Free Republic

An organization called Global Exchange, based in San Francisco, promotes political tourism to Venezuela, defined in its brochure as a country where "winds of change are blowing." The introduction to the sales pitch is full of praise for the strongman Hugo Chávez, while all references and links recommended to those who might be interested are those known to be shameless propaganda appendices of the Venezuelan regime: Venezuelanalysis.com, VHeadline.com and such. Chávez's agenda, reads the brochure: "includes fighting corruption, redistributing national wealth and opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas." My laughing aloud gave way to indignation when the brochure...

Rest easy, Boone County voters, the Canadians are here to save the day. It’s a relief, eh? Canada’s former minister of communication, David MacDonald, sat in the Boone County Public Library yesterday to let us know that he and others are watching our election today to make sure there is no repeat of the 2000 fiasco marked by Florida’s hanging chads and a presidency decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. "It’s important that Americans from coast to coast … believe it was fair," MacDonald says of today’s vote. To that end, MacDonald and South Africa’s Norman du Plessis will be...

WASHINGTON -- It may come as a surprise to American voters, but two international groups will be observing the fairness of our Nov. 2 elections. Does this have anything to do with the 2000 election fiasco? You bet. Global Exchange, an international human rights organization based in San Francisco, has gathered civic leaders, parliamentarians, diplomats and journalists from 15 countries to monitor elections in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri. Jason Mark, Global Exchange's communications director, said the organization has observed elections in several countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is financed by private donations. Mark said the...

Excerpt from FR thread on the Global Exchange (see comment): In what is believed to be the first mission of its kind, Global Exchange- an international human-rights organization in San Francisco that sponsors independent election monitoring overseas - has invited 20 of these "skilled election observers" to America to investigate "red-flag issues" in our electoral processes.

They have lobbied in the halls of Congress wearing pig costumes and wandered the streets of Manhattan dressed in evening wear and rags. But the three founders of the women's antiwar group Codepink are seasoned advocates who may have pulled off the protest coup of the convention: While thousands of demonstrators chanted on the streets, drawing only glancing attention from the Republicans, their members were inside Madison Square Garden night after night, unfurling banners and baring slogans, forcing even the president to take notice. ''We don't want just to be outside on the street talking to ourselves,'' said Medea Benjamin,...

I never thought I’d be saying this, but Dr. Phil is my new hero. Although I’m not a talk show fan, on a personal level, I’ve always appreciated his frankness and down-to-earth manners, but up until now, I was unaware of his political views. Well, after Friday’s (4/4) show, I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Phil is on the right side of the fence. I was dreading another depressing panel discussion on Washington Week in Review, so I flipped the channel and just happened to run across a preview for the Dr. Phil show. U.S. military uniforms caught...

<p>LOS ANGELES — Clad in white peace bibs, an American watchdog group called Global Exchange (search) tours schools and hospitals in Baghdad, chronicling what they claim is a U.S.-led occupation and arguing for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.</p> <p>But thousands of miles away, mothers like Barbie Aston offer a different perspective. They are part of a congressionally chartered, non-profit military support group called Blue Star Mothers (search). Aston, whose son Matt recently earned a two-week leave from Tikrit, said Global Exchange offers "leftists tours" of Iraq.</p>

<p>Sean Penn went to Iraq a year ago not as an actor, but as a father, a husband and an American. He made the visit, from Dec. 13 to 15, 2002, to learn about the American-Iraqi conflict from the people who were living through it. A year later, the week before Saddam Hussein was captured, Penn returned to Iraq to find out how life had changed after the American invasion. What follows is his account of what he saw. .</p>

Tonight at 9:30 p.m., C-SPAN2 presents a press conference by some military families who went on a tour of Iraq last week that was orchestrated by Medea Benjamin.I attended the press conference today. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl. I did.

