Wednesday, August 02, 2006

My will is stone

From the Baby Steps Department where Democratic leaders plot policy comes a letter to President Bush signed by the opposition party's Congressional leadership, as well as a number of House and Senate Democrats who have been associated with national security and intelligence issues.
The letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and their partisan compatriots identifies the crisis of the moment: "Iraq has exploded in violence. Some 6,000 Iraqis were killed in May and June, and sectarian and insurgent violence continues to claim American and Iraqi lives at an alarming rate. In the face of this onslaught, one can only conclude that the Baghdad security plan you announced five weeks ago is in great jeopardy."
The letter identifies the broader crisis: "U.S. troops and taxpayers continue to pay a high price as your Administration searches for a policy. Over 2,500 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice and over 18,000 others have been wounded. The Iraq war has also strained our military and constrained our ability to deal with other challenges. Readiness levels for the Army are at lows not seen since Vietnam, as virtually no active Army non-deployed combat brigade is prepared to perform its wartime missions."
The letter identifies the source of the crisis: "Far from implementing a comprehensive 'Strategy for Victory' as you promised months ago, your Administration's strategy appears to be one of trying to avoid defeat."
The only thing that is lacking is a proper response to the crisis.

The above, noted by Ruth, is from John Nichols' "Dems on Iraq: Still Vague, Out of Touch" (The Nation). The plan? More like a suggestion. More like a "What are our options?" I think Nichols covers it wonderfully.

Something isn't right -- I don't know I know;
But baby, it's despite your dog and pony show.
I can hear it coming -- you're only going through the motions, baby;
With your engines humming, you're just going through the motions, baby
-- "Going Through The Motions" written by Aimee Mann, off her CD: The Forgotten Arm.

Which is how it seems for the Dems. It's a statement. It's a move in a direction. It's one the public's been ready for months now. It's news. I wouldn't call it great news. It is a sign that they're feeling some pressure to respond to the demands of their constitutents.

In answer to a question in several e-mails, yes, I'm doing the Troops Home Fast still and scheduled to go off it this weekend. I don't think I'll be extending but I will pick up a one-day-a-week fast until September 21st when it ends. The KPFA Evening News reported a short while ago that Cindy Sheehan is planning on fasting until September 21st. Anyone who is thinking of grabbing a one-day still has time to do so. The KPFA Evening News also reported on the delegation headed to Jordan (Sheehan's a part of that). I really am tired and was in the e-mails when Susan had an argument for an evening post that would be "easy" (I'm so tired right now, I'm not sure that there is an easy one.) Other community sites have been noting songs and Susan is a big music fan so she thought maybe something similar could be done here. (If you missed it, read Betty's "Hey Now Young Mothers"; Kat's "Mel Gibson, Maria McKee, Iraq"; Cedric's "Diana & Marvin by the way"; Elaine's "Goodbye Blue Skies" and "Night Ride Home" and Mike's "All the words are going to bleed from me" -- by the way Betty's "Thomas Friedman focuses on foundation" is her latest chapter at her own site and it went up today.)

Susan provided a highlight that works in Graham Nash's "Chicago," Cindy Sheehan's "Won't You Please Come to Camp Casey" (Truth Out):


