Among the many hints that the US Army in Iraq may be on the brink of disintegration, we now have this.  (Found on Cathy from Canada for 11 June 2005--scroll down.  Yes, the month is incorrect:  They seem to have substituted "July" for "June.")  

BAGHDAD, July 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. army has opened a criminal investigation into a blast that killed two soldiers at a base in Iraq after discovering it was not caused by an insurgent mortar attack, a military statement said on Friday.

Remember the Medain kidnappings, with hundreds of Shi'ites kidnapped and hundreds of Sunnis counter-kidnapped?  

Maybe not.  

On Monday 18 April 2005 Riverbend says:  

Medain is a town of Sunnis and Shia who have lived together peacefully for as long as anyone can remember. The people in the town come from the local "Ashayir" or tribes. It's one of those places where everyone knows everyone else- even if only by name or family name. The tribes who dominate the town are a combination of Sunni and Shia. Any conflicts between the townspeople are more of the tribal or family type than they are religious.

The whole concept of a large number of Sunni guerrillas raiding the town and taking 60 - 150 of its members (including women and children) was bizarre, frightening and by the second day of the rumor, a little bit suspicious.

     Chin up Kossians!

     While we have been writhing in agony, Riverbend in Baghdad has been thinking of our well-being and comfort (between car bombs and power outages) and come up with solace for our despair.  Namely:  

     Post-Election Greeting Cards

"Condolences and heartfelt tears-
You get Bush for four more years!"

"Sympathies in advance
For when they reinstate the draft!
We hope (insert_name_here) stays as safe as he/she can
And writes frequently while in Iran!"

"Bush and Cheney- what a pair!
Who said life isn't fair?
While Iraq gets tanks and occupation-
You have idiots to run your nation!"

There's more.  Go here and scroll down to Thursday, November 04, 2004

     They don't have much to say, and I don't have much to add.  But despite (apparently) everybody's best efforts, Iraq is back in the news.  This came in less than 30 minutes ago from Reuters:  

"Loud blasts echoed across central Baghdad early on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said.

"The sounds appeared to come from the area of the "Green Zone" compound which houses the interim Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy, a target of repeated guerrilla attacks."

     Indescriminate slaughter of civilians has been part of the US approach to the Iraqi war from the very beginning.  An interview with Jimmy Massey, a Marine who has refused further combat, tells a piece of the story.  

    (I was led to this by Faiza over at A Family in Baghdad for 24 May.  The story can be traced back to Project Somewhere for 18 May, which gives as source of the interview the Sacremento Bee of 16 May.)

Q:  What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?  

A:  The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation.  What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people.  I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war.  But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis.  And I didn't see any humanitarian support.  

     This  comes from Healing Iraq for Tuesday 13 April, refering to the 160 women and 50 children who were killed over the weekend:

     "Doctors from Fallujah mentioned that a large number of the dead women and children were shot in the head, and that they were saving the extracted bullets to prove that they were being targetted by Marine snipers in the city."  

     Healing Iraq is the blog of a vehemently secular, stongly anti-religious Iraqi, who is both in Iraq and unambiguously pro-US.  Or at least he was--he is getting openly frustrated.  
His account augments the picture from empire.org of sniper activity.  (Which involved shooting the drivers of ambulances.)  

     Does the US rampage in Iraq have a military or political purpose?  If so what?  

     Between the ongoing chaos and an apparent US news clamp down there doesn't seem to be much coming out of Iraq this weekend, but Rahul Mahajan, an American who has just started traveling in Iraq, has been blogging--and from Fallujah no less!  His blog was mentioned in a post to maha's diary IRAQ BLOGS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, but what didn't get mentioned is a rather peculiar and unsettling war crime.  I don't know how many Americans will be interested in this, but I think WE should be:  

     If you are still worried or concerned about Dean's "aarrgh!" you might want to check out "Butching up for Victory" in The Nation.  

     "[The internet] may account for Dean's current standing, but it's not why he stuck out from the pack almost from the moment he announced.  Dean did it, as conservative columnist George Will notes, by "discern[ing] what liberals want: attitude."

     "Is she a real woman;  is he a real man?  These may be the most important questions in American politics today, precisely because they are rarely asked.  Polsters don't measure a candidate's butch appeal, but political strategists do.  And ever since Ronald Reagan rode roughshod over that wimp in the Mr. Rogers cardigan, the Republicans have played the gender card very effectively against the Democrats.  . . . the party of give-'em hell Harry has taken blow after blow to the primal parts."  

     "Dean has skillfully cast himself as a manly alternative to Bush's ripe macho.  That's no mean feat for a dove."  

     "Dean is the only major Democratic candidate to evade the sissifying barbs of the GOP's shock-jock surrogates."  

     "GOP strategists have had [enormous success] in reaching voters on a symbolic level.  The Republicans have adapted their Southern strategy to the new terms of sexual politics.  What they once did with race, they are doing today with gender."  

     "It's no surprise that the Republicans excel at this craft.  The corporate class they draw from has had to think long and hard about the primal aspects of identification.  Knowing how to manipulated sexual fantasies is crucial to the process of shaping consumer demand.  With the same practiced expertise, the Republicans have stoked white male anxiety . . .  White guys are 39 percent of the electorate, and by now only 22 percent of them identiy as Demnocrats."  

     "Most Americans have felt the pinch of stagnant or declinig wages, but white men aren't doing especially badly.  Only 18 percent of them earn less than $30,000; a third make $75,000 or more.  If white guys lean Republican, material deprivation isn't the main reason.  Their feeling of persecution derives from an entirely symbolic insult.  The prestige of white macho has definitely taken a hit, and the resulting sense of loss moves many issues."  

     "Now factor in 9/11, with its gross insult to America's twin stiffies.  Real as the danger of terrorism is, it has coincided with the so-called crisis of masculinity to produce a powerful perception that we need a strongman--rather than a strong person--in order to survive.  The result is a politics of cartoon virility.  But a symbol that doesn't meet actual needs soon seems like an empty artifice.  That's what Dean is betting on.  He's out to embody a masculinity that feels substantial rather than ceremonial.  In other words, he's trying to be butch but not macho."  

     " . . . People kept in a state of constant stress will sacrifice their best instincts and even their real interests for the illusion of safety . . . That's why the Republicans put such energy into arousing anxiety and displacing it onto Democrats.  If Dean is to beat the odds, he will have to counter this strategy in every move he makes."  

     "It won't be easy.  It doesn't take much to foment fear in white boys."  

     "We may resent the fact that Americans regard the penis and its symbolic projections as synonymous with strength.  But psychic reality cannot be denied."  

     The media's loud dismay at Dean's (non-concession) speech suggests to me that Dean really is threatening them in their own game.  

     I know you are all curious about the new Iraqi dinar.  I just wish I could read the Arabic!  

     Seeing the Forest (try searching on "seetheforest"  or can someone who knows how to do these things make the link?) reports that vCJ may already be causing deaths in the US, with undiagnosed wasting diseases, misdiagnosed Alheimer's disease, and misdiagnosed MS.  

     NO animals that are fed feed are safe, for example, although chickens do not come down with Mad Cow, they are sometimes fed contaminated feed and may be carriers.  

     Unsafe animals include pork and lamb and, well, pretty much everything.  

     This is worse news than I expected.