If Howard Dean is the increasingly the voice of Democrats in America today, activist Jodie Evans is the face of the Democrats' future. A radical activist and Democratic fund-raiser, she mirrors the Party's core on its three most important issues: hating President Bush, denouncing the war and engineering the L.A. Times' last-minute sexual harassment accusations against Arnold Schwarzenegger during the California recall election. Evans rose to prominence via her role in Code Pink for Peace, a self-described “grassroots peace and social justice movement” formed just one year ago to organize public protests against America’s impending war in Iraq. Though its...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - A peace activist accused the U.S. military on Friday of depriving her of the chance to visit her soldier daughter, telling her that the truck driver was on a mission. But Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit, said he was trying to organize a meeting for Saturday. Anabel Valencia said she had informed U.S. military officials that she would be at the gates of the base at noon to see 24-year-old Giselle. She arrived only to discover that her daughter had been sent on a mission to Baghdad. "I...

------------------------------------------------------------------------  Saturday, 29 November 2003 Tucson mom heads to Iraq Anabelle Valencia, whose son, Chuveny, and daughter, Giselle, are serving in Iraq, will join nine others who have come to oppose the U.S. presence there. Group taking friendship, doubts By Bob Purvis ARIZONA DAILY STAR Tucson parents Anabelle and Jesús Valencia sat next to each other in the living room of their South Side home Friday afternoon, quietly sifting through the cards and letters sent to them by a son and daughter stationed in Iraq. Until now the Valencias have depended on the letters - along with increasingly grim media...

Pentagon warned families not to go ESCONDIDO, CA – An Escondido man who lost his only son during the invasion of Iraq is leading a delegation of U.S. military families there this weekend despite warnings from the Pentagon not to go because of escalating violence. Fernando Suarez del Solar said yesterday that nothing would stop him from going to Iraq and spreading his message of peace. If any of the 10 delegates traveling to Iraq are hurt, Suarez del Solar said, he will hold the Bush administration and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, accountable....

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Relatives of US troops based in Iraq and a number of ex-combattants will travel to Iraq this weekend to express concerns at US operations there, the organization arranging the visit announced. "I know it is very risky to go to Iraq right now, but I feel compelled to go there," said Annabelle Valencia of Tucson, Arizona, a mother selected by organizers Global Exchange to take part in the delegation. "I want to see my son and daughter and talk to the other troops. I want to talk to the Iraqi people, especially the women. And I want...

<p>WASHINGTON - As we prepare to watch President George Bush give his State of the Union address on Tuesday, we think back to Jan. 18 when Saddam's surrogates were in town protesting any use of force against Iraq.</p> <p>In scenes reminiscent of the anti-draft, peace-at-any-price days of Vietnam, some 70,000 demonstrators rallied, marched and orated in Washington and as many again were doing the same in San Francisco. There were smaller efforts in other American cities, along with shows of even greater anti-American enthusiasm surging in some foreign capitals.</p>

Churches help rebuild Afghan mosque By Art Moore © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com American churches are raising funds to help rebuild a mosque damaged by U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. Bishop Mark Sisk of the Episcopal diocese of New York initiated the idea as part of a "Ground Zero to Ground Zero" relationship "of innocents caught in the storm of international war," according to his newsletter. The Qarabagh District Mosque, located in the village of Estalif, 40 miles north of Kabul, was hit last fall after the Taliban occupied it for use as a military base, according to local residents. The villagers said...

KABUL -- Victims of the ongoing U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul Wednesday to demand compensation for their losses. Among the victims were 21-year-old Aziz Ullah, whose left leg was sliced off by a piece of flying shrapnel, and 34-year-old Abdul Bashir, who lost "my beautiful daughter" when a bomb exploded near where she was playing in the street in October. Orfa Abdulahmad, meanwhile, tearfully told reporters how she had lost eight members of her family when her home was hit by a wayward bomb soon after the air raids began on October 7, ...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm's-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians. On-site reviews of 11 locations where airstrikes killed as many as 400 civilians suggest that American commanders have sometimes relied on mistaken information from local Afghans. Also, the Americans' preference for airstrikes instead of riskier ground operations has cut off a way of checking the accuracy of the intelligence.