An online Financial Times article (which seems only accessible by going to antiwar.com first) reports that The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US special forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorising their neighbourhood with impunity, according to most residents….
Other Iraqi exiles, brought in by the CIA and US special forces to help assemble a local government over the next few days, say the militia is out of control.
“They are nobody, and nobody has ever heard of them, all they have is US backing,” said an Arab journalist.”
Rumsfeld is so arrongantly convinced that America’s presence is going to ensure Iraq’s slow-but-sure emergence as an orderly democratic nation. On TV today, he stated that he was certain that the embedded journalists will come home with wonderful stories about how efficient and successful the American armed forces are in handling the the growing chaos and keeping unnecessary harm at a minimum. I guess he doesn’t bother to investigate factual first-hand accounts; he prefers to make up the news in advance and then let the American press know exactly what he expects them to report.

My mother calls. Put on CNN she says. They

In a series of links that began in the comment here, I wind up here, reading the letter from Eve Ensler (Activist/Playwright/Founder, V-Day) to President Bush, which includes the following (and much more worth reading).
You cannot help people through force or violence. You help people by serving them, by asking questions, through humility, by being engaged in a process of discovery, admitting that you do not have answers and seeking answers together. You help people by providing safety and resources so they can do their best thinking. You help people by trusting they have the capacity to help themselves.
Mr. President, there is a new paradigm. I have seen it manifest itself everywhere, from Manhattan to Manila, Sarajevo to Johannesburg. Women and men who have suffered enormous violence are not buying AK-47s or machetes or weapons of mass destruction. They are not plotting retaliation or revenge. I have seen how in the Rift Valley of Africa the women who were mutilated are now opening safe houses to protect young girls from Female Genital Mutilation. In Houston, Denver, New York, Los Angeles, and Kauai, women are telling their stories of rape and domestic battery, risking
shame and embarrassment so other women will be free. In Juarez, Mexico, women activists are risking assassination as they speak out against the murder and disappearances of hundreds of poor women. In the refugee camps of Peshawar, Afghan women who lost every right under the Taliban are bringing up girls and boys to be equal. In the community centers of Mostar, women who were raped during the Bosnian war are working with soldiers to heal their trauma. In Islamabad, women are risking Fatwa to save other women from acid burnings and honor killings. In the streets of Paris, women are risking everything to hide women from their pimps and save their daughters from sex slavery. These are the new warriors