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U.S. seeks enhanced financial authority for Fed

John Poirier and Glenn Somerville, Reuters, March 28, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department will propose on Monday that the Federal Reserve be given sweeping new powers that would make it chief regulator with authority to take actions to ensure market stability.

An executive summary of the proposals published by the New York Times, which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will make public on Monday when he unveils a blueprint for regulatory overhaul, says it is vital to fix "regulatory gaps and redundancies" exposed by an ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.

Lax regulation has been widely blamed for permitting a flood of inadequately documented loans to be made during the boom years of a U.S. housing market that has since soured and now threatens to drag the economy into a deep recession.

The proposals say a "market stability regulator" is needed and the Fed best fits that role, suggesting the central bank could use its control over interest rates as well as its ability to provide market liquidity to fulfill its functions.

It proposes that the Fed be given broad authority to require information from all participants in financial markets and a right to collaborate with other regulators in writing the rules that companies and institutions must follow.

NEW FED POWERS

If the Fed finds that the actions of some market participants pose risks for the overall financial system or the economy, "the Federal Reserve should have authority to require corrective action to address current risks or to constrain future risk-taking," the summary said.

Among other recommendations, Treasury suggests merging the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. markets watchdog, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that oversees the activities of the futures market.

It also recommends getting rid of a Depression-era charter for thrifts that was intended to make it easier to obtain mortgage loans, saying it is no longer necessary. That would mean closing up the Office of Thrift Supervision and transferring its duties to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that oversees national banks.

Treasury officials refused on Friday to reveal details of the proposals but numerous trade groups had been invited to a speech by Paulson on Monday at Treasury and speculation quickly swelled that its long-awaited prescription for streamlining regulation was at hand.

Treasury said it has been working on its proposals since March last year, well before calls for an overhaul began to intensify in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis that began to wreak havoc last summer on financial markets.

Paulson had signaled some of the direction the proposals would take earlier this week when he said that since the Fed had taken the exceptional step of permitting investment banks access to its discount window for loans -- the first time it has done so for any financial entities besides commercial banks since the 1930s -- it should have some authority over the investment banks.

ACCESS BRINGS RULES

"Certainly any regular access to the discount window should involve the same type of regulation and supervision," he said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Another proposal would provide an option for insurance companies to obtain a charter to do business under federal regulation, though it says the current state-based system would continue for any that did not get a federal charter.

Most of the financial services industry in the United States is regulated by federal authorities except insurance, which the states supervise. For years, big insurance companies, however, have been calling for an optional federal charter.

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, last week said Congress should seriously consider giving a federal agency the power to monitor all risk in the financial system and act when necessary, regardless of its corporate form.

Frank suggested one possibility would be to empower the fed as "Financial Services Risk Regulator," an idea that Treasury's proposals appear to broadly embrace.

Many analysts and some Treasury officials have said they don't expect recommendations made during the current administration to become law but hope it will be used a springboard for the next resident of the White House.

(Reporting by John Poirier and Glenn Somerville; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Ralph Nader talks about housing on MSNBC.com

Witness vs. police on Taser death

Police interviewed witnesses in store, urge others to come forward
VICTORIA CHERRIE, charlotte.com, March 26, 2008

A local attorney on Tuesday refuted the police account of a confrontation in which an officer used a stun gun on a 17-year-old who later died.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said an "agitated" Darryl Turner threw something at a manager, ignored commands and advanced toward Officer Jerry Dawson Jr. last week, prompting the 15-year veteran to use his Taser to get Turner under control.

A preliminary autopsy showed no obvious cause of death.

The incident happened at a Food Lion on Prosperity Church Road where Turner bagged groceries and was a cashier.

Court documents say Turner had been asked by the customer service manager to leave the store about 1:15 p.m. Thursday, but he refused. Police have declined to give more details about the incident, which is being investigated by homicide detectives. An internal investigation is also underway.