When I travel the country and talk to people in the anti-war movement, many of them say: "If there were only a draft, people would get off of their butts and protest the war like we (they) did during Vietnam."
I don't believe in giving people an "out" by using the draft excuse. By 1968, 30,000 of our troops had been needlessly slain and countless numbers of unfortunate "collateral-damage" Vietnamese citizens had also been brutally slaughtered. College students who had their deferments were shutting down administrative offices to protest their schools' defense research and collaboration with the war profiteers. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had already been assassinated and there were over 50,000 people who converged on Chicago to protest the "National Death Party" rubber-stamping another murderous four years of Lyndon Johnson's war. The draft and the burning of draft cards, most notably by the Berrigan brothers, was just one of the issues. Graham Nash wasn't about to be drafted when he wrote the song "Chicago": people just cared. While students were protesting to make the world better and soldiers were being ordered to go to Vietnam, against their wills, George was AWOL from the Alabama Air National Guard. He must have gotten tired of playing pilot -or maybe his codpiece was on too tight.
Today, just a little more than 3 years into the bloody conflict in Iraq, 2,579 of our soldiers have been killed, and the collateral civilian damage reaches into the hundreds of thousands, with over 6,000 Iraqis slain just in the past two blood-soaked months. Our brothers are being "bound and gagged" and "chained to chairs" in Guantanamo, which, contrary to what George said about wanting to shut it down, is being expanded and renovated so the sadists can carry out new and improved forms of torture. Israel continues to receive US support in slaughtering Lebanese civilians to consolidate its power in the region.
Politicians sit yourselves down
There's nothing for you here,
Won't you please come to Chicago for a ride.
Don't ask Jack to help you
'Cause he'll turn the other ear,
Won't you please come to Chicago or else join the other side.
In Vietnam, the National Death Party were the Democrats; it was after all, a Democratic war, and the students who came out to protest were also mostly Democrats who wanted their party to do better. In the occupation of Iraq, the Death Party (and certainly the executive branch) seems to be the Republicans - but I would argue that, with a few notable exceptions in both parties, the Death Party is bi-partisan. War is good business for politicians - and the war profiteers are great at greasing every one's blood-stained palms with the mammon of other people's flesh and bones.
Recently, the Democratic leadership did come out and ask George for a "redeployment" plan for our troops from Iraq. Yes, they should be redeployed, but to their homes. Redeployment is good for most of our soldiers, temporarily, but it just means increased aerial bombings on civilians and death squads.

So with that in mind, I'll try for a post, but again, I'm tired (I'm really feeling the fast this week).
From today's snapshot:

In other courtroom news, Ryan Lenz (AP) reported that Bradley Mason testified in court today that he was threatened by four fellow soldiers (William B. Hunsaker, Raymond L. Girouard, Corey R. Clagett and Juston R. Graber) if he spoke of the May 9th events around the shooting deaths of three Iraqi civilians. Mason also testified that "Col. Michael Steele" (of Black Hawk Down 'fame') instructed them to: "Kill all of them." Finally, Mason testified that when the news of shooting the detained and bound three Iraqis was learned that the others "just smiled" but he informed Girouard that he wasn't "down with it. It's murder."

Here come the madmen, they're too excited for atoning
"Burn the mosque" they're shouting, "Burn it down!"
-- "Share the End" words & music by Carly Simon & Jacob Brackman, off Simon's Anticipation.

We noted that here on November 20, 2004 when the slaughter of Falluja was going on. Sometimes, it doesn't feel like we've gotten very far at all. The war drags on and on. What's changed is the number of people willing to speak out against it. That was the one small voice (Carole King's "One Small Voice" -- from the album Speeding Time -- or the children's story) that started the ball rolling and between that openess and the realities coming back from Iraq, the nation turned against the war to the point that the New York Times has to bury their own poll last week. Does the Times ever not front page one of their polls? Yes, apparently, when the poll is on Iraq and people are saying the war was wrong and that we need to have a withdrawal plan. On that poll, it can be buried inside the paper.

They can bury it, they can downplay it, but the mood of the country shifted against the war some time ago. The polls have been consistent over the last months. This isn't a spasm, it is a trend and the country will not suddenly embrace the war again. That, however, doesn't mean we can get any answers which is the transition for a highlight. Martha notes David Corn's "The Neverending Saga of Phase II" (The Nation):

Why is it taking the Senate intelligence committee forty times longer to examine how the Bush administration used--or misused--the prewar intelligence on Iraq and WMDs than it took for the United States military to topple Saddam Hussein? American troops reached Baghdad in three weeks (there were a few complications after that). But the intelligence committee, led by Republican Senator Pat Roberts, has dilly-dallied for two-and-a-half years when it has come to reviewing how George W. Bush and his top aides represented--or misrepresented--the WMD intelligence as they led (or misled) the nation to war. Last fall, the Senate Democrats shut down the Senate for a few hours to protest the committee's lack of progress in producing the so-called Phase II report that was supposed to focus on this matter. Roberts and the Republicans promised to conclude the inquiry soon. Yet another nine months have gone by, and as The Washington Post reported on Sunday, the committee is still not yet done.

They first shoved that report back until after the 2004 elections. We couldn't have it before. (Obviously, it would make Bully Boy look bad.) And it's shoved back ever since. Roberts has demonstrated how little he cares about the people's right to know, or for that matter, the lives lost in Iraq. Any of them -- Iraqi, American, British, go down the list. It's not important enough, this illegal war, that we find out how we were lied (if you prefer -- as one Republican visitor noted today in an e-mail -- "tricked") into war. 2582 is what the fatality count currently stands at (three for the month of August already). When the answers don't matter, the war doesn't matter so maybe we can consider Roberts an unspoken critic of the war? Or just another sorry excuse for a representative of the people who can't quite figure out his job?

