U.S. soldiers on police duty in Iraq are unhappy, and are now beginning to say so to the press.(Washington Post)

"U.S. officials need to get our [expletive] out of here," said the 43-year-old reservist from Pittsburgh, who arrived in Iraq with the 307th Military Police Company on May 24. "I say that seriously. We have no business being here. We will not change the culture they have in Iraq, in Baghdad. Baghdad is so corrupted. All we are here is potential people to be killed and sitting ducks."

Their concerns are reflected in an incident where an armed British police patrol in Majar al-Kabir ignited a multi-hour gunbattle in which 6 British soldiers were killed after running out of ammunition. (SF Gate) Locals believed the soldiers were violating an agreement to cease their intrusions into local areas.

Of course, Rumsfield insists things are fine in Iraq (Washington Post), and blames any and all resistance on "looters, criminals, remnants of Saddam Hussein's government, foreign terrorists and Iranian-backed Shiites." Rumsfeld also insisted that there is no 'guerilla' warfare going on in Iraq, contrary to the Pentagon's definition and reports from soliders in the field using that characterization.

One wonders if he's testing the waters, and some day soon, he'll announce that the sky is green, and see who publishes it.

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Several children have been killed by U.S. forces in recent days, which is making the soldier's duties harder as the populace harbors increasing resentments over the deaths of innocents after Bush's decision that the war had ended. (There are few new reports regarding those who died in the bombing and their resentments, which is interesting. While widespread outrage was reported in Al Jazeera and some BBC articles, it has not been discussed again, as if all has been forgiven, or at least forgotten.)

U.S. forces shot a 12 year old boy on the roof of his house (Washington Post), and have not apologized to the boy's parents. an 11 year old boy was run over by a U.S. convoy while approaching to try to sell the soldier s goods. The convoy did not stop, leaving his body in the road. (BBC) And three children burned by flammable war materials were refused treatment by U.S. forces, despite the pleas of a U.S. sargeant moved to tears by their plight (Common Dreams/AP). They were turned down because their injuries were not immediately life threatening, but the distressing thing is that this was an opportunity to show concern for the plight of locals that was passed up. (The sargeant gave the parents everything he could from his first aid kit, but couldn't provide the full help that was needed, and can't believe the callousness of his superiors.)

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Mainstream Iraq news resources to bookmark:
-The BBC's "After Saddam" page.
-New York Times: "After the War"
-San Francisco Chronicle "Iraq aftermath" (the San Francisco Chronicle's on0line presence is known as SF Gate).
-Washington Post's "World: Iraq".

Very short news item: the U.N. Terrorist Committee says it has found no evidence of a connection between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terror network (BBC).

As is traditional, the U.S. says it has lots of evidence that the committee is wrong, and that there is a connection. And won't show it to anyone. I know, you'd laugh if it wasn't so serious. I would, too.

"We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country."

That's a quote from Paul Bremer, chief US administrator in Iraq, on uncooperative, allegedly Baathist elements in Iraq, in article called US strikes at resistance (BBC) I say allegedly Baathist, because the U.S. has characterized every single Iraqi protest to anything the U.S. has done in Iraq as Baathist.

I'm beginning to suspect the U.S. Government's definition of Baathist as different from everyone else's.

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At the moment, I'm reading Nelson Madela's brilliant autobiography. When the white supremacist Nationalist Party came into power after WWII, they passed a bunch of laws against Communism. But the catch was that the laws defined communists as anyone who wanted to change the policies of the government. That meant that anyone who objected to whites-only train cars, whites-only chairs, whites-only restaurants, or whites-only voting was suddenly defined as a "communist." The government hijacked the LANGUAGE first. And then they started taking away rights, one after another. Whenever anyone would organize a peaceful protest, they'd get locked up. When the international community asked what was going on, the government would just say 'rounding up communists,' and the anti-communist western nations would say, 'oh, that's great,' and wander off.

Because no one cared about what happened to "communists."

It took a while for other folks to notice that the National Government was not using the term as they were.

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So when I see a news photo of an Iraqi with a sign that says "No Bush No Saddam," and read that "Baathists," the folks who were members of Saddam's political party, are the ONLY people in all of Iraq who object to the American occupation, I am skeptical.

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Another note about Mandela: he was working actively with the African National Congress while working full time, running his own law practice. So no excuses, people: if he could run his own business during the weekdays and devote himself to challenging injustice on nights and weekends, you can, too.

(Well, yes, the successful fight for freedom for millions of his fellow Africans did cost him his marriages, and deprived him of time with his children. He did wrestle with the question of whether it is more important to serve one's family (or one's own group) or a wider group of mankind. He decided that it was his path to serve mankind. He noted that it is not necessarily a higher calling, but definitely is a different one. This is something for those to consider who say that the best way to serve your country is to have lots of kids and be a good parent. It's always a service to the community to be a good parent. But had Mandela chosen that route, his family and millions of others would still be horribly oppressed. Mandela's family benefited from what he did for society in big ways. Sometimes, society needs more than good parenting to improve the lot of all people. This seems obvious to me, but I keep having to argue this point.)