Attorney Ken Harris, who represents Turner's family, is conducting his own investigation.

Harris said he has interviewed a witness who told him the officer entered the store as Turner was arguing with a manager. The witness said the officer told Turner to "step back."

The witness told Harris that Turner obeyed the officer's command, but was shocked with the Taser while standing less than five feet away, Harris said.

"According to the witness, Turner neither approached or threatened the officer at any time," Harris said.

He declined to identify the witness, but said he would provide an affidavit with his account to police. Department spokeswoman Julie Hill said detectives hadn't received the paperwork as of Tuesday evening.

Investigators interviewed all the people in the store who presented themselves as witnesses, she said. And she urged anyone else with information to call the department.

Co-workers, including a supervisor, said Turner was a reliable employee who had never been reprimanded at work. They said he had some disagreements with the customer service manager, who had asked him to tuck in his shirt and complained about Turner wearing gold teeth and big earrings.

Turner's mother, Tammy Fontenot, said he had come home for lunch on Thursday and told her he had stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store.

He was afraid of getting in trouble, she said, but she told him to go back and admit what he had done.

Fontenot said she had never known her son to have troubles with drugs or alcohol, although court documents say police investigators found three small bags of marijuana in his socks after the incident.

A candlelight vigil for Turner is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Thursday at his family's home at 10819 Azure Valley Place. Turner will be buried Friday at Crown Memorial Park after a noon visitation and 1 p.m. service at Temple Church International, 3201 Tuckaseegee Road.

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Victoria Cherrie: 704-358-5062

Will Charlotte cops be held accountable for murder of another black teen?

Charlotte Detectives Continue Investigation Into Teen’s Death Being Hit With A Taser
WSOCTV.com, March 21, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- On Friday, homicide detectives went back to the store where a police officer used a Taser to subdue a teenager Thursday afternoon.

Police said they were called to the Food Lion on Prosperity Church Road in north Charlotte on a disturbance call. They said 17-year-old Darryl Turner was reportedly fighting with his manager and even throwing objects at him.

Police said Turner "refused all verbal commands and began walking toward the officer," and that's when the officer used his Taser. The teen was rushed to the hospital, where he later died.

Joe Kuhns, a criminal justice professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is an expert on the use of force in law enforcement. He said such deaths are very rare.

“In situations that call for non-lethal force, it's preferred to pull a Taser than a firearm. In many cases, they can be safer than firearms,” he said.

But some who had seen Turner are questioning the use of force.

“He’s 17 years old, he’s skinny, he’s not a big man. You can’t tell me you are going to (stun) this little boy. He’s not a man, he’s a little boy,” said Ezra Carter, whose son worked alongside Turner at the Food Lion.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said this is the first death associated with a Taser since officers started using them in 2004.

The officer involved, whose name has not been released, is on administrative leave as internal affairs and homicide detectives continue their investigation.

The medical examiner’s office said autopsy results on Turner may not be available for several weeks.

To comment on this story, e-mail Ashlea Kosikowski.


AT NORTHEAST CHARLOTTE SUPERMARKET
17-year-old dies after shock from police Taser gun
CMPD says teenager advanced toward officer
VICTORIA CHERRIE, charlotte.com, March 21, 2006

A 17-year-old died at Carolinas Medical Center Thursday after a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer shocked him with a Taser during a confrontation at a grocery store in northeast Charlotte.

An autopsy will determine how Darryl Wayne Turner died.

Turner had worked as a cashier and bagged groceries at the Food Lion at 3024 Prosperity Church Road, where the incident happened.

Officers responded to a disturbance call at the grocery store about 1:15 p.m. When they arrived, they saw Turner throwing something at a store manager, according to a CMPD news release issued Thursday night. The release does not say what the object was, and a police spokeswoman could not be reached.

According to the release, Turner appeared to be agitated, refused all commands and advanced toward the police officer. The officer then used his Taser to get Turner under control, the release said.

The release does not say whether Turner was armed.

