THIS WEEK'S PROGRAM

• Thousands of Iraqis Killed
  During War Contributes
  Toward Resistance Against U.S. Occupation
  For story text and audio, Click here!

• A Majority of Americans Favor
  Government-Run Universal
  Health Care System
  For story text and audio, Click here!

• Environmentalists Charge Legislation
  to Prevent Forest Fires is a Gift
  to the Logging Industry
  For story text and audio, Click here!

• Underreported News Summary
  from Around the World
  For full summary and audio, Click here!

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The Nov. 2nd shooting down of an American transport helicopter in Iraq, which killed 16 and wounded 20 soldiers, was the most deadly attack on U.S. forces since President Bush's military invasion of Iraq last March. The assault on the helicopter, carried out with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, is just the latest evidence of an escalating guerrilla war being waged against America's occupation army.

But despite a campaign carried out by the White House to emphasize all that's positive in occupied Iraq and the Pentagon's dismissal of guerrilla attacks as, "strategically and operationally insignificant," there is growing concern among the American people and the diminished prospects of foreign military assistance.

While the increasing number of U.S. soldiers killed and injured in Iraq are duly covered by the nation's media outlets, the press has paid little or no attention to the cost of the U.S. war on Iraqi soldiers and civilians. A new independent report released by the Project on Defense Alternatives in late October estimates that 13,000 Iraqis were killed during the initial combat phase of the ongoing war in Iraq. The study found that between 3,200 and 4,300 of the dead were unarmed civilians. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Carl Conetta, co-director at the Project on Defense Alternatives, who summarizes his group's report and explains why he believes it is important for U.S. policymakers to consider how the war's death toll among Iraqis contributes to the armed resistance confronting the American occupation.

Contact the Project on Defense Alternatives by calling (617) 547-4474 or visit their website at www.comw.org/pda

Related links:

• American Headquarters Bombed in Iraq: "U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq as Violence Continues," by Terence Neilan, New York Times, Nov. 4, 2003
• "The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict," by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #8, Oct. 20, 2003
• www.iraqbodycount.net
• "Will U.S. Bring Back the Draft? Defense Web Site Seeks Volunteers; Conscription Abolished in '73 by Tim Harpe, the Toronto Star, Nov. 5, 2003
• "How Many Body Bags?" by Robert Scheer, the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 2003
• "Deadly Tunnel Vision in Iraq," by Holly Sklar, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, Oct. 31, 2003
• "Helicopter Down: The Weekend Deaths in Iraq-and the Pentagon's Response-Remind One Former CIA Analyst of Vietnam," by Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com, Nov. 3, 2003
• "Progress in Iraq? Shot Down, Killed, Wounded, Depressed," by Frida Berrigan, Nov. 4, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
• "Escalation of Guerrilla Attacks on U.S. Occupation Force in Iraq Shakes White House Confidence," Between The Lines interview with Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies, Week Ending 11/7/03

A Majority of Americans Favor
Government-Run Universal
Health Care System

Insurance companies and
politicians resist change
Interview with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler,
co-founder of Physicians
for a National Health Program,
conducted by Scott Harris

With an estimated 43 million Americans without health insurance and sharply rising costs each year, there is a new openness to undertake fundamental changes in the nation's healthcare system. In September, 10,000 doctors publicly endorsed the creation of a government-run, single-payer health care program in the pages of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. And in a Washington Post-ABC News poll released in October a majority of Americans, by a 2 to 1 margin, now prefer the establishment of a new universal national health insurance system over the current privatized healthcare structure.

The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't provide its citizens universal healthcare coverage. But despite growing dissatisfaction with the current system and skyrocketing costs for health care and prescription drugs, politicians at the state and national level seem unwilling to challenge the current system, where big insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers have considerable power to influence the debate through lobbying and campaign contributions.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, who explains why she believes there has been a shift in public opinion regarding universal health care and the political environment that hinders fundamental reform.

To contact Physicians for a National Health Program, call (312) 782-6006 or visit their website at www.pnhp.org

Related links:

• "Health Care Pains: Growing Health Care Concerns Fuel Cautious Support for Change," By Gary Langer, ABC News, Oct. 20, 2003

Environmentalists Charge Legislation
to Prevent Forest Fires is a Gift
to the Logging Industry

Interview with Sean Cosgrove,
of the Sierra Club,
conducted by Melinda Tuhus

As wildfires raged across southern California, the U.S. Senate passed a forestry bill in late October that would relax environmental regulations and limit judicial review on tree-thinning projects on 20 million acres of federal lands. Thus far, the fires have claimed the lives of 20 people, burned more than 700,000 acres -- an area the size of Rhode Island -- and destroyed 3,500 homes.

Supporters of the bill say its provisions will both protect old growth forests and help prevent a recurrence of the devastation to people and property caused by this year's inferno. Up to half the $760 million authorized in the legislation could be spent on federal lands near communities most at risk.