Tell me how could it fail
The walls started shaking, I heard love crying out
Happiness is given away, security is falling down
He fell, I fell, all there is left to tell
Is all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
They couldn’t put our two hearts together again
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put our two hearts together again.
-- "All The King's Horses" written by Aretha Franklin, off her album Young, Gifted and Black.

Mike noted Brian MacQuarrie's "A Soldier Maimed by War Now Questions the Mission" (Boston Globe via Common Dreams):

President Bush came and sat by the side of Sergeant Brian Fountaine, a 24-year-old tank commander from Dorchester, a gung-ho soldier who had lobbied to be deployed a second time. Now Fountaine was among the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, his legs amputated below the knees after an explosion June 8 ripped apart the Humvee in which he was riding.
The president chatted about the sergeant's beloved Red Sox, but made no reference to the war, the soldier said.
If the topic had come up, the president might not have liked what Fountaine had on his mind. In a dramatic change of heart, Fountaine now considers the war a military quagmire in which American soldiers are caught in a deadly vise between irreconcilable enemies.

A deadly vice that should have been forseen by real leaders. It was ignored. Just like Roberts ignores getting to the bottom of the illegal war -- ignores the very reason so many are dying each day.

And when the dawn breaks I see my fellow man
And on the flat-screen we kill and we're killed again
And when the night falls I pray for Peace
Try to remember Peace
I joint the multitudes
I raise my hand in Peace
I never bow to the laws of the thought police
I take a holy vow
To never kill again
To never kill again
-- "Living With War" written by Neil Young, off his album Living With War.

There was a time when it seemed like we'd wised up some. The so-called "Vietnam complex" that so worries the War Hawks (of all parties) seemed to mean we wouldn't be in another Vietnam. The War Hawks thought they could do these swoop-in-and-out wars and get the public used to them. If you remember, the illegal war on Iraq was pushed with that 'logic' -- cake walk. Hasn't turned out that way. It's sad so many had to die just so we would learn the truth costs, yet again. Even sadder that, had it been as quick as the liars said it would be, we might not have reached the level of revulsion we've once again reached.

Wally does a wonderful job at The Daily Jot. Most days, he calls before he posts, so I hear what went into the post and what else was available to write about. To a degree, he's boxed in on what can he write due to the format of that site. Today, he was noting the music posts and wished he could do that so when I read Susan's e-mail, I called him and told him he could pick a lyric excerpt and it would be the one the post would end with. With that in mind, he wanted to go with hope and determination and picked the following:

I'm a living sunset
Lightning in my bones
Push me to the edge
But my will is stone
I believe in a better way
-- "Better Way," written by Ben Harper, off his album Both Sides of the Gun.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.



















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Iraq snapshot

 
 
Chaos and violence continue in Iraq but after the 'jokes' of "at least 44" made it into print today, other 'cut-ups' apparently want to have their fun too.
 
First up, Iraq's president who will surely be the lead in all the stories today though, come December 31st and January 1st, don't look for news outlets to lead with his happy talk not panning out.  CNN reports that Jala Talabani has predicted Iraqi forces will control all eighteen provinces by the end of 2006. For those with any short-term memory left in them, it wouldn't be surprising if this thought was the focus:  "The U.S. military is moving at least 3,700 soldiers from Mosul to Baghdad and is gearing up for a new security operation to wrest control of the capital from Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, kidnap gangs, rogue police and freelance gunmen" (Robert H. Reid, AP).  Those with short-term and long-term memory may flash back on other things, such as Jun 8, 1969 when a beaming Tricky Dicky Nixon and South Vietnam puppet Nguyen Van Thieu boasted and . . . the war didn't end. (For more on that sort of deception, see Ruth's "Ruth's Report" from Sunday.)  Fall elections are coming up and, just as surely as the leaves will brown and fall, false promises will bloom at heightened levels. The BBC quotes Talabani self-describing "We are highly optimistic."  And apparently just high, period.
 