Turner's mother, Tammy Fontenot, said she couldn't see her son throwing something at someone during an argument.

"He had manners," she said. "But he did have a temper."

A preliminary check of N.C. criminal records did not turn up any criminal convictions for the teen.

Turner graduated from Crossroads Charter High School last year, his mother said. He had wanted to go to Central Piedmont Community College and be a personal trainer. He didn't have any health problems and had never been in trouble, she said.

Except on Thursday.

Around lunchtime, Turner had come home to eat and told his mom that he had stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store. A supervisor planned to get a district manager involved and he feared disciplinary action, she said.

She said she told him to go back to the store and face up to what happened.

It wasn't long after lunch she got a call from one of her son's co-workers, who told her about the incident, she said.

After Turner was hit, police called the Charlotte Fire Department and paramedics, department policy anytime an officer uses a Taser gun, the release said.

Homicide detectives are investigating Turner's death and will present their findings to the district attorney, the news release said.

The Police Department also will conduct its own investigation into the incident. A review board, made up of the officer's chain of command, internal affairs and a member of the city's community relations committee, will review evidence and interview witnesses to determine whether the officer followed all the department's policies, the news release said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have used Tasers or similar weapons since 2004 and said in their release that they have had no deaths associated with their use. Last year, officers used Tasers 138 times. Officers are to use them to prevent, whenever possible, the escalation to the use of deadly force.

Victoria Cherrie: 704-358-5062

-- Staff research Sara Klemmer contributed.

Group demands inquiry into deadly raid

JOSEF FEDERMAN, AP, March 27, 2008

JERUSALEM - An Israeli human rights group on Thursday demanded a criminal investigation into the military's killing of four Palestinian militants earlier this month, citing witness accounts that the men were gunned down in a summary execution.

Israeli troops killed the militants in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on March 12, riddling their car with bullets. One was a local Islamic Jihad commander who Israel said was involved in planning suicide bombings.

The Israeli army frequently conducts raids in the West Bank to round up wanted Palestinian gunmen. At the time of the Bethlehem raid, it described the incident as an arrest operation. The official military statement on March 12 said special forces "identified several Palestinian gunmen in a vehicle. The force fired at them and identified hitting four gunmen." It did not say the militants fired at the Israelis.

B'Tselem said that based on the witness accounts, "the lethal operation did not have the markings of an arrest operation, and no attempt was made to arrest the suspects rather than kill them, as required by law."

Although witnesses said the militants were armed, B'Tselem said the wanted men did not try to use their weapons, and said the shooting appeared to violate Israeli court rulings allowing the targeted killing of militants only if they cannot easily be arrested.

Israeli military officials said they were looking into the allegations.

B'Tselem released testimonies gathered from three witnesses, including relatives of the dead men. Each gave a similar account, saying the four wanted militants were ambushed while sitting in a parked car.

Court refuses to grant new trial for Mumia - protests planned

No death for Mumia Abu-Jamal - at least for now
Emilie Lounsberry, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 2008

In a major victory for world-famous death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, a federal appeals court today refused to reinstate his death sentence for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Abu-Jamal must be sentenced to life in prison or get a chance with a new Philadelphia jury, which would decide only whether he should get life in prison or be sentenced - again - to death.

The judges left intact his first-degree murder conviction, rejecting Abu-Jamal's claim that he deserves an entirely new trial and a chance to prove his innocence.

Abu-Jamal, who has written books and given taped speeches from death row, was convicted in 1982 by a Philadelphia jury of killing Faulkner, who was shot to death near 13th and Locust Streets in the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981.

The Third Circuit upheld, in all respects, the 2001 decision by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who rejected all but one of Abu-Jamal's legal claims, but threw out the jury's death sentence.

Yohn ruled that the jury in Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial may have mistakenly believed it had to agree unanimously on any "mitigating" circumstances -- factors that might have persuaded jurors to decide on a life sentence instead of death.

