· Judge’s arrest warrant for soldiers still in force
· Local authorities suspend cooperation with British

British officials in Iraq have ruled out an apology for the mission to rescue two undercover soldiers from a Basra police station last week, saying police in Iraq’s second city had disobeyed orders from their bosses in Baghdad.

“An apology to the police or the government would not be appropriate because there were orders to the Basra police from the interior ministry to release the two soldiers and they didn’t obey,” Karen McLuskie, a British diplomat in Basra, told the Guardian. “Our people were considered to be in danger and our actions were justified.”

She said there were no special plans for compensating the relatives of the four Iraqis killed and the 44 injured in violence surrounding the raid last Monday.
“Any citizen who was hurt can apply for compensation in the same way as if they had been hit by an army Humvee or truck,” said Ms McLuskie. There were no plans to help rebuild the police station.

Her remarks come after a weekend of tension during which the British base in Basra was hit by mortars and the city’s chief anti-terrorist judge issued a warrant for the arrest of two soldiers on suspicion of committing “terrorist acts”.

A British soldier who was seriously injured when his Warrior armoured vehicle was attacked with petrol bombs has been evacuated to Britain, where he is receiving treatment for burns, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

Many Basra residents are angry at what they said were “suspicious” and heavy-handed tactics by the British military. The soldiers, who were disguised in Arab dress, were arrested by Iraqi police then freed by British troops as tanks smashed down the wall of the police station. The raid infuriated locals, who set two British armoured vehicles ablaze and pelted soldiers with rocks. “We explained clearly to the authorities that they were British forces on a run-of-the mill observation mission,” said Ms McLuskie.
guardian.co.uk

You’d think that if the Brits were remotely interested in what they say their mission is in Iraq, they’d apologize and rebuild the jail.

by Greg Moses
The movement for peace and justice in the USA has been transformed during the past two months. But what is the nature of the change, and how will it help to move us forward? The short answer, I think, is that we have been enriched by sorrow; we gather upon a sorrow plateau. Because of this place we have come to, we have new opportunities to broaden the scope of our power to sustain lasting change for freedom.

Sorrow is the new power that Cindy Sheehan brought into the movement last month. And the power of our sorrow has grown in response to the sufferings caused by hurricane Katrina. This sorrow has not overcome us, but it has infused our motivations. Out of this sorrow comes a renewed sense of our struggle’s significance.

Sorrow grounded Cindy’s moral footing in the bar ditches of Crawford, Texas. Her sorrow was the reality that could not be conjured away by the alchemists of spin. It drew like a magnet so many who were grieving the loss (or the risk of loss) of a dearly loved life. The beauty of this sorrow was how it wept in consideration of one precious life at a time. For Cindy, the loss of her son Casey was enough. With each new arrival to Camp Casey came testament that one wasted life brings sorrow enough. To save just one life more is now motivation enough to stop the Iraq war.

Then came hurricane Katrina and the sorrowful reports of last moments: the one man who held with one hand the one woman he had to release. And that also was sorrow enough.

Refusal to share our plateau of sorrow was what exposed the President to the most devastating public rejection of his political life–a rejection from which he may not recover. When, during the early days of Katrina, we tuned to televised images of his trademark smirk and watched him attempt his cheerleading formulas as answer to the devastation, we saw naked as never before one man’s incapacity to be moved by sorrow.

From the bar ditches of Texas and from the broken canals of New Orleans, the nation had been lifted to a sorrow place, and the President on vacation had transparently refused to follow. On that basis, his approval ratings sunk to the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, faster than a sack of sand.
counterpunch.org

BUSH’S BOOZE CRISIS”>
Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Washington – At Axis of Logic, we have been involved in all of the anti-war protests in Washington, New York and Boston since the U.S./U.K. invasions of Afghan and Iraq began. Yesterday’s mobilization in Washington D.C. was undeniably the largest, most high-spirited anti-war protest in the U.S. since the first attack on the people of Afghanistan in 2002. About 5-6 hours were required for the river of people to flow past the White House on a packed Pennsylvania Avenue. There was no sign of George W. Bush or anyone in his regime – all bunkered down – afraid to face the people who came to their doorstep to confront them. But present or not, they know and that is what is important.

One by one – we watched massive contingents from many states, organizations and tens of thousands of individuals, families and children file past the White House. Smiling faces spoke of self-empowerment and the very real possibility of the end of empire. Street theater, music, chants and spontaneous-uproarious swelling of audible protest moved the long procession past the temporary home of the neoconservative regime. U.S. soldiers – 1900+ killed and the 15,000+ wounded were well-represented before the gates of the enemy.

Throughout the day, the ghosts of a hundred thousand Iraqis haunted Pennsylvania avenue under a gray, overcast sky. The speeches from the stage powerfully articulated the voice of the people. The moving messages from musicians like Joan Baez, Steve Earle and The Coup stirred and united the spirit and purpose of the massive and diverse crowd.

