Politics

U.S. Soldiers Wait Months To See a Doctor

Mistreating Soldiers and Veterans
Congress recently voted to send $87 billion to Iraq, money that will be used to build everything from roads to power plants to hospitals. Yet while Congress appears ready to rubber-stamp unlimited monies for nation building in Iraq, thousands of our own soldiers at home are languishing with substandard medical care. You may have read about conditions at Fort Stewart, Georgia, where hundreds of injured reserve and National Guard soldiers are housed in deplorable conditions and forced to wait months just to see a doctor.

U.S. Has No Quick Exit Strategy for Iraq
WASHINGTON - U.S. occupiers may begin transferring power back to the Iraqi people at any time, but the speeded-up change in authority doesn't mean American troops will leave the country any sooner, Bush administration officials say. With the U.S. death toll in Iraq approaching 400 and some polls showing increasing criticism of Bush's handling of post-war Iraq, the administration's aim is to accelerate steps toward an Iraqi takeover and an end to the U.S. occupation. "It does not mean we would physically leave the country any sooner," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told troops Thursday in Guam.

U.S. Gunship Kill 7 Muslims
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed a U.S. civilian contractor and injured another north of Baghdad, while an Apache helicopter killed seven people suspected of preparing a rocket attack on a U.S. base near Tikrit, the military said Friday.

Muslim Women Making Political Gains
Thursday marked two years since the fall of the Taliban, who used an extreme interpretation of Islam to force women and girls to stay home and wear the all-encompassing burqa. Two years on, such limitations have been loosened, but have hardly fallen away. The concept of having women vote at women-only elections was intended to get around the obvious difficulties women would otherwise face in being elected to the loya jirga. The constitutional assembly, which will convene Dec. 10, is meant to define what Afghanistan's future government and system of justice will look like, providing an important barometer of true regime change.

Experimental AIDS Vaccine Fails Major Test
An experimental AIDS vaccine tested in Thailand on some 2,500 drug users has failed, the biotechnology company VaxGen Inc. said. The poor results, announced Wednesday, were widely expected after the Brisbane, California-based company announced in February that a much larger experiment testing its vaccine in North America also had failed to prevent AIDS infections.

Deliberations Begin in Muhammad Trial
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Jurors began deciding Friday whether sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad shaped his teenage protege into an expert killer or if there isn't enough evidence to prove he directed the Washington area sniper spree last fall. The panel of seven women and five men filed out of the courtroom at 9:05 a.m. to begin deliberations in Muhammad's capital murder trial.

Posted by Editor at November 14, 2003 10:32 AM