The appeals court affirmed that decision, and said that the state has six months to hold a new sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal, or he must be sentenced to life in prison.

"The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon," wrote Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica in the 77-page opinion.

Judge Thomas L. Ambro wrote that he would have gone further than his two colleagues, and granted a hearing on Abu-Jamal's contention that the prosecution unfairly excluded blacks from his jury in violation of a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case, Batson v. Kentucky.

"To move past the prima facie case is not to throw open the jailhouse doors and overturn Abu-Jamal's conviction," wrote Ambro. "It is merely to take the next step in deciding whether race was impermissibly considered during jury selection."

Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, said yesterday that he was pleased that the death sentence was not reinstated, as prosecutors had wanted. But he expressed disappointment that only Ambro had wanted to grant relief on the claim that blacks were intentionally excluded from the jury.

"I am not happy that two of the three judges turned a deaf ear to the racism that permeated this case," said Bryan, who said he was "heartened and thrilled" by Ambro's dissent on that issue.

There was no immediate response from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. A spokeswoman said she expected District Attorney Lynne Abraham to hold a news conference later today.

Other Abu-Jamal supporters were unhappy with the ruling. They said rallies were being planned for as early as tomorrow outside federal courthouses in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco.

"This was no victory, in any sense of the word," said Pam Africa, a member of the radical group MOVE.

"Today's decision is a travesty of justice," said Jeff Mackler, of Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. He said he had been hoping that the Third Circuit would order an entirely new trial based on the claim about racial discrimination in jury selection.

Mackler said he anticipates worldwide reaction to the disappointing decision. "Tomorrow is just an initial reaction," he said.

An appeal is virtually certain.

Either side could ask the panel to reconsider the decision, ask the entire Third Circuit to consider the case, or eventually ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

------------------------------
Contact staff writer Emilie Lounsberry at 215-854-4828
or elounsberry {AT} phillynews.com.

------------------------------

From: Heidi Boghosian [mailto:director {AT} nlg.org Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:15 AM [NLGNEC] DECISION IN ABU-JAMAL

The 3-judge panel for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered its decision in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal v. Martin Horn.

Everything (Batson and Caldwell) was denied, except for the Mills claim (verdict form--structure of the form could lead jurors to believe they must unanimously agree on mitigating evidence).

The denial of the Batson claim is a devastating disappointment.

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Protests for Mumia

In San Francisco, march tomorrow, Friday 28. Meet at 5 PM at the Federal
Court House, 7th and Mission Street (NOT the Federal Building)

In Oakland, march tomorrow, Friday 28. Meet at 5 PM at 14th & Broadway

Keep it simple

MICHEL COLLON, www.michelcollon.info, March 27, 2008

What exact rules govern the right to secession and, more generally, self-determination of peoples? Some tell us these rules are confusing. And if we believe the corporate media, we might think:

In Asia, Tibetans have that right. Not Iraqis, nor Afghans.

In the Middle East, Israelis have this right. But neither Palestinians nor Kurds.

In Africa, the gangster Generals of the East Congo have this right. But not Western Sahara.

In Latin America, wealthy (rightist) provinces of Bolivia and Venezuela have this right. But not Indigenous peoples of Chile, or of Mexico, etc...

In the Balkans, Albanians of Kosovo have this right. But not Serbs of Kosovo, nor those of Bosnia.

In Western Europe, the Flemish might have this right, but not the Northern Irish, nor the Basques.

Complicated, indeed. How can it be simplified? Like this: Only those people who are "with us" are entitled to self-determination. Noone else.

And as long as we're here, let's replace the word "democratic" by "with us" and the word "terrorist" by "against us."

That's politics. Simple when you know how!

March 26, 2008
Translated by John Catalinotto

More articles about Tibet, Iraq, Palestine, Congo, Latin America
(in French and soon also in English) : www.michelcollon.info

Palestinians protest Israeli charity closures

Haitham Tamimi, Reuters, March 27, 2008

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron protested on Thursday against Israeli raids and closures of orphanages and charities linked to Islamist group Hamas.

