Last week, for example, Bush confessed publicly to a conspiracy--with his fanatical Attorney General John Ashcroft--to steal more of our civil rights and liberties. His "three-point presidential plan" to add more police-state measures to the USA PATRIOT Act would allow government agents to be demand information and cooperation without a judge's subpoena, impose new restrictions on bail for terrorism suspects, and--true to form for the former Texecutioner--expand the death penalty.

This is supposed to make us "safer." Someone should ask Ahamad Kutty if he feels "safe." One of Canada's leading Muslim clerics, Kutty was pulled off a plane to Florida last week by U.S. immigration officials--and thrown behind bars for almost 24 hours.

Kutty was traveling to Florida to give lectures on, among other things, his opposition to Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. But to Washington's witch-hunters, he--like the thousands of Arabs and Muslims rounded up by the Feds since September 11--was a "risk to national security."

Then there's the murder and mayhem in Iraq--masterminded by Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon brass. Five months after Saddam Hussein's government fell, conditions for ordinary Iraqis are worse than ever--with food, electricity, clean water and other necessities all in short supply.

And new atrocities by U.S. forces--like the massacre of 10 Iraqi police officers and security guards in Fallujah--seem to take place every other day. British journalist Robert Fisk estimates that the occupation-related death toll in Iraq today--from the chaos and banditry, the breakdown of the country's infrastructure, shootings by occupation forces and other causes--may be as high as 1,000 people killed each week.

And for this, George Bush wants $87 billion to pay for the occupation next year. That money will be looted from government programs that benefit working people in the U.S. But across the country, more and more people aren't buying Washington's frauds.

Ashcroft's "Victory Tour" to celebrate his anti-Arab witch-hunt was met by thousands of protesters. The families of military personnel--even active-duty soldiers themselves--are giving voice to their bitterness at the cost they are ordered to bear for an occupation carried out in the interests of oil and empire.

Bush's once sky-high approval ratings have plunged, and some 60 percent of people tell pollsters that they oppose the White House's demand for the $87 billion. Now is the time to build the opposition to the Bush gang and their many crimes--at home and abroad!

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