World-News

McClatchy Newspapers
by Joseph Galloway

03/27/08

This week, the Iraq war claimed its 4,000th American killed in action, but that sad and tragic milestone came as the war seems to have slipped off the evening news, off the front pages and from the minds of the American people. I suppose this benign neglect of so important and damaging an event is combat fatigue on the part of the public. No doubt the White House is happy to see Iraq shoved to a back burner, just as all three presidential candidates are relieved to talk about something else, anything else, but their half-baked ideas about the war. Shame on them, and shame on us, for such callous indifference to the service, sacrifice and suffering of the families of the dead, wounded and injured troops who’ve given so much for so little in return....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/31672.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=4,000
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joseph+Galloway

The Nation
by Christopher Hayes

03/27/08

On the late afternoon of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a grim, surreal procession made its way up DC’s Capitol Hill. Down Independence Avenue alongside the House office buildings marched a single file of protesters, each clad in a black T-shirt, wearing a haunting white mask and holding a sign with the name of a civilian killed in Iraq. As they trudged up the Hill, a drummer rapped out a spare and mournful beat. Aside from several police escorts on bicycles, few were there to bear witness. Congress was in recess, the usual passel of commuters away or shuttered indoors, the streets empty under a misting gray sky. Like the real-life funerals for the Iraqi dead they represented, this re-creation, too, would pass with hardly a notice...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/hayes


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=fifth+anniversary
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Christopher+Hayes

The U.S. now finds itself on the same "team" with the Iranian government.
http://tinyurl.com/2nnkn4



Iraq implodes as Shia fights Shia

Mr Sadr's followers believe the government is trying to eliminate them before elections in southern Iraq later this year, which they are expected to win.

http://tinyurl.com/2pbn5t



US Bombs Basra

U.S. forces intervened in the battle in the southern city of Basra by dropping two bombs on militia positions overnight.

http://tinyurl.com/ysrcah



U.S. Troops Engage In Sadr City Offensive

The clashes Thursday indicate U.S. forces were drawn more deeply into a broad offensive Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki undertook in the southern city of Basra earlier against rouge militias, The Washington Post reported Friday.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_212138764.shtml



From his office in clouded cuckoo land: Bush: Iraq is returning to normal

President Bush, saying that "normalcy is returning back to Iraq," argued Thursday that last year's U.S. troop "surge" has improved Iraq's security to the point where political and economic progress are blossoming as well.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/31825.html



Baghdad Trembles as Basra Bleeds

Against the dull thud-boom of rocket hits and ascending plumes of black smoke, Baghdad's fortified Green Zone rumbled with running soldiers and intermittent cries of "duck and take cover!"

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1726055,00.html?xid=rss-world



Mortars Strike U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

ABC News video.
http://tinyurl.com/ywl6ob


From Information Clearing House

--------

Fighting Spreads Across Iraq

The Washington Post's Sholnn Freeman reports: "American aircraft struck militia targets in Basra on Friday, the first time that airpower has been called in to aid a faltering ground offensive there against armed groups that operate outside government control."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032908A.shtml

--------

Basra Assault Exposes Fraud of "National Reconciliation" in Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/29/7959/

The Lessons of Basra
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/31/7996/



http://freepage.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next/
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Shia
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Basra
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sadr
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=reconciliation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=clouded+cuckoo+land
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Baghdad+embassy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Naiman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Dreyfuss

The British Government will admit breaching the human rights of Iraqi Baha Mousa who died while in British custody in Basra, Britains Defence Secretary Des Browne said Thursday.

http://tinyurl.com/36h65q


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Baha+Mousa
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Basra

Fast and Loose With the Facts

By Spencer Ackerman

"The danger," said President George W. Bush on Sept. 25, 2002, "is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world." He proceeded to build on a lie that finally died last week -- but only after nearly 4,000 U.S. troops and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis did as well. "The war on terror," Bush said, "you can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19614.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=4,000
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Spencer+Ackerman

Occupations Are Not Won. They Are Ended

Video By John Perry

What's happening in Iraq is NOT a war. It's an illegal occupation following the illegal invasion of a country that posed no threat to the United States. Occupations are not won. They are ended. Which is why the Bush administration is calling it a war.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19622.htm

http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/7688858621c1539d?hl=en



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ralph+Nader

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0327-01.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+deaths

The Associated Press reports: "Behind the Pentagon's closed doors, US military leaders told President Bush Wednesday they are worried about the Iraq war's mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they'd go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032708M.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=strain+on+troops