Israel says the charities, which helped Hamas build support among Palestinians and win a 2006 parliamentary election, provide help to militants. The charities say they are simply aiding ordinary Palestinians.

According to organizers, some 4,000 protesters including children protested in Hebron. They chanted anti-Israeli slogans, waved green banners -- the color of the Hamas flag -- and held placards reading "They even took our bread".

Since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, Israel has stepped up raids targeting the group's charities and schools in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's rival Fatah faction holds sway.

Abbas's government has also sought to crack down on Hamas members and their charities in the West Bank.

Israeli troops last month raided the Hamas-linked Islamic Charity Organization in Hebron, confiscating computers and vehicles from its main office and closing several smaller offshoot institutions, including an Islamic school.

"We are not a terrorist organization. We are helping orphans and families who have no source of income," said Abu Hamdan, a spokesman for the Islamic Charity Organization.

The army said in a statement it raided the organization because it delivered money to militants, trained young people "according to the Jihad spirit" and supported the families of suicide bombers.

The United States, which is trying to sideline Hamas and bolster Abbas as part of a push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, has blacklisted some Palestinian charities linked to Hamas.

Abu Hamdan said shutting Hebron's Islamic charities and schools, many of which provide lodging to children, would put thousands of Palestinian orphans on the streets.

"I deserve to be treated like any other child around the world," said 14-year-old orphan Rani Hasan during the protest. "My father is dead. Who will take care of me?"

(Writing by Rebecca Harrison; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Thousands in Baghdad Protest Basra Assault

By JAMES GLANZ and GRAHAM BOWLEY
The New York Times, March 28, 2008
BAGHDAD — Thousands of supporters of the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia took to the streets of Baghdad on Thursday to protest the Iraqi Army’s assault on the southern port city of Basra, as intense fighting continued there for a third day.

In Basra, there seemed to be no breakthrough in the fighting by either side; as much as half of the city remained under militia control, hospitals in some parts of the city were reported full, and the violence was continuing to spread. There were clashes reported all over the city and in locations 12 miles south of Basra.

The Iraqi Army’s offensive in Basra is an important political test for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and for American strategy in Iraq. President Bush sought to portray the fighting in a positive light on Thursday, declaring the offensive by Mr. Maliki’s government a “bold decision.”

But if the army’s assault in Basra leads the Mahdi Army to break completely with its current cease-fire, which has helped to tamp down attacks in Iraq during the past year, there is a risk of escalating violence and of replaying 2004, when the militia fought intense battles with American forces that destabilized the entire country.

As a possible sign of the rising instability in the region, saboteurs blew up one of Iraq’s two main oil export pipelines from Basra, Reuters reported. The oil pipelines were regular targets for insurgents earlier in the Iraqi conflict, but Thursday’s sabotage was the first time for several years the southern oil supply route has been disrupted, and oil prices rose briefly after the attack.

In a speech at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Mr. Bush said that Mr. Maliki’s decision to wage the offensive “shows his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an evenhanded manner.”

“Iraqi forces planned this operation, and they deployed substantial extra forces for it,” the president said. He said the offensive “builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them.”

Mr. Bush predicted that the operation would last for some time.

In Baghdad, close-packed crowds numbering perhaps 5,000 demonstrated in Sadr City, the epicenter of the capital’s protests, taking over the main street, chanting, dancing and holding up banners, and declaring their readiness to continue to oppose the Iraqi Army’s attempt to wrest control of Basra from Mr. Sadr’s Shiite militiamen, a major onslaught that began on Tuesday.

“It is unfair,” said one of the protesters, Jabbar Azem Hassan, 65. “They are killing our sons and they are harming innocent people,” he said. “We need to reform the national government from all parts of the Iraqi populace.”