Good drugs, apparently are back in vogue and not confined to the Green Zone (well they went in and out of Vietnam back then as well).  Which might explain AFP's DC based report on the supposed degradation of the US military.  Whenever they scream "More money!" they offer up this same scenario.  While that's what the War Mongers & War Hawks do, there's no reason AFP needs to josh readers: "Members of the group comprise a Who's Who of moderate-to-liberal political thought in the United States, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former national security adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger, retired Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman John Shalikashvili, and retired four-star general and fomer presidential contender Wesley Clark."
 
"Moderate-to-liberal political thought"?  Howl with laughter.
 
 
Then return to reality.
 
If you're thinking things can't any worse (you're wrong) read Omar alIbadi and Michael Georgy's (Reuters) report on the Shi'ite non-pilgrimage describing events that sound like scare tactis hollered by some from the halls of the US Congress in the fifites ("Red" hunt).  Thing is, the US administration is supporting these type of "demonstrations" that are taking place.  al-Ibadi and Georgy report: "Young men in civilian uniforms and headbands, all members of what is known as the popular committees, chanted as a speaker called on them to crush "terrorists" and loyalists of ousted President Saddam Hussein leading a Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government."
 
This as Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that Shi'ite Muslim leaders are speaking of the country falling "into full revolt."  Youssef quotes Sheik Bashir al Najafi stating: "The government formed after the fall of the regime hasn't been able to do anything, just make many promises.  And people are fed up with promises.  One day we will not be able to stop a popular revolution."
 
In court news, Robert F. Burns (AP) reports that the inquiry into the November 19, 2005 deaths of 24 Iraqis "suppots accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday."  This as Frank Wuterich ("staff sgt.") files a libel suit against US Representative John Murtha for libel claiming that his reputation has suffered from "false and malicious lies" about those involved in the 24 killings.
 
In other courtroom news, Ryan Lenz (AP) reported that Bradley Mason testified in court today that he was threatened by four fellow soldiers (William B. Hunsaker, Raymond L. Girouard, Corey R. Clagett and Juston R. Graber) if he spoke of the May 9th events around the shooting deaths of three Iraqi civilians.  Mason also testified that "Col. Michael Steele" (of Black Hawk Down 'fame') instructed them to: "Kill all of them."  Finally, Mason testified that when the news of shooting the detained and bound three Iraqis was learned that the others "just smiled" but he informed Girouard that he wasn't "down with it.  It's murder."  The AFP reports that the notorius Steele "has signed a document declaring his intention to refuse to testify in the case to avoid incriminating himself".
 
Bombings.
 
In Baghdad, on a soccer field, AP reports nine "young people" (ages 15-25)  died from "hidden bombs" and three ("younger than 15") died from a mortar shell that landed on the soccer field.  Reuters reports that an Iraqi soldier died near Diwaniya and three were wounded from a roadside bomb; two and a civilian died from a roadside bomb in Hawija (four civilians left wounded); a police officer died from a roadside bomb in Mosul; and three roadside bombs claimed three lives and left nine wounded in Baghad.  On the soccer bombing, the BBC reports that "the bombs had been buried in the middle of the football pitch" and notes that it "came hours after Iraq's president said Iraqi forces would take over the security of the entire country from US-led forces by the end of 2006."
 
 
Shootings.
 
CNN reports that, in Baghdad, "gunmen in a car opened fire on a checkpoint outside the Ministry of Oil building . . . injuring three guards". Reuters notes these shooting deaths: in Baquba, the chief of traffic police (Ahmed Adbel Hussein) and his bodyguard; and in Diwaniya "an employee of a human rights group outside his home".
CNN notes that "two traffic police were killed and two other officers wounded in Khalis". 
 
Corpses.
 
 
 
Reuters reports two corpses discovered in Qamishli ("blindfolded . . . hands bound"); eleven corpses were fished out of the Tigris ("Near Suwayra . . . . shot . . . signs of torture"); and, in Kirkuk, a handcuffed corpse was discovered ("signs of torture . . . gunshot wounds in the head").
 
In Australia, the inquiry into the April 21st death of Jake Kovco in Baghdad goes on and it's like no inquiry most would be familiar with.  The press runs with a tale of Kovco as someone who played with his gun based on . . .  Eye witness testimony?
No.  There's been none.  Soldier 17 stated he'd heard of it Kovco playing with his weapon.  The entire inquiry is based, not on facts, but on second-hand testimony.  Dan Box was among the first to tie in today's hearsay with the earlier hearsay writing: "The inquiry had previously heard that Kovco was reprimanded twice by senior officres in the month before his death for mishandling his pistol."  They heard that but the witness could only affirm one incident -- the second one was hearsay.
 
