A year ago, President Bush boldly said: “Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation and neither does America.” Yet Congress is posed to finalize the president’s $82 billion request for the Iraq war that includes a half-billion dollars for permanent military bases and another half-billion for building the world’s largest embassy. Despite the president’s assurances, the United States is preparing for a lengthy stay in Iraq.
The federal budget “process”-that sausage making you don’t want to see up close-is well underway. Providing for the common defense is job one, both constitutionally speaking and in the security-conscious minds of post-9/11 Americans. So when in the process did the broad discussion take place on how best to do that job? The answer is, it didn’t.
Like other Americans, Floridians might want to ask their elected representatives to explain where we’re headed in Iraq. The Iraq war has been poorly planned and badly executed from the start. And the costs and consequences have been devastating.
In her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserted that the Western Hemisphere is “extremely critical” to the United States.
Good Friday brings Christians once again to the darkest day of the year, the torture and death of Jesus.
Twenty-five years ago, on March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot down while celebrating Mass in San Salvador. In the years before his murder, Romero had emerged as an outspoken defender of the Salvadoran poor, making him one of the best-known embodiments of the liberation theology that was infusing new life into the Catholic Church in Latin America in the ’70s and ’80s.
Opinion Piece Why Wolfowitz? Jim Vallette Tompaine.com March 17, 2005
President George W. Bush has now asked Congress and the U.S. taxpayers for the fourth time in two years for more money to fight the Iraq War. This time the request is for $82 billion, the highest amount asked for so far. But more striking than the dollar amount is that Mr. Bush, for the fourth time, has failed to present a strategy for success in Iraq.
Polls in recent weeks show a full 59 percent of Americans are now in favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But they’re not acting on this view, in part because they worry about the potential for even greater chaos following a U.S. exit.
Opinion Piece Dealing with the Powers in PyongyangJohn Feffer Ft. Worth Star-Telegram February 16, 2005