As the Pentagon announced the deaths of 10 more US soldiers in Iraq on Memorial Day, May has become the worst month since 2004.
At the end of the month, May 2007 had the highest death toll for US troops (124) since November 2004.
With White House plans to double the number of combat troops in Iraq by Christmas, these numbers are unfortunately likely to continue to rise.
Iraqis Are People, It is Wrong to Kill Them
Dahr Jamail explains the Earthly Hell that the U.S. government has created for the people of Iraq.
MP3 here. (40:30)
In late 2003, Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.
His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource. He is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.
Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.
The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has shut down a Web site it operated that that included antiwar, pro-life, and gay rights organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists.
The Web site identified different types of terrorists, and included a list of groups it believed could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents.
The site included the groups under a description of what it called “single-issue” terrorists. That group includes people who feel they are trying to create a better world, the Web site said. It said that in some communities, law enforcement officers consider certain single issue groups to be a threat.
The Opus cartoon in Sunday’s paper is one of the finest Memorial Day tributes I have seen anywhere.Â
Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed ruled the 1980s with Bloom County, and today’s cartoon is one of his best since then.
(Comments et al. welcome at my blog entry on the cartoon here).
First, Ron Paul on Bill Maher’s show.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkjPkXHSEw[/youtube]
While Maher deserves props for giving Paul a chance to make his case, he doesn’t seem to get Paul’s fundamental point. Yes, Bush’s response to 9/11 has been horrible, but the policies that led to 9/11 didn’t begin when Bush took office. As Paul notes, American meddling in the Middle East goes back decades – and Bill Clinton’s eight years of bombing and sanctioning Iraq probably motivated more anti-Americanism than anything George W. Bush did in his first eight months of office.
Clip two, from Penn & Teller’s Bullsh*t, features Jacob Hornberger, whose commentaries frequently appear on this site.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDYTizsjbKw[/youtube]
(Both clips courtesy of LRC blog.)
Tucked away in an Associated Press story this morning:
Meanwhile, in Kut, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned Sunday morning and handed over their weapons. They cited their fears of being targeted by Mahdi Army militants, police said.
