by Rose Moss

A lifetime ago, I emigrated to America, became a citizen and, like millions of others, wept and cheered at our love and courage on Sept. 11. I have come to love the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the history of Americans who have given their lives that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth. Throughout the world, people know what America stands for, the principles that lie at the heart of our democracy, prosperity, and allure.

Heartsore and fearful, I am grieving for what has happened to America. I came to this country shortly after the apartheid government authorized the minister of justice or subordinates to detain anyone suspected of guilt or innocent knowledge of something implying someone else's guilt for crimes like terrorism. The detained could be kept for 90 days, infinitely renewable this side of eternity. The detained had no right to see a lawyer, doctor, minister or family.

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Dire Threats Emanating from Washington Have Horrified America's Allies
by Eric Margolis

Crusades are messy, bloody affairs, and it's often hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Exhibit A: Afghanistan, where the United States just suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the wily Russians. Happily for the White House, neither the media nor the American public understand what just happened. They continue to cheer on the president, who is mighty thankful he is leading a jolly little war against Muslims instead of having to explain to voters why the economy is nose-diving and hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs.

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by Marleen S. Barr

BACK BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks supposedly changed everything, the Bush administration deemed a July 14 missile-defense test over the Pacific Ocean a success, even though the impact of the "kill vehicle's" direct hit of a dummy missile was not all it was cracked up to be. The Los Angeles Times later revealed that the prototype radar used to measure the collision between the interceptor and a mock warhead had malfunctioned.

Uncertainty characterizes future tests as well. "It's not clear we know how we're going to do that," said Robert Snyder, the executive director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, when describing a test scheduled for 2005 or 2006 that would involve deploying a space laser and firing it back at a target in the Earth's atmosphere.

Yet the $329-billion fiscal 2002 defense budget includes appropriations for a space-based laser targeted at missiles in their boost phase three to five minutes after launch, and George W. Bush continues to make a missile shield the centerpiece of his defense policy - although, as we are all aware, the Sept. 11 attacks had nothing to do with intercontinental ballistic missiles. And well before weaponized domestic planes fell from the sky, a missile shield was being looked at skeptically by many scientists and even some Pentagon officials.

Why is so much money and energy being spent on wild and crazy - and even science fictional - technological schemes?

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by Anthony Lewis

BOSTON -- It is the broadest move in American history to sweep aside constitutional protections. Yet President Bush's order creating military tribunals to try those suspected of links to terrorism has aroused little public uproar. Why? Because, I am convinced, people do not understand the order's dangerous breadth — and its defenders have done their best to conceal its true character.

The order is described as if it is aimed only at Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders. A former deputy attorney general, George J. Terwilliger III, said the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks "don't deserve constitutional protection."

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