With the American raid on the Mustafa mosque, the occupation of Iraq is rapidly reaching a point at which it is no longer tenable: as the Shi’ite giant awakens, the country is about to become a battleground in a much larger war, one that will envelop much of the Middle East.
antiwar.com

Fear Up Harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in Context
The causes underlying any civil war are always complex, confused, even contradictory — as one would expect in an outbreak of madness. But those seeking to discover some of the key precipitating factors behind Iraq’s furious plunge into chaos and disintegration might find one of them in the records of an obscure Congressional committee meeting on August 10, 2004.

At that meeting, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, General Peter Pace (now head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General Bryan Brown, head of Special Operations Command, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee. In a long session larded with the usual rhetorical posturing, mutual backscratching with the committee’s rubberstamp Republican majority – and a couple of polite queries from the timid Democratic minority – Wolfowitz announced the Pentagon’s plan to give money, arms and training to a network of local militias in trouble spots around the world. These irregular forces – “not just armies,” Wolfowitz emphasized – would be used to “counter terrorism and insurgencies,” provide greater internal security” in regions of American interest and “deny sanctuary” to America’s designated enemies, according to Pentagon transcripts of the testimony.

General Brown said the use of militas was part of the “unconventional warfare” being waged by the Bush Administration across the globe, “whereby special forces accomplishes our national objectives through, by and with surrogate forces.” General Pace gave the legislators a view of the scope of such operations, mentioning “Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Georgia, Paraguay, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran” and of course Iraq, which he mentioned twice. Wolfowitz told the Congressman that Bush wanted $500 million to set up this network – his own personal Janjaweed.

Sectarian threats purge 30,000 Iraqis from homes

30-40 Mutilated Bodies Found Each Day Around Baghdad

Americans’ call for removal of Iraqi PM threatens rift with Shias

US admits attack target contained a mosque

US led coalition no longer responsible for Iraq: Daniel Pipes
Three years on from the invasion of Iraq, where do the neo-conservatives, who were so influential in the lead up to war, stand now?

One of them, Daniel Pipes, arrived in Australia today, and he says that even if Iraq does descend into full-scale civil war, it would not be a strategic tragedy.

Arab summit opens with pledge of support to Palestinians, Iraq

Arabs renew peace offer to Israel
Arab leaders meeting in Sudan on Tuesday promoted a land-for-peace offer to Israel, even as Israelis voted in polls that could give their next government a mandate to impose permanent borders with the Palestinians.

US cuts diplomatic ties with Hamas government

Arab Nations Urged to Enter Nuclear Club

‘Saudi secretly working with Pak experts’
Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

Rice: Iran a Menace Beyond Nuclear Issue
…”We need now to broaden that thinking and that coalition, not just to what Iran is doing on the nuclear side but also what they’re doing on terrorism,” Rice said.

Neo-con cabal blocked 2003 nuclear talks
WASHINGTON – The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.

With this cluster of good news, it becomes clear that we are sitting back watching a long-term strategy unfold, as unthinkable as that may be to some. If anybody doubts who blew the golden dome off that mosque…since that event, the US has turned on the Shia and embraced the Sunni/Baathists, and unleashed the full chaos so many of us have insisted was the strategy all along. Creating Hamas, propelling it into power, and then isolating Palestine, forcing response from the Arab states… If we were unable three years ago to imagine the horror that would ultimately ensue, now as we see it unfolding day by day…the unthinkable becomes real.

Here’s an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said her contract was not renewed because she answered a student’s question about whether she would participate in a demonstration for peace. (See “Teacher Awaits Day in Court.”)

Her case involves an incident that occurred on January 10, 2003, at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana.

The students were reading an article in Time for Kids about peace protests. She responded to the student’s question by saying she sometimes honks for peace and that it’s important to seek out peaceful solutions both on the playground and in society. Afterwards, the parents of one of the students got angry and insisted that she not speak about peace again in the classroom. Mayer’s principal so ordered her.

When the school district did not renew Mayer’s contract at the end of the semester, she sued for wrongful termination and for violation of her First Amendment rights.

On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer’s case, granting summary judgment to the defendants.

