Freeze Frame

Fans of the TV series "Crime Scene Investigation" understand the importance of scientific evidence in solving crimes. Witness statements, along with forensic evidence found at the crime scene, are used to build a case against one or more suspects and to eliminate others as possible suspects. The most important crime scene in the world today is Iraq, where the United States launched a war of occupation against a sovereign nation in violation of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to an October 2004 study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the onset of the war in March 2003. The study, which does not include the more recent fatalities in Falluja, found that 95 percent of the 100,000 civilian deaths are due to air strikes and artillery. The prime suspects in this illegal war of occupation are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin P

It appears that USA voters have chosen the warmongering buffoon over the windsurfing intellectual. Ralph Nader was right all along. It should come as no surprise to progressives that Kerry failed to differentiate himself politically from Bush or to go after Bush. In the months leading up to the Iraq war, the Bush administration lied to the American people and to Congress about the reasons for going to war. Bush committed impeachable acts, yet Kerry failed to grow a spine and go after him on this. Kerry correctly said that Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time, but he -- like Bush -- said that the troops must "stay the course" and somehow "win" the occupation of Iraq. More than 1,100 US troops and 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died because of Bush's illegal war, yet Kerry -- again, like Bush -- had no definitive plan or timeline to bring the troops home. Another fatal mistake that Kerry made was his failure to promote single payer health care for all

On November 3, 2004, all citizens who care about democracy in the United States must get to work for electoral reform. The United States, with its two-party monopoly on political discourse and its disproportional representation, has one of the most backward, antiquated democracies in the industrialized world. The first step in electoral reform is voter registration. This should be a simple, convenient process. All states must pass same-day registration laws so that citizens are able to register and vote on election day. Second, states must remove all ballot access obstructions -- such as signature gathering and percentage systems -- for third parties. The present system is set up by the Democratic and Republican parties to keep third parties out of the electoral process, but smaller parties should be valued and welcomed as part of the democratic process. Third, abolish the electoral college so that citizens can directly decide, by popular vote, who our president and vice

With the general election less than two weeks away, I find it unbelievable that Republicans still tolerate Bush's lies. Even those who claim to have "Christian values" turn a blind eye to his lies and convince themselves that he has their best interests at heart, that he can keep them safe from terrorism. But a Bush victory in November would give the president a mandate to continue his policy of preemptive war, to continue corporate welfare through tax cuts, to further erode the First Amendment rights of individuals, to privatize Social Security, and to cut even more funding from social services. In spite of his campaign promises to the contrary, we can expect an attempt to, slowly but surely, reinstitute the military draft. We can also expect an attempt to alter the Twenty-Second Amendment (term limits for the presidency) so that he may run again in 2008. A continuation of Bush's policies will lead to a rapid erosion of the American standard of living. Unemp

The real losers in last night's debate were the American people. If you believe in the two-party system, sure, Kerry gained strength as a rich intellectual and Bush came off as a spoiled (some would say retarded) child of the Bush crime dynasty. We would have been better served by a larger field of candidates. At the very least, Ralph Nader should have been included in the debate in order to widen the area of discussion beyond two-party politics. I am not a Kerry supporter, but I will likely be a Kerry voter because I have had all I can stand of Bush. Because Kerry is more intelligent, there is a better chance that he will be more reasonable. He did say that his goal is to build international alliances rather than take a unilateral approach and I do agree with this. Of course, we all know that corporate America makes the real decisions and that they want a president who can best advance their interests and increase their profits. The after-debate spin room was a disgusting