Free Republic

ITHACA--"The bombing of Iraq was a wrong so great, I could no longer stay on the sidewalk," said Elizabeth Dissin '90, a war protester who was arrested on March 22. About 25 protesters were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for disrupting the flow of traffic. The dozen protesters who pled not guilty to the violation argued their case in the Ithaca City Court on Monday and Tuesday, after which the Hon. Judith A. Rossiter reserved decision, giving her up to 60 days to render the verdict. The arrestees, along with about 600 other demonstrators, were participating in a symbolic...

JERUSALEM - A right-wing Knesset member Tuesday accused high-profile Israeli leftists who drafted an unofficial peace plan with the Palestinians of "treason" and demanded they be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. "Those who initiated the Geneva agreement have perpetrated a crime of treason necessitating a death sentence or life imprisonement," Shaul Yahalom, who heads the radical National Religious Party (NRP), wrote in a letter to Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, according to a copy obtained by AFP. The symbolic Geneva peace plan was drawn up last week between Israeli left-wingers, including former justice minister Yossi Beilin, and leading Palestinians such...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

Stolen Computer Search October 14, 2003 — The search goes on for a stolen laptop computer, a computer that contains sensitive information about security at all the commercial airports in the U.S. It happened during an airport security training seminar at the Embassy Suites near Philadelphia International. Police and the FBI have not located that computer nor have they made any arrests. I am told it contains sensitive information about security at the nation's 429 airports. A source tells Action News they do not believe this was the job of a professional who knew what was on the computer, but...

A long-term undercover intelligence operation hangs in the balance as the District of Columbia appeals a circuit court judge's ruling ordering the Metro Police Department to reveal the identities of all undercover officers who have infiltrated and become active in a controversial anti-Bush group. As part of an ongoing intelligence operation, D.C. undercover officers had posed as activists and infiltrated the International Action Center, or IAC, and its affiliates. The officers attended the center's meetings, including those held in members' homes. Some of the officers have been on long-term assignment and continue to operate undercover and provide law-enforcement agencies with...

ITHACA -- The Office of the Provost at Ithaca College and the Peace Studies Program at Cornell University will hold the 2003 Annual Conference of the Regional Peace Studies Consortium from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, at Ithaca College. The focus of the conference is "Dimensions of Human Security: Lessons from Africa and Beyond." Registration is required for the event. Registration and the opening session will be held at Textor Hall.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who accused bureau headquarters of bungling chances to foil the Sept. 11 attacks, is criticizing the Bush administration for "whittling away our civil liberties." In an opinion piece published in today's Star Tribune, Rowley takes issue with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's assertion in a Twin Cities speech last month that America "is freer today than at any time in the history of human freedom." "Well, this American disagrees!" Rowley wrote.

<p>The American Muslim leader charged with smuggling $340,000 out of Libya was suspected of funneling cash from Osama bin Laden to blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in the failed 1993 attempt to blow up New York City landmarks, The Post has learned.</p>

It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: "I have little...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union asked the federal courts Tuesday to prevent the U.S. Secret Service from keeping anti-Bush protesters far away from presidential appearances while allowing supporters to display their messages up close.</p> <p>The civil liberties group filed the lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania on behalf of four advocacy organizations that claimed that the Secret Service forced them into protest zones or other areas where they could not be seen by President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or be noticed by the media covering their visits.</p>

Yuri Gottesman spent his summer volunteering in Israel this year, but instead of picking oranges on a kibbutz, he slept in a terrorist’s house that was scheduled for demolition and cleared roadblocks that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had set up to hinder the passage of terrorists. "I decided that I really needed to be in Palestine in solidarity with the Palestinians," said the 24-year-old Jewish San Franciscan of his reasons for going to Israel. Gottesman is a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a motley group of activists from around the world that converge in the West Bank...

ITHACA--The University calls them the 'Superclass of 1956.' And for their 40th reunion in 2001, they offered a legacy to the University that would confirm their reputation as one of Cornell's most generous alumni classes. The Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professorship -- supported by an unprecedented $5 million endowment for a single chair -- was created to honor Cornell's ninth President and as a gift to undergraduates. But the president of the Class of '56, Ernie Stern, could not have predicted that a ribbon-wrapped present would result in the backlash against the 2003 appointments of former Congresswoman Cynthia...

For months, I have struggled with a hypothetical question, a thought experiment if you will: If the enemies of the United States, such as Al Qaeda, had a political wing in the US Congress, how would their votes differ from those cast by the most liberal group in the House, namely, the Congressional Black Caucus, who are all members of the Democrat party? After great reflection and research, I have reached a sobering conclusion: in matters of the military, there would not be any significant difference between the aggregate voting record of the CBC and that of the hypothetical political...

ITHACA--As the sun set on the Ithaca Commons yesterday, the strumming of author Rich Zubaty's guitar floated in front of See Spot Community Arts Space, accompanying lyrics such as "There was a president lying to me" and "We want our country back." While Zubaty was merely part of a three-person group singing his song "Impeach Bush Blues," over 30 individuals came to his organized teach-in and later echoed similar views supporting the removal of America's president. According to Zubaty, the teach-in was organized a couple of months in advance with friend and muralist Daniel Burgevin. Zubaty, who considers himself "nomadic,"...

ITHACA -- A live recording and videotaping of the song "Peace Song" will occur from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11 at the Autumn Leaves Book Store on The Commons downtown. All are invited to come and sing along with with Amy Glicklich, Sim Redmond, Trevor McDonald, Art Godin, Out Loud Chorus, and many more area musicians. Musicians and poet Michelle Berry will be performing original work then coming together with the entire community at 7:30 p.m. for the recording of 'Peace Song' -- an original composition by Ithacan Robert Anthony Hubbell. Recorded songs from this event will be submitted to...

It is sad yet stirring to say. With a realist's melancholy sense of the human cost of things, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is saying it: Part of the good news out of Iraq -- good news obscured by recent bad news, and sometimes mistaken for unalloyed bad news -- is that the deaths, including of 62 Americans, caused by hostile action in Iraq since major combat operations ended include the deaths of almost 50 Iraqis. They died, Wolfowitz says, as exemplary pioneers of Iraq's progress up from tyranny, while working with coalition forces to secure public order and...

<p>ITHACA -- Ithaca may soon welcome a second Green Party presidential candidate into its midst.</p> <p>Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was ousted from her seat in Congress in 2002 and is known for her outspoken liberal views, accepted a Frank H.T. Rhodes visiting professor position at Cornell University earlier this summer.</p>

<p>Now that we know there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that the Bush administration fabricated a number of excuses for attacking and subsequently occupying that country, it might be interested to recall the Vietnam debacle.</p> <p>How did we wind up fighting a full-scale war in Vietnam? Because our elected representatives, with only two dissenting votes, passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 giving Lyndon Baines Johnson extended powers to fight a war without a formal declaration from Congress.</p>

<p>ITHACA -- Four defendants were arraigned in Tompkins County Court Monday for using blood to destroy items as they refused to leave the military recruiter's office at the Cayuga Mall.</p> <p>Daniel Burns, Teresa B. Grady, Peter Demott, and Clare Grady represented themselves before Judge M. John Sherman as they were formally arraigned on charges of third-degree criminal mischief.</p>

<p>ITHACA -- The extent of the resulting damage and the use of blood at a protest will lead to four demonstrators being tried in Tompkins County Court.</p> <p>The grand jury handed up the indictment for Daniel Burns, 42, Peter DeMott, 56, Teresa Grady, 37, and Clare Grady, 44, on July 1 on the charge of second-degree criminal mischief.</p>