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Recent
Stories
April
23, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
Shaefer
Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
April
22, 2003
Edward
Said
The Appalling Consequences of the Iraq
War are Now Clear
Sam
Hamod
What's the Deal with This War?
Kurt
Nimmo
Shi'a Will to Power
Gary
Leupp
At last! The Necessary Evidence
Carl
Estabrook
Oblivious Americans: They Distort,
We Subside
John
Stanton
Iran's Reza Pahlavi: a Puppet of the US and Israel?
Ramzy
Baroud
What Else Hasn't Israel Told America?
Steven
Sherman
About That Cuba Letter
Wayne Madsen
Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult
Stew
Albert
Creep
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/22
Website
of the Day
Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
April
21, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
An Administration in Contempt
Gary
Leupp
Easter Thoughts on Liberation, Jesus
and Kanaka WaiWai
Roger
Witherspoon
Why Michigan Needs Affirmative Action
Uri Avnery
At Midnight, a Knock on the Door
Col. Dan
Smith
Early Lessons from Iraq
Jo
Freeman
After the Protest Comes Politics
Michael
Berry
The Friedman Absurdities
Gray
Brechin
Hang Black Banners: Mourning the Cultural Loss
Bob Riedel
The Taliban from Texas
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/21
April
19, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Rape of History
Saul
Landau
Shop, Go to Church, Support Bush's
War, Wait for Armageddon
Michael
J. Fellows
Off With Their Heads: the Constitution According to Scalia
Pablo
Mukherjee
Roadmap to Resistance
Omar
Barghouti
Sharon's Bloody Beat
Anthony
Gancarski
Tony Blair: the Most Powerful Man in the World
Mickey
Z.
Animals: the Other Collateral Damage
Will
Potter
When Police Attack Journalists
William
MacDougall
America's In-Bedded Journalism
Neve
Gordon
Haunted by History
Adam
Engel
Wal-Mart and Peace
Dr.
Susan Block
Art Bombs: American Libertines for Peace
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Buono, Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/19
Song of
the Weekend
Baghdad to Basra
April
18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Operation "Syrian Freedom":
This One's Not About Oil
Jorge
Mariscal
"They Died Trying to Become
Students": the Future of Latinos in an Era of War and Occupation
Mickey
Z:
Coalition of the Unindicted: Only Losers Get Tried for War Crimes
Hussein
Ibish
Syria and the Road to World War IV
Reza Ladjevardian
Tarqeting Iran? Do It With TV, Not Cruise Missiles
Matania
Ben-Artzi
You Are Not Protecting My Son's Rights: a Letter to the President
of Israel's Supreme Court
Bruce Jackson
Jews Like Us
Joe
Allen
My Lai Revisited
Carl Estabrook
Support Our Euphemism
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/18
Website
of the Day
Meet the Victims of War
April
17, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in
the Patriot Missile System
Joanne
Mariner
Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications
for the Pentagon
Issam
Nashashibi
Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman
to Baghdad
Wayne Madsen
Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism
Robert
Fisk
The Army of Occupation
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Virtual Saddam Takes Aim
Biljana
Vankovska
A Personal View of Iraq: Where
is the Truth?
Dan Brook
Oil War: Fueling the Empire
Stanley
Heller
Bomb and Steal: This is What Privatization Looks Like
Tim Robbins
A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation
Harold
A. Gould
Iraq After the War
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/17
Hot Stories
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 24,
2003
Day
Care in the Name of National Security?
About Those
Kids in Camp X-Ray
by DAVE LINDORFF
Word that the Bush Administration's goons down
in Guantanamo Bay have been detaining children under the age
of 16 among the "enemy combatants" that they spirited
out of Afghanistan following the rout of the Taliban suggests
a new strategy for dealing with America's daycare crisis.
We know that as Bush and the conservative
Congress continue to hack away at the nation's already tattered
welfare "safety net," increasing numbers of single
parents are being forced to abandon their small children at home
while they go off to remote minimum-wage jobs or workfare assignments
in an effort to make enough money to feed them.
Day care is not an option for these people.
The federal government has been slashing daycare funding, while
financially strapped states are rushing to exit the child-care
subsidy business.
What's a welfare mother to do?
Bush, the Pentagon and John Ashcroft's
increasingly inappropriately named Justice Department have provided
us with the answer: detention in the name of national security.
All these working mothers and fathers
need to do is get their little offspring to toddle around carrying
small arms (the guns don't have to be loaded, for goodness sake!)
while spouting easily taught phrases like "Allah Akhbar!"
or "Death to America!" and they'll quickly be picked
up and placed in confinement where they'll be watched day and
night and fed regularly.
Alternately, if the parents in question
are undocumented aliens, they might just claim to the Immigration
Department that their kids were born overseas and don't have
proper visas. That would lead to their being taken away and put
in detention, too.
According to Pentagon officials, the
youthful enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo are not being
kept in cages like their elders, so presumably they are being
treated in a manner more  appropriate to their tender
years--probably kept in some locked base rec room with a big-screen
TV set tuned perpetually to the Cartoon Channel or WB.
Since this is pretty much what unlicensed
child care services are doing in low-income neighborhoods anyway,
parents can feel confident that their children are getting at
least as good care in government custody as they would have been
getting in a local child care facility, and at taxpayer expense
instead of their own.
The only drawback I can see to this scheme
is that under Pentagon and Justice Department rules since 9/11,
relatives don't have visitation rights where illegal aliens or
enemy combatants are concerned.
We could work on this, perhaps getting
Congress to amend the rules where minor detainees are involved.
Surely the "family friendly" Republican majority would
see the logic in such a rule change.
If not, at least poor struggling parents
would know that their kids were getting three square meals a
day in government custody.
Dave Lindorff
is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
Today's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
Shaefer
Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
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