‘The British public has become
increasingly cool towards American policy and critical of its role in the world
after the sustained violence in Iraq. 

A
Populus opinion poll in The Times indicates that fewer than half the
public believe that America is a force for good in the world, and nearly two
thirds believe that Britain’s future lies more with Europe than with the US.  

There
is also evidence of a longer-term shift in views about the US. However, while
President Bush and his Administration remain unpopular in Britain, Americans as
a people remain popular.’  

Britons
Begin To Turn Away From Alliance With America

‘Military commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to
the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable
to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month.  

Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is
"just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control
Americans soldiers pushed beyond the breaking point both physically and
mentally. 

"We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired army general Barry
McCaffrey. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the
American people are walking away from this war." 

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has
clamped a tight security lid on the increasingly pessimistic reports coming out
of field commanders in Iraq, threatening swift action against any military
personnel who leak details to the press or public. 

The wife of a staff sergeant with Kilo Company, the Marine Unit charged
with killing civilians at Haditha, tells Newsweek magazine that the
unit was a hotbed of drug abuse, alcoholism and violence. 

"There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing
[violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's
more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or
something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."

Journalists stationed with the unit described Kilo Company and the Third
Batallion of Marines as a "unit out of control," where morale had
plummeted and rules went out the window. 

Similar reports emerge from military units throughout Iraq and even the
Iraqi prime minister describes American soldiers as trigger happy goons with
little regard for the lives of civilians. 

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki says the murder of Iraqi civilians
has become a "daily phenomenon" by American troops
who "do not respect the Iraqi people."’ 

Field
Commanders Tell Pentagon Iraq War 'Is Lost'

‘Dead women. Fifty-four dead women. Has it really come to
this? We know that American women die everyday. They die in hospitals, nursing
homes, bedrooms, and cars. They die by accident, disease, murder, suicide, or
natural causes. But why should any American women die in Iraq fighting a war? 

Yes, women. It is horrible enough
when young men in the prime of their life have their arms and legs torn to shreds
because of an encounter with an "improvised explosive device," but it
is absolutely hideous that we as a country countenance young women – young
American women, some of them with children – dying the same grisly type of
death. True, they enlisted in the military of their own free will. But where
are the fathers, the brothers, and the pastors of these misguided and
impressionable girls? What kind of slime do we have for military recruiters
that would prey on these women? 

As I have argued many, many times before, no
American soldiers – men or women – should be fighting in Iraq in the first
place. Some Americans are aware that 2,475
U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq; few Americans probably realize that
54 of them were women.’ 

Fifty-Four Dead Women

‘Now, to see the situation as it is, turn that telescope
around. Every firefight we win in Iraq or Afghanistan does little for our
pride, because we are so much stronger than the people we are defeating. Every
time we get hit successfully by a weaker enemy, we feel like chumps, and cannot
look ourselves in the mirror (again, with IED attacks this happens quite
often). Whenever we use our superior strength against Iraqi civilians, which is
to say every time we drive down an Iraqi street, we diminish ourselves in our
own eyes. 

Eventually, we come to look at
ourselves with contempt and see ourselves as monsters. One way to justify being
a monster is to behave like one, which makes the problem worse still. The
resulting downward spiral, which every army in this kind of war has gotten
caught in, leads to indiscipline, demoralization, and disintegration of larger
units as fire teams and squads simply go feral. 

Again, this process is
fundamental to Fourth Generation war. Martin van Crevald has stressed the power
of weakness as one key, if not the key, to 4GW, and he is correct. It shows
just how far America’s military leadership is from grasping Fourth Generation
war that its response in Iraq has been to order all troops to undergo a two to
four-hour "refresher course in core values." 

They are caught in a hurricane,
and all they can do is spit in the wind. The rest of us should get ready for
the house to blow down.’ 

The Power Of Weakness

‘For the smug, comfortable, well-off Americans, it doesn't
seem to matter how long the war in Iraq goes on - as long as the agony is
endured by others. If the network coverage gets too grim, viewers can always
switch to the E! channel (one hand on the remote, the other burrowing into a
bag of chips) to follow the hilarious antics of Paris, Britney, Brangelina et
al. 

The war is depressing and denial
is the antidote. Why should ordinary citizens (good people, religious people,
patriots) consider their role in - and responsibility for - the thunderous,
unending carnage? 

Enough with this introspection.
Let's go to the ballpark, get drunk and boo Barry Bonds. 

