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May 16, 2003 | Issue 453
FRONT AND BACK PAGES
Halliburton loots Iraq
The great oil robbery
Iraq is about to become a giant filling station for U.S. oil companies. And look who's manning the pumps--Vice President Dick Cheney's old friends at oil giant Halliburton.
Veterans denied health care
Cruel cost of Bush's tax cuts
Two and a half years ago, Ernesto Tafoya turned to the Veterans Administration to treat his hearing loss and a painful back condition. He's still waiting for an appointment today.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Occupation and resistance
Who will decide Iraq's future?
A month has passed since the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime, and the ugly face of U.S. occupation is clearer than ever.
Should we support a UN occupation?
Some activists believe that the antiwar movement should support an impartial, international force like the United Nations to carry out "nation building" in Iraq. But the UN's record shows that it is neither impartial nor successful at peacekeeping or nation building.
Spring 1963: The battle for civil rights in Birmingham
Freedom now!
Forty years ago, the back of Jim Crow began to break when civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. set their sights on desegregating the southern city of Birmingham, Ala., the citadel of Southern racist power.
WHAT WE THINK
U.S. government rivals fall out over who will control Iraq
America's imperial bosses
Iraq is in turmoil as competing factions maneuver to grab top positions in the occupation government. And the power-hungry rivals aren't Iraqis, but operatives for the Pentagon and the State Department.
The lesser evil is still an evil
Almost a year before the first presidential primaries and 18 months before the election itself, the call has already gone out for an "anybody but Bush" vote for the Democratic candidate for president.
NATIONAL NEWS
Democratic presidential hopefuls are a sorry bunch
Return of GOP Lite
How can the Democrats beat George W. Bush in 2004? Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) thinks that the answer is to sound more like Republicans than the Republicans--and most leading Democrats seem to agree with him.
Detained Iraqi scientist exposed use of DU
Framed by the Pentagon?
There's a reason for the arrest of Iraqi scientist Huda Ammash that the U.S. government won't talk about. Ammash was the main Iraqi scientist to document the toxic effects of depleted uranium weapons used by U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf War.
A high-rolling ideologue
Mr. Virtue's vice
Right-winger William Bennett, the holier-than-thou commentator and author of numerous "family values" books, was exposed last week for having gambled away millions of dollars.
Broken promises on fighting AIDS
Right-wing hacks in Congress are trying to make Bush's promise to spend $15 billion on fighting the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa mean even less than it already does.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
IRAQ
U.S. to seize TV station
Controlling the media in the "new Iraq"
A U.S. Army officer stationed in Iraq was relieved of duty last week when she refused an order to seize the only TV station in the city of Mosul.
NORTH KOREA
Stumbling toward a catastrophic war
Bush steps up the pressure
Flushed with the military success of the war on Iraq, George W. Bush is renewing his threats against North Korea.
CUBA
What's behind Cuba's crackdown?
An intense controversy has developed over what attitude the left should take to Cuba's recent crackdown on dissidents and the execution of three hijackers.
COLUMNS
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
The resegregation of U.S. schools
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to deliver another--perhaps fatal--blow to affirmative action. But the Bush administration is already pursuing the next target in its mission to destroy the gains of the civil rights movement.
THE MEANING OF MARXISM
Bringing back the old days of empire
The idea that the United States should cast itself in the image of the old colonial empires is sprouting like weeds from right-wing journals and think tanks.
ON THE PICKET LINE
Airline union concessions hit more than $30 billion
Can givebacks be stopped?
After extracting tens of billions of dollars in concessions from unions, airline executives are out to permanently break the power of organized labor in the industry.
CWA gets ready for fight at Verizon
With their current contract set to expire August 2, workers at Verizon in New York City are setting up lunch break pickets every Thursday to fight for a new contract.
Labor in brief
Azteca Foods; Los Angeles hospitals; University of California labor solidarity
REPORTS FROM THE STRUGGLE
Kent State police brutality
Thirty-three years after National Guardsmen opened fire on Vietnam antiwar protesters, police are still handing out repression at Kent State University.
Reports from the struggle
Defend Palestinian rights; Fighting racism at New York University; Defend civil liberties
SW READERS SPEAK OUT
Chicago cops' brutality caught on videotape
"Everybody's terrorized"
The Chicago Police Department has been in the news for its brutality at the Cabrini-Green housing project--not because the abuse is new, but because a resident caught it on videotape.
NYC transit bosses caught cooking the books
Reports released a few weeks ago by city and state comptrollers revealed Enron-style accounting on the part of the New York City transit bosses.
Other letters
Media misinformation; Getting shafted at Taco Bell; The insanity of the death penalty; There's no free speech at CBS; The war on Iraq isn't over; Slap in the face to Native Americans
REVIEWS
A soldier's memories of the first Gulf War
A grunt's-eye view of war
Anthony Swofford's memoir Jarhead is a hard read at times, but worth picking up because the voices of working-class soldiers need to be heard.
The music that fought racist apartheid
The documentary Amandla! documents the South African people's struggle against apartheid, told through the movement's music.
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