A Bed of Tragedies

The cause of death of the 5-month-old boy remains a mystery to his family.

But the tragedy shouldn’t be a surprise to some city officials.

Because 43 babies have died in our city in the last 17 months while sleeping with other people.

And, unfathomable as it sounds, at least two city agencies knew about the disturbing trend and failed to bring it to public attention.

Daily News: Jill Porter: 09-10-2004

It’s Worse Than You Think

cite="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/">For U.S.
troops in Iraq, one especially sore point is the stateside public’s
obsession with the candidates’ decades-old military service. “Stop
talking about Vietnam,” says one U.S. official who has spent time in
the Sunni Triangle. “People should be debating this war, not that
one.” His point was not that America ought to walk away from Iraq.
Hardly any U.S. personnel would call that a sane suggestion. But
there’s widespread agreement that Washington needs to rethink its
objectives, and quickly. “We’re dealing with a population that hovers
between bare tolerance and outright hostility,” says a senior U.S.
diplomat in Baghdad. “This idea of a functioning democracy here is
crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty,
but all hell is breaking loose.

MSNBC:
09-12-2004

Preventive War: A Failed Doctrine

If facts mattered in American politics, the Bush-Cheney ticket would not be basing its re-election campaign on the fear-mongering contention that the surest defense against future terrorist attacks lies in the badly discredited doctrine of preventive war. Vice President Dick Cheney took this argument to a disgraceful low last week when he implied that electing John Kerry and returning to traditional American foreign policy values would invite a devastating new strike.

So far, the preventive war doctrine has had one real test: the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush terrified millions of Americans into believing that forcibly changing the regime in Baghdad was the only way to keep Iraq’s supposed stockpiles of unconventional weapons out of the hands of Al Qaeda. Then it turned out that there were no stockpiles and no operational links between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda’s anti-American terrorism.

NYTimes: 09-12-2004