” He said today: “Learning about Islam is not terribly instructive here, just as…

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