Environmentalists agree on the need to thin underbrush and small trees to help prevent wildfires, but they fear the legislation amounts to a gift to the lumber industry. Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Sean Cosgrove, the Sierra Club's national forest policy specialist, about why his organization opposes forest initiatives put forward by both Congress and the Bush administration, and about alternative policies that his organization maintains would actually protect both forest communities and old growth forests.

For more information on pending forest legislation call the Sierra Club at (202) 547-1141 or visit their website at www.sierraclub.org.

Related links

• "Forest Protection & Restoration campaign," The Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org
• "Wildfires 101: What you should know about wildfires," The Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org
• "Debunking the "Healthy Forests Initiative," The Sierra Club, www.sierraclub.org
• "Trial By Fire" by Marc Ash, truthout.org/Perspective, Nov. 4 2003

This week's summary
of under-reported news

Compiled by Bob Nixon and Brita Brundage

• Advocates for the poor assert that global poverty has been exacerbated by free trade economic policies. ("Global trade keeps a billion children in poverty," The Independent, Oct. 22, 2003)
• Officials at Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, desperately trying to deflect criticism and spin public opinion in their favor. ("Internal Email Reveals Halliburton's Strategy to Combat Accusations of Overcharging the Government," The Daily Mislead, (www.mislead.org), Oct. 24, 2003)
• National Park Service may be a victim of a sweeping Bush administration initiative to privatize 20,000 park service jobs. ("Pink Slips in the Parks," The Sierra Club, September/October 2003.)
  

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Credits:
Senior news editor: Bob Nixon
News editor: Brita Brundage
Program narration: Denise Manzari
News reader: Sasha Summer Cousineau
Segment Producer: Melinda Tuhus
Distribution: Anna Manzo, Harry Minot, Jeff Yates
Senior Web editor/producer: Anna Manzo
Web producer: Jeff Yates
Web editors: Hank Hoffman and Bill Cosentino
Executive producer: Scott Harris
Theme music: Mikata

Last Week's Program

Between The Lines Week Ending 11/7/03

Bush Re-Election Issues

"Corps Voters: Military Bond With GOP May Be Fraying" Washington Monthly, Nov., 2003

"Will U.S. Bring Back the Draft? the Toronto Star, Nov. 5, 2003

"File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech: Voting Machine Giant Diebold Seeks To Silence Critics," The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2003

"Bush's Other War: US Intelligence is Being Scapegoated for Getting It Right on Iraq," Guardian/UK, Nov. 1, 2003

"9/11 Commission Chairman: White House Withholding 9/11 Documents" Reuters, Oct. 26, 2003

"State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq," New York Times, Oct. 19, 2003

"Daniel Ellsberg: Nixon-Era Informer Zooms In On Present,Salt Lake Tribune (Utah), Oct. 19, 2003

American Empire/War Profiteering

"Breaking Iraq, Then Charging to Fix It Up?" Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 1, 2003

"Halliburton Announces Record Profits While Administration Continues to Rebuff Congressional Oversight," The Daily Mislead, www.misleader.org, Oct. 31, 2003

"The Axis of Oil: How a Plan for the World's Biggest Pipeline Threatens to Wreak Havoc," The Independent UK, Oct. 28, 2003

"Scott Ritter: The Iraq War and The Bush Administration's Pursuit of Global Domination," Counterpoint, Sept. 15, 2003

"Pipeline Politics: Oil, The Taliban, and the Political Balance of Central Asia," World Press Review Special Report, Nov.-Dec. 2001

"War Profiteering," by The Nation editors, April 24, 2003

"Postwar" Occupation of Iraq

"Iraq & Vietnam: Whose Analogy Is This Anyway?" TomDispatch.com, Nov. 10, 2003

"Resistance is the First Step Towards Iraqi Independence," Guardian/UK, Nov. 3, 2003

"Every Time The Wind Blows: Arrogant U.S. Tactics Create Enemies," Asia Times, Oct. 29, 2003

"Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog From Iraq"

Civil Liberties

"Gore Blasts Bush on Civil Liberties," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, 2003

"Greenpeace Charges Ashcroft, Miami Authorities Endanger Free Speech Rights," CommonDreams.org, Oct. 30, 2003

"Bush Denies Torture at Guantanamo," Le Nouvel Observateur, Oct. 19, 2003

"Fascism Anyone?" 14 Signs of Fascism, Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 23, No. 2

"Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism," The Crisis Papers, June 9, 2003

Media And Activism

"Mainstreaming Media Reform," Mediachannel.org, Nov. 5, 2003

"The Politics Of Media Filtration," ZNet, Nov. 1, 2003

Other Articles of Interest

"Starhawk: Protest the FTAA in Miami," ZNet, Oct. 29, 2003

"Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths: Unearthed Documents Reveal Vietnam War Atrocity," Toledo Blade, Oct. 22, 2003

Multi-Ethnic Issues Advocacy

Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson's Commentaries, The Hutchinson Report
and in Audio (needs RealPlayer)