Five from truthout:

Monday 02 May 2011
Robert Naiman | The War Is Over. Start Packing!
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "We got our man. Wave the flag, kiss a nurse (or a sailor) and start packing the equipment. It's time to plan to bring all our boys and girls home from Afghanistan. When the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks rolls around, let the world see that we are on a clear path to bringing home our troops from Afghanistan and handing back sovereignty to the Afghan people."
Read the Article

William Rivers Pitt | My Alabama
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "Let me tell you about Alabama. There is a street in my father's hometown of Decatur, up north next to the Tennessee River, where you will find a modest ranch house. In the yard of that house stands the biggest oak tree I have ever seen. Once upon a time, as a boy, I sat in a swing under that tree with my grandmother in the twilight and watched as the lightning bugs came out. My grandmother taught school out of that house for thirty years, and taught me to read and write almost before I could walk. Across the street was Mrs. Jenkins, a native of the Black Belt in south Alabama, with her ancient toy poodle, and when she called to me, I would run over and pick cherry tomatoes out of her garden.... Alabama for me is my lawyer father in his Atticus Finch suit, going to work in the Capitol building in Montgomery.... The air in Montgomery is so thick with history you have to wave it away from your face."
Read the Article

Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden's Death
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I'm an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told Jean and me the news, my stomach sank. I'm not in any way naive about what al-Qaida is. It's an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately. But I'm also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world."
Read the Article

Bin Laden Raid Years in the Making, Minutes in Execution
Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers: "It took years for the US military to track Osama bin Laden down, finding him not in a cave in the inaccessible tribal regions of Pakistan, but in a sumptuous luxury compound built just six years ago in the same city that is home to Pakistan's most prestigious military academy. The raid that killed him lasted just 40 minutes. US officials briefing reporters here said the raid involved a helicopter assault on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by a small US team."
Read the Article

News in Brief: Clinton Tells Taliban to Cut Ties to al-Qaeda, and More ...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the death of Osama bin Laden shows the Taliban that it cannot defeat the US in its war in Afghanistan; a new poll conducted for The Hill shows that 53 percent of likely voters say they do not want their existing or future Medicare benefits to be cut; since 2008, many non-emergency state workers in Utah have been fitting 40-hour workweeks into four days and enjoying three days weekends in an attempt to trim their deficit; in California, Native Americans protest development plans in burial ground, and More ...
Read the Article