But it was the people … allow me to say the words more slowly and with reverence … the people … who brought the anti-war movement to the level of a threat to the entrenched, corrupt government that leads the global corporate empire with their magnificent, united voice.
axisoflogic.com

Israel killed two Hamas militants and wounded more than 20 civilians yesterday in a sustained series of air strikes on the Gaza Strip, the first since it pulled troops out earlier this month.
A series of huge explosions were heard across Gaza signalling the worst violence since Israel’s pullout after 38 years of occupation.

Yesterday afternoon Israel fired rockets at two vehicles in Gaza City which it said had been carrying munitions and Hamas militants. A further series of air strikes came later in the day after Israeli ministers held an emergency session and agreed to resume targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, according to a source who took part in the meeting.

Security officials said ‘Operation First Rain’ would include artillery fire and air strikes in response to a wave of mortar attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas. Israel promised the operation would grow in intensity, leading up to a ground operation – unless the Palestinian security forces takes action to halt the rocket attacks or Hamas decides to end the attacks itself.
guardian.co.uk

British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.

The document being drawn up by the British government and the US will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.

Britain has already privately informed Japan – which also has troops in Iraq – of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May, a move that officials in Tokyo say would make it impossible for their own 550 soldiers to remain.
guardian.co.uk

Iraqi judge issues arrest warrant for British troops

Benita was up before dawn. She had to start work early to avoid the baking heat and the oppressive humidity of the Papua New Guinea climate. Her job was to scoop up fertiliser with an empty fish can and spread the chemicals around the base of thousands of palm trees growing on a huge plantation in the Milne Bay province on the island’s south-eastern tip.
Oil from these palm trees is used as an ingredient in hundreds of Western foodstuffs including chocolate, margarine and crisps. For a gruelling 10-hour day, Benita was paid less than £3. But this was to be her last day of toil. At the end of her shift, she collapsed and died after a cardiac arrest.

Benita’s name is fictional, but her case is real. She died on 14 April, 2003. Her death was recorded in a confidential internal company document obtained by The Observer – her real identity was not revealed nor who, if anyone, was to blame. It simply states: ‘The post mortem cited severe chest and abdominal injuries.’ While there are many young people who die while working for corporations across the developing world, Benita’s case has particular resonance for the British authorities.

The company Benita worked for, Pacific Rim Palm Oil Ltd, is managed by an arm of British government known as CDC, an abbreviation for its former name – the Commonwealth Development Corporation. CDC controls more than £1 billion of public money and its aim is to invest in developing countries to help the poor. The organisation has one shareholder – Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for International Development.

The people who run CDC certainly do not want for much. Richard Laing, its chief executive, earned £380,000 last year, of which more than £200,000 was paid in bonuses. Other executives at the quango earned hundreds of thousands of pounds in salary and bonuses.

An Observer investigation into CDC’s activities reveals that Benita’s death was just one of 13 ‘fatal accidents’ at its main projects in 2003. Others include two separate incidents where children were killed at Songas power project in Tanzania. In one case a two-year-old was crushed by a company tractor and in another a small girl was hit by another company vehicle and died in hospital three days later. In Swaziland a contractor’s truck killed a child on his way to school. The firm’s internal report, ‘CDC fatal accidents and injuries’, dated 10 March, 2004, reveals that there have been 62 such deaths in nine years, many of them involving company vehicles killing individuals in road accidents. It concluded that, though it believed its accident rate was relatively low, ‘it is clear from the investigations into the 2003 fatalities that there were many instances where management could have done more’.

But it is not just the number of fatal accidents that are causing concern to campaign groups and politicians. CDC has been accused of environmental damage, misjudging investments that do little to help the poor and paying large bonuses to its British bosses.
guardian.co.uk

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.
The public’s reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration’s attempt to offer citizens ‘a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq’ has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

This coincides with concern over the increasing cost of the war. More than $30 billion has been appropriated for the reconstruction. Initially, America’s overseas aid agency, USaid, expected it to cost taxpayers no more than $1.7bn, but it is now asking the public if they want to contribute even more.

It is understood to be the first time that a US government has made an appeal to taxpayers for foreign aid money. Contributors have no way of knowing who will receive their donations or even where they may go, after officials said details had be kept secret for security reasons.

USaid’s Heather Layman denied it was disappointed with the meagre sum raised after a fortnight. ‘Every little helps,’ she said.
guardian.co.uk

“If we can help liberate the energies of the African people and unleash the potential of the private sector to create jobs, Africa will not only become a continent of hope but a continent of accomplishment,” Wolfowitz will say.

Wolfowitz also called for more political accountability.

“Effective leaders also recognize that they are accountable to their people,” he said. “Effective leaders listen. Institutions of accountability like civil society and a free press help leaders listen, hold them accountable for results and are key to controlling corruption.”

He called for more action to combat corruption.

“Corruption drains resources and discourages investments,” Wolfowitz said. “It benefits the privileged and deprives the poor.”
news.yahoo.com

This is the astonishing arrogance of imperialist discourse. Liberating the energies of the African people…he’s talking really about privatization, about liberating African people of their resources under the empty rhetoric of democracy. They want to invest the African people right out of existence.