The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance.

But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that “teachers, including Ms. Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period.”
progressive.org

The corporatist Republicans (“amnesty!”) are fighting with the racist Republicans (“fence!”), and it provides an opportunity for progressives to step forward with a clear solution to the immigration problem facing America.

Both the corporatists and the racists are fond of the mantra, “There are some jobs Americans won’t do.” It’s a lie.

Americans will do virtually any job if they’re paid a decent wage. This isn’t about immigration – it’s about economics. Industry and agriculture won’t collapse without illegal labor, but the middle class is being crushed by it.

The reason why thirty years ago United Farm Workers’ Union (UFW) founder Caesar Chávez fought against illegal immigration, and the UFW turned in illegals during his tenure as president, was because Chávez, like progressives since the 1870s, understood the simple reality that labor rises and falls in price as a function of availability.

As Wikipedia notes: “In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valley to the border of Mexico to protest growers’ use of illegal aliens as temporary replacement workers during a strike. Joining him on the march were both the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Chávez and the UFW would often report suspected illegal aliens who served as temporary replacement workers as well as who refused to unionize to the INS.”

Working Americans have always known this simple equation: More workers, lower wages. Fewer workers, higher wages.

Progressives fought – and many lost their lives in the battle – to limit the pool of “labor hours” available to the Robber Barons from the 1870s through the 1930s and thus created the modern middle class. They limited labor-hours by pushing for the 50-hour week and the 10-hour day (and then later the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day). They limited labor-hours by pushing for laws against child labor (which competed with adult labor). They limited labor-hours by working for passage of the 1935 Wagner Act that provided for union shops.

And they limited labor-hours by supporting laws that would regulate immigration into the United States to a small enough flow that it wouldn’t dilute the unionized labor pool. As Wikipedia notes: “The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers.”

Do a little math. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 7.6 million unemployed Americans right now. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they’ve become “long term” or “discouraged” unemployed workers. And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are “underemployed,” doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience. That’s between eight and twenty million un- and under-employed Americans, many unable to find above-poverty-level work.

At the same time, there are between seven and fifteen million working illegal immigrants diluting our labor pool.
commondreams.org

Well where are the ‘progressives’ then on NAFTA and CAFTA? The obvious solution is a hemsipheric workers’ movement.

Bush Wants to Make IMF and World Bank Even Worse
Tucked away deep in the new “National Security Strategy” that Bush released on March 16 was some bad news for Third World countries: Bush wants the IMF and World Bank to shove the free market even further down their throats.

Chapter VI of that document is entitled “Ignite a New Era of Global Economic Growth Through Free Markets and Free Trade.”

It boasts of all the new free trade agreements the Bush Administration has negotiated, and it vows to create a Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013. (It hopes to sign a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, but that one may have been set back by the port controversy.)

The chapter warns of some challenges, including the fact that some countries have the audacity to “restrict the free flow of capital, subverting the vital role that wise investment can play in promoting economic growth.” This, even though countries like China, India, and Chile that place some controls on capital flow have had much greater economic success than others and did not suffer the turbulence caused by capital flight that many countries contended with in the late 1990s.

As for Third World countries with natural resources like oil, the chapter is quite clear: “The Administration will work with resource-rich countries to increase their openness, transparency, and rule of law,” it says. This will “attract the investment essential to developing their resources and expanding the range of energy suppliers.” By “diversifying the suppliers,” the Administration says its plan “diminishes the leverage of irresponsible rulers.”

In a section on “strengthening international financial institutions,” the document amazingly urges the IMF and the World Bank to do more of what they do wrong.

Immigration debate triggers more protests
Thousands of students took to the streets in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas and other cities Tuesday to protest a proposed toughening of immigration policy.

The demonstrations took place as Republican senators in Washington emerged from a meeting saying they will begin debating immigration legislation this week.

Tuesday’s demonstrations, smaller than those that clogged streets over the weekend, were mostly peaceful, police said.

•In Los Angeles, 8,800 students walked out of class, said Susan Cox, a school district spokeswoman. They will have to make up the work they missed.