Now with Soldier 17's hearsay testimony today, it needs to be noted that Soldier 17 made comments on May 10th about this and on that day and while testifying in the inquiry, Soldier 17 refuses to provide names of the "others" who saw what he did not but is claiming happened: that Kovco played like a "cowboy" with guns.  Frank Holles (Judy & Martin Kovco's attorney) stated: "I put it to you when it suits you, you will not provide invormation."  Which pretty much sums up the testimony being trumpeted as "Cowboy Kovco" in the news.
 
Here's Conor Duffy reporting on The World Today (Australia's ABC) and I'm adding bold print: CONOR DUFFY: That's right, Eleanor [Halll]. We've just seen a statement that he gave to NSW Police just after the shooting, and in it he said that other members of his unit in Baghdad had detailed instances of Private Kovco messing around with weapons. He said he never saw this, but he was told that other people had seen Private Jake Kovco imitating old school weapons. He said, 'Like quick draw and you spin it around and all that sort of s[**t].'  And he mentioned specific instances of him spinning the pistol around on his finger. He said that he didn't see that, but he said he'd seen other soldiers in the unit in Baghdad messing around with pistols, and on one occasion he said he was upset when another soldier had pointed a pistol at him and he wasn't sure if it was loaded."
 
Now let's note Soldier 17's "defense" as to not providing names of these alleged witnesses or fellow gun players: "They said if I didn't wish to give I didn't have to."  Well, as long as "they said" it, then no problem, I guess.  But when you think about the description he's giving (of "Australian soldiers in Baghdad" playing "games with their pistols, including 'quick draw' and twirling them like gun-slinging cowboys" as Peter Charlton sums it up), the fact that both he and the other roommate claim not to have seen Kovco holding a gun though they were in the room with him, you're left with questions and hearsay 'testimony' doesn't answer any.
 
In peace news, Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Gael Murphy, Diane Wilson, Tom Hayden and Geoffrey Millard will soon be en route to Amman, Jordan today where they will meet with memebers of the Iraqi parliament.  In NYC tonight at 9:00 pm (JFK Airport), Cindy Sheehan and Tom Hayden will hold a press conference. KWTX carries a report that states the meeting will take place "Friday and Saturday" and that those fasters on that trip will then end their fast.
 
The Troops Home Fast action continues.  Today at least 4,350 people are participating.  The fast is to be ongoing until September 21st.
 
In other peace news, Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families for Peace will hold a press conference Thursday (Aug. 3rd) across from the Russell Senate Office Building in DC at 11:00 a.m. to note the end of the first phase Operation House Call and begin phase two. Those scheduled to speak incldue Jennifer Davis (whose husband is with the 172nd Stryker Bridgade that was due to come home this month but have now had their stay in Iraq extended by at least four months), Gilda Carbonaro (mother of Alessandro Carbonaro who died May 10, 2006 from wounds received in Iraq, and Larry Syverson (who has three sons in the military including one treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which didn't prevent the military from sending him to his current post on the Kuwait/Iraq border).
 
 
 

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NYT & others: Our drag queens of the press show up dressed as Hazel

Reading the news in print today, you might ask yourself, "Who's hiding the dead?" It would be a good question since both the Washington Post and the New York Times run with "at least 44."
When the snapshot was done yesterday, the death toll has risen to 63 people. Having seen the BBC footage (if you couldn't get it to play at the link for Jane Peel, click here, it's in the "watch" column on the right-hand side) *I watched the evening news wondering* if anything like that would air here and the figure used there and on The KPFA Evening News was? 70. Because violence had continued. Is "at least 44" anything like "70"? The Associated Press is standing with the figure of 70 and since the majority of reporters are pulling from the wire services, this idea that "at least 44" is the same as 70 is rather sad.

Here's Robert H. Reid's "Attacks across Iraq kill more than 70" (AP):

Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people in Iraq on Tuesday in a surge of bloodshed as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's streets from gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier.

That includes an American soldier who died on Tuesday (reported after the snapshot) -- not the one that the military announced early (on Tuesday) had died Monday. Go to CBS's Iraq page and you see 70. So who decided to low ball it for print readers?