My name is Hart Viges. September 11 happened. Next day I was in the recruiting office. I thought that was the way I could make a difference in the world for the better.

So I went to infantry school and jump school and I arrived with my unit of the 82nd Airborne Division. I was deployed to Kuwait in February 2003. We drove into Iraq because Third Infantry Division was ahead of schedule, and so I didn’t need to jump into Baghdad airport.

As we drove into Samawa to secure their supplies my mortar platoon dropped numerous rounds on this town. I watched Kiowa attack helicopters fire Hellfire missile after Hellfire missile. I saw a C130 Spectre gunship … it will level a town. It had belt-fed artillery rounds pounding with these super-Gatling guns.

I don’t know how many innocents I killed with my mortar rounds. I have my imagination to pick at for that one. But I clearly remember the call-out over the radio saying “Green light on all taxi-cabs. The enemy is using them for transportation”.

One of our snipers called back on the radio saying “Excuse me but did I hear that order correctly? Green light on all taxi cabs?” “Roger that soldier. You’d better start buckling up.” All of a sudden the city just blew up. Didn’t matter if there was an innocent in the taxi-cab – we laid a mortar round on it, snipers opened up.

Next was Fallujah. We went in without a shot. But Charlie Company decided they were going to take over a school for the area of operations. Protesters would come saying “Please get out of our school. Our children need this school. We need education”.

They turned them down. They came back, about 40 to 50 people. Some have the bright idea of shooting AK-47s up in the air. Well a couple of rounds fell into the school … They laid waste to that group of people.

Then we went to Baghdad. And I had days that I don’t want to remember. I try to forget. Days where we’d take contractors out to a water treatment plant outside of Baghdad.

We’d catched word that this is a kind of a scary place but when I arrive there’s grass and palm trees, a river. It’s the first beautiful place that seemed untouched by the war in Iraq. As we leave, RPGs come flying at us. Two men with RPGs ran up in front of us from across the road.

“Drop your weapons”. “Irmie salahak.” They’re grabbing on to women and kids so [we] don’t fire. I can’t take any more and swing my [gun] over. My sight’s on his chest, my finger’s on the trigger. And I’m trained to kill but this is no bogey man, this is no enemy. This is a human being. With the same fears and doubts and worries. The same messed-up situation.

don’t pull the trigger this time … it throws me off. It’s like they didn’t tell me about this emotional attachment to killing. They tried to numb me, they tried to strip my humanity. They tried to tell me that’s not a human being – that’s a soft target.

So now, my imagination is running … What if he pulled his trigger? How many American soldiers or Iraqi police, how many families destroyed because I didn’t pull my trigger. After we leave this little village we get attack helicopters, Apaches, two Bradley fighting vehicles, and we go back. And we start asking questions. Where are they? Eventually they lead us to this hut where this family is living, and myself and [another soldier] started searching for AK-47s, for explosives, for RPGs, you know … evidence. And all I can find is a tiny little pistol, probably to scare off thieves

Well because of that pistol we took their two young men … Their mother is at my feet trying to kiss my feet like I deserve my feet to be kissed. Screaming, pleading. I don’t need to speak Arabic to know love and concern and fear. I had my attack helicopter behind me, my Bradley fighting vehicle, my armour, my M4 [semi-automatic] with laser sight. I’m an 82nd Airborne killer. But I was powerless … to ease this woman’s pain.

After I came home I applied for conscientious objector [status]. I’m a Christian, what was I doing holding a gun to another human being? Love thy neighbour. Pray for those who persecute you, don’t shoot them.

I get my conscientious objector packet approved. I’m free. It’s all gone now, right? No! I still swerve at trash bags … fireworks … I can’t express anything. All my relationships are falling apart because they can’t fucking understand me. How do they know the pain I’ve gone through or the sights I’ve seen? The innocence gone, stripped, dead? I couldn’t stand the pain. People were leaving me.

I couldn’t cut my wrists. So I called the police. They come stomping through my door. I have my knife in my hand. “Shoot me.” All of a sudden I was the man with the RPG, with all the guns pointed at him, thinking “Yes, we can solve the world’s problems by killing each other”. How insane is that? Lucky I lived through that episode. See, you can’t wash your hands when they’re covered in blood. The wounds carry on. This is what war does to your soul, to your humanity, to your family.
independent.co.uk

WASHINGTON – Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war.
“There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together,” he said in a meeting with reporters at the Saudi Embassy here. “All the dynamics are pulling the country apart.” He said he was so concerned that he was carrying this message “to everyone who will listen” in the Bush administration.

Prince Saud’s statements, some of the most pessimistic public comments on Iraq by a Middle Eastern leader in recent months, were in stark contrast to the generally upbeat assessments that the White House and the Pentagon have been offering.

But in an appearance at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Bush, while once again expressing long-term optimism, warned that the bloodshed in Iraq was likely to increase in the coming weeks.
commndreams.org

Mission accomplished!