The nation is in deep denial
about Iraq. For years the president and his supporting cast of arrogant,
bullying characters have tried to put the best face on this war. They had no
idea what they were doing when they ordered the invasion of Iraq, and they
still don't. Many of the troops who were assured that the Iraqis would welcome them
with open arms are now dead. 

And there's still no plan.’ 

Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual
underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover
the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was
about the weapons of mass destruction. (And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last
June when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.)’ 

Other People's
Blood

‘Faced with mounting civilian carnage, both from war
crimes committed by demoralized and broken US troops and from the raging civil
war unleashed by Bush’s ill-fated illegal invasion of Iraq, the House Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee has decided to waste another $50 billion to
continue the lost war for five more months. 

Our elected "representatives" are so in thrall
to the powerful military-industrial complex that no amount of American shame,
pariah status and military defeat can shut off the flow of taxpayers’ funds to
the merchants of death. 

Bush’s wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan are costing hard-pressed US taxpayers $300,000,000 per day! These
wars are lost. Yet, imbecilic members of Congress are in the process of funding
the war for another year. Multiply $300 million by 365 days and you get
$109,500,000,000. These are not the full costs. The huge figure does not
include the destroyed equipment, destroyed lives, and long-term care of the
maimed and disabled. 

Gentle reader, are you getting
enough vicarious pleasure from the slaughter of Iraqi women and children to
justify this price tag? Is murdering "ragheads" that important to
you? If so, you are one sick person, just like every member of the Bush
administration.’ 

War Criminal Nation

the long-term American
presence in Iraq …… 

"It is not only our plan but
our policy that we
do not intend to have any permanent bases in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Mark
Kimmitt -- the Central Command deputy commander for planning and strategy in
Iraq -- promised in January. The following month, Undersecretary of State Karen
Hughes was asked if the U.S. planned to keep permanent military bases in Iraq.
"No,"
Hughes responded, "we want to bring our people home as soon as
possible." But the New York Times reported yesterday that officials have
begun to "look at the costs of maintaining
a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size
of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades
after those conflicts." This is not the first signal the administration
has sent on a permanent military presence in Iraq. When asked if "U.S.
forces could be in Iraq five or even 10 years down the road," Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice would
not deny the possibility. Newsweek reported on the administration's efforts
to build
up military installations in Iraq with $1.1
billion in military construction. And despite unanimous
agreements against permanent base funding in both the House and Senate Iraq
spending bills, conservatives
quietly killed the provision last week. Researchers have "found
a link between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the
United States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the
country."

‘US Army Colonel James Steele, who was
involved in the Iran-Contras scandal along with international terrorist Luis
Posada Carriles at his command, is now an advisor to death squads in Iraq.

The presence of the US army officer in Iraq has
just been revealed by US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, Granma daily reports. 

Luis Posada Carriles, currently under arrest in
the US charged with illegal entry into that country, was the first to report to
Colonel Steele about the downing of a DC-3 aircraft in Nicaragua and the arrest
of Eugene Hassenfus, the incident that led to the Iran-Contras scandal. 

In a letter addressed to the US State
Department, Kucinich notes that Colonel Steele, a current advisor to the US
ambassador in Iraq, implemented a plan in El Salvador under which tens of
thousands Salvadorans “disappeared” or were murdered, including Archbishop
Oscar Romero and four American nuns.

Colonel Steele has been assigned to the new
counter-insurgence unit known as the Special Police Commando, which operates
under the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said Kucinich. 

A 1996 investigation by US journalist Robert
Parry, who formerly worked as a reporter for Associated Press, Newsweek and PBS
TV, revealed that Posada reported to two FBI officers on his participation in
the huge drug trafficking and weapon smuggling operation at the orders of
Colonel Steele, a close ally of Colonel Oliver North and his bosses in the
White House.’

American
Accomplice Of Terrorist Linked To Death Squads In Iraq

‘Italian investigators are continuing to probe Italy's
role in America's anti-terrorist war, particularly the rendition and torture of
U.S.-wanted terrorist suspects. Reacting to the public and media outcry, the
Italian parliament is also tracing links between Italian defense firms and the
country's recently defeated government in an attempt to understand how these
connections may have pushed Italy into an unpopular war. 

The investigation will focus on
the role played by Giovanni Castellaneta, currently Italy's ambassador to the
United States, in the crafting and the delivery of the yellowcake dossier to
the White House. The Italian Senate investigation seeks to detail the full
extent of its intelligence agency's involvement with its American counterpart
in waging an off-the-books war on international terrorism.’ 

Exposing
The CIA's Italian Kidnapping Plot