Kirk Semple, in the Times, tells you this is the figure "officials said." Are we back to that? Letting officials trump what people see with their own eyes? Well it certainly got us into the illegal war -- doubtful it will get us out.

According to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military fatalities, at least 45 American service members and 1 British soldier died in Iraq last month. It was the lowest monthly death toll for American troops since March, when 31 died.

That's Semple. Oh, I get it now. It was the end of the month, time to spin happy again to please the military? And once again, nobody schills this war quite like the New York Times who titles their piece "44 Die in Attacks Aimed at Iraqi Security Forces." No "at least," no "more than."
It was a bloody day in Iraq on Tuesday, good for the administration that a lot of reporters decided to play Hazel and doing a little cleaning.

When their leashes get pulled, do they ever wish the administration would just provide them with shock collars instead?

In the LA Times (which goes with at least 60 -- "60" in the headline) Jeffrey Fleishman and Saif Rasheed open with:

Gunfire, explosions and kidnappings picked up a withering pace across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 60 people, including many police officers and Iraqi soldiers. Government forces and U.S. troops raced through flames and smoke from one set of casualties to the next.
The violence that shook Baghdad, the capital, and towns to the north appeared to intensify anger against American soldiers and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki for not stemming unrelenting bloodshed that has led to thousands of deaths and widening sectarian tensions. Most of the attacks targeted Iraqi security forces and suggested a calculated effort to undermine Maliki's new security plans.

I guess that's freedom of the press, depending upon where you live, you're free to get any version of what happened yesterday? You're free to get a bloody day or a really bloody day? (And of course the New York Times and the Washington Post are national papers.) Free to misinformed, free to be underinformed -- not quite what the First Amendment is all about, but some want to pass it off as Free To Be You and Me.

Just don't call it news.

Readers of the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe can feel informed (both run Reid's AP story).

Cindy notes Tom Hayden's "Democrats Pull Down Party Pillar Supporting Iraq War: American Peace Delegation To Meet Iraqi Parliamentarians for Dialogue in Amman" (Common Dreams):

Common ground may lie in the fact that the debate over Iraq, now partisan, will intensify as November approaches. At this point, neither the Republican Party nor the mainstream media have taken a position that withdrawal must begin this year. The stakes are very high, which may draw groups like Move.On and others into the battle for public opinion in key battleground states.
As to the issue of partial versus complete withdrawal, all that can said for now is that partial withdrawal begins a threatening, and perhaps irreversible, disengagement from the Bush and neo-conservative agenda in Iraq. But it could stall.
If the Republican prevail, or perform above expectations in November, the new Democratic unity could fray after the elections.
In the meantime, a delegation of peace activists, including myself, departs this week for Amman, Jordan, for meetings with official Iraqi parliamentarians and human rights activists to discuss the Iraqis proposals for reconciliation. These proposals, including amnesties for many insurgents forces, are crucial to any negotiated settlement in Iraq. Recently, both Democrats and Republicans have expressed strong political concerns about amnesty for anyone involved in fighting the US occupation. An immediate challenge facing the peace movement will be to argue that amnesties always have been included in comprehensive settlements, including the amnesty for Jefferson Davis at the end of the American civil war.

Ryan Lenz (AP) reports:

A U.S. soldier testified Wednesday that four of his colleagues accused of murdering three Iraqis during a raid threatened to kill him if he told anyone about the shooting deaths.
Pfc. Bradley Mason, speaking at a hearing to determine whether the four must stand trial, also said that their brigade commander, a veteran of the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" battle in Somalia, told troops hunting insurgents to "kill all of them." Mason is not one of the accused.
The alleged killings May 9 near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, have dealt another blow to the reputation of U.S. soldiers over their conduct in Iraq and fueled anger against their presence.

While the media outlets remain silent (when not mopping up -- they really have become the Hazels of the nation), the Troops Home Fast goes on. There are e-mails about a headline or something saying it was over. It's not. Diane Wilson not off it and over 4,300 people were on it yesterday. Those going with Hayden to Jordan are off. The fast itself continues.

And the AP is also reporting that:

Nine people were killed in Iraq on Wednesday in a relative lull in violence, a day after alarming bloodshed left more than 70 people dead in bombings and shootings.

Who knows how the Hazels will try to clean up the above?

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Ava note: Added BBC link which was "open" and took out part of the sentence C.I. had typed. "**" indicates section missing.
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