•In Dallas, as many as 3,000 students protested, many of them gathering at City Hall, said Lt. Rick Watson, a spokesman for the police department. Some of the students entered the building, but Watson said there were no incidents or arrests.

•In Phoenix, about 1,200 students gathered at the state Capitol, said Alan Ecker, a spokesman for the Arizona department of administration. The crowd dispersed without incident, he said.

“I’m here for my parents,” Juliana Rojo, 14, told the Associated Press. She said her parents are illegal immigrants. “They work hard. I just want them to be treated fairly.”

There’s no doubt that a grassroots impeachment movement is brewing in Vermont. Dan DeWalt’s Newfane town meeting impeachment resolution – passed also by Dummerston, Putney, Marlboro, Brookfield and, in modified form, by Brattleboro – attracted international attention. The state’s Democratic Party is now considering a call for impeachment. So you might think that Vermont is once again ahead of the pack.

But don’t believe for a moment that we can be smug about our outrage, our good common sense, and our progressive values.

True, we were the first state to outlaw slavery. True, we were the first state to debate gay marriage and grant civil rights to gays and lesbians. True, our beloved Sen. James Jeffords switched out of the Republican Party to help balance the power in the early days of the Bush Administration. True, our former governor, Howard Dean, almost swept the last presidential sweepstakes and is now chief fund-raiser and grassroots hell-raiser for the Democratic Party. True, we have a group working hard for Vermont’s secession from the Union. True, we voted loud and clear that we want Bush out of office as soon as possible.

But let’s look at reality.
commondreams.org

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Schoolchildren cheered as the first total eclipse in years plunged Ghana into daytime darkness Wednesday, a solar show sweeping northeast from Brazil to Mongolia.

As the heavens and Earth moved into rare alignment, all that could be seen of the sun were the rays of its corona – the usually invisible extended atmosphere of the sun that glowed a dull yellow for about three minutes, barely illuminating the west African nation.
ap.org

While the U.S. mainstream media widely-reported the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent indictment of 50 rebel leaders belonging to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an announcement by the State Department the next day received surprisingly little coverage. On March 24, Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told Colombia’s Radio Caracol that, while the United States would not initiate any unilateral military action to capture FARC leaders, it would intervene if invited by the Colombian government. Given that the U.S. government’s intervention in Colombia already involves everything but the deployment of U.S. combat troops, it is clear that Patterson’s comments were intended to illustrate the Bush administration’s willingness to deploy U.S. troops to Colombia to combat FARC guerrillas.
colomibiajournal.org

The exiled former Liberian president Charles Taylor has gone missing in Nigeria, just as a prison cell at Sierra Leone’s war crimes court was being readied for his imminent arrival.

His disappearance is a major embarrassment for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who arrives today in Washington where he will have to answer to US critics who have pushed for Taylor’s handover for years.

The Nigerian authorities, who have been overseeing Mr Taylor’s exile for almost three years, said yesterday that he had disappeared on Monday night from his riverside villa in the south-eastern city of Calabar.

The UN secretary general Kofi Annan said he intended to contact the Nigerian government for answers. “It would be extremely worrying if indeed he had disappeared because the Nigerian government had indicated it will co-operate with his transfer to Liberia and to the court,” Mr Annan said.

“If he is not where he normally stays, where is he? Has he been moved elsewhere by the authorities? Did he vanish?”
independent.co.uk

Joseph Nyamiroko never reached the safety of the Amahoro stadium with his family. On 11 April 1994, he witnessed soldiers hacking his wife and son to death with machetes before shooting his brother in the face as they fled towards the sports complex.

Ever since, the 56-year-old shopkeeper has avoided the towering arena. He believes it is where the “ghosts” of his loved ones finally found refuge from Rwanda’s genocide.

But on Monday night, almost 12 years to the day after seeing his family butchered on a muddy brick-red road, Mr Nyamiroko finally completed the journey to the stadium.

There he found those ghosts, walking and talking before him on a 20ft-tall cinema screen.

Sat on the terraces with 2,000 others, he saw a version of the events of that day resurrected in the world premiere of Shooting Dogs during a tropical rainstorm. The £3m British film, starring John Hurt, portrays the massacre started at the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) in Kichukiro, a southern suburb of the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

It was one of the most bestial and troubling killing sprees in the planned campaign of extermination which claimed 800,000 lives in 100 days between April and July 1994.

…Indeed, the makers of Shooting Dogs – financed by the film arm of the BBC, the UK Film Council and a German production company – have been eager to emphasise what they consider to be its key virtue – the fact it was made in Rwanda with Rwandans actors and crew and as much input from Rwandans as possible. By contrast, the Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda was made in South Africa.
independent.co.uk

How sick is this.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) — A series of blasts killed one person and injured several others in Addis Ababa on Monday, the first fatality in a string of mysterious explosions in the Ethiopian capital.

One person was killed and three others injured when the first blast ripped through a minibus in the southern part of the city.

Over the next six hours in different parts of Addis Ababa, explosions went off in a small cafe, a guard shack and at an abattoir.

An employee in the cafe said the explosion there injured 10 people and ambulances could be seen leaving for the hospital.

Police who had cordoned off the area around the cafe, littered with broken glass, had no immediate comment.

The fourth explosion, in the busy Mercato trading district, tore the tin roof off a guard shack near some warehouses. A sidewalk vendor was seriously injured, witnesses said.

A Reuters reporter at the scene of the bus explosion said the rear of the 11-seat vehicle was torn apart by the blast.

The bus owner, Berhanu Gebremichael, told Reuters: “One person was killed in the explosion. Three others were injured slightly and they are in hospital for treatment.”

It was the first death in a wave of attacks that began in January with minor blasts targeting public buildings and hotels.

Although grenade attacks to settle scores are relatively common in Ethiopia, the unexplained blasts have boosted tension in Addis, which was shaken by two bouts of unrest in the wake of disputed parliamentary elections last May.

At least 80 people were killed in clashes between police and opposition demonstrators in June and November.

On March 7 this year, three separate explosions injured at least four people at a restaurant, a market and outside a school.

Ethiopia’s government said the plastic explosives used in those blasts were smuggled from neighboring Eritrea and used by what it called Eritrean-backed “terrorists.”

Eritrea, which has been locked in a dispute with Ethiopia over their border since a 1998-2000 war that killed 70,000 people, ridiculed the charges.
cnn.com

FORT WORTH, Texas — Students rushed Dallas City Hall Tuesday in the second day of marches for the rights of illegal immigrants, leaving at least three injured; students also gathered at Kiest Park in Oak Cliff and Fort Worth City Hall.

The students flooded the most floors of Dallas City Hall, disrupting a council meeting, before police and security guards managed to usher them back out. Councilwoman Elba Garcia left a closed-door meeting to used a police-car public address system to ask students to return to school.

Hundreds of students were gathered outside Dallas City Hall with flags and signs. Several students were seen wading in the reflecting pond in front of City Hall.
One girl was carried out of the water and attended to by paramedics. At least one other person was injured moments later.

Police lined the City Hall entrance, and elevators inside the building were shut down late Tuesday morning. There was no word on damage or arrests.

Video footage Tuesday showed gridlocked traffic two or three lanes wide in front of one Dallas high school, with many truckbeds packed with students who waved Mexican flags.

At Kiest Park, about 1,500 students from Dallas and Grand Prairie schools demonstrated. Dallas police outfitted in riot gear moved in on the crowd after some of the students started throwing rocks and bottles at a woman who staged a one-person counterprotest.

Dallas police said they were forced to separate the woman from the crowd. They also moved students to a different section of the park.

Police withdrew after a few minutes and watched from a distance as the students boarded buses, which took them back to school.

Students from at least four Irving high schools walked out of class at about 9 a.m. and took the Trinity Railway Express to Dallas City Hall.
nbc5i.com

Senators Back Guest Workers
A key Senate panel broke with the House’s get-tough approach to illegal immigration yesterday and sent to the floor a broad revision of the nation’s immigration laws that would provide lawful employment to millions of undocumented workers while offering work visas to hundreds of thousands of new immigrants every year.

Is this a phony trumped-up feud between Bush and the Conservatives to court the Latinos and build up Bush’s political capital?