Some of the protesters criticized the United States — Mr. Sadr considers the Americans occupiers — but most of their criticism was aimed at Mr. Maliki and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Mr. Hakim leads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which has emerged as a rival political force to Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and also commands a rival militia, the Badr Organization.

The protesters criticized what they said was a strengthening alliance between Mr. Hakim’s political group and the Iraqi government to squeeze Mr. Sadr from power. Mr. Maliki’s government depends on support from Mr. Hakim’s party, reducing the need for alliances with the Mahdi Army and making it easier for Mr. Maliki to move against it.

“Moktada is above our heads and Maliki is under our shoes,” said one slogan.

There were other, smaller demonstrations in Baghdad. Many people had come from all over Iraq to take part, according to witnesses.

Some of the signs and chants called for Mr. Hakim’s execution, a measure of the animosity that has grown up between the Mahdi Army and Mr. Hakim’s loyalists.

American officials have presented the Iraqi Army’s attempts to secure Basra as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation on its own but a failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own.

During a briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday, a British military official said that of the nearly 30,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the assault, almost 16,000 were Basra police forces, which have long been suspected of being infiltrated by the same militias the assault was intended to root out.

In a sign of the significance of the political test for Mr. Maliki, he traveled to Basra to oversee the beginning of the assault and in a speech on Thursday broadcast on Iraqi television said the assault would continue “to the end.”

"We entered this battle with determination and we will continue to the end,” he said, Reuters reported. “No retreat. No talks. No negotiations."

Any break by the Mahdi Army with its current cease-fire would make it more difficult to begin sending home large numbers of American troops.

Mahdi Army commanders said Thursday that the cease-fire was still intact but said that if the Basra assault continues and their grievances are not addressed then they would follow the protests with a period of civil disobedience and after that they would take “appropriate next steps,” without saying what those steps would be.

Mr. Maliki issued an ultimatum on Wednesday for Shiite militias in Basra to put down their weapons within 72 hours. Yet battles have continued, killing at least 40 people by Wednesday and wounding 200 others, hospital officials said.

Though American and Iraqi officials have insisted that the operation was not singling out a particular group, fighting has appeared to focus on Mahdi-controlled neighborhoods. In fact, some witnesses said Wednesday, neighborhoods controlled by rival political groups seemed to be giving government forces safe passage, as if they were helping them to strike at the Mahdi Army.

Even so, the Mahdi fighters seemed to hold their ground on Wednesday. Witnesses said that from the worn, closely packed brick buildings of one Mahdi stronghold, the Hayaniya neighborhood, Mahdi fighters fired mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and sniper rifles at seemingly helpless Iraqi Army units pinned on a main road outside, their armored vehicles unable to enter the narrow streets.

The assault has also sparked continuing violence by outraged Mahdi commanders in other major cities, including Baghdad, where the sprawling urban slum of Sadr City forms the militia’s power center in Iraq.

Most casualties in Basra have been civilians caught in the cross-fire, hospital officials have said. The heaviest fighting outside Basra on Wednesday appeared to be taking place in Kut, where officials said 10 people had been killed by Wednesday and 31 wounded, mostly by mortar shells.

There were also deadly clashes in Diwaniya, Hilla and Amara, and the booms of rocket fire rattled Baghdad all day Wednesday and continued Thursday, with reports of a rocket strike on the Green Zone. The American military said in a statement on Wednesday that 16 rockets had been fired into the fortified Green Zone alone, wounding one American soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi Army soldier.

But it was in Basra where the fighting has been by far the most intense, and terrified residents have huddled inside their houses because of a curfew and because anyone on the streets risked being killed.

A Basra newspaper editor who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals said most residents despised the Mahdi Army and welcomed the assault. But he said it was obvious that the central government had not consulted with local commanders in planning the assault, citing the inability of the armored vehicles to fit through city streets. But support for the assault already seems to be eroding in several neighborhoods, as militiamen retained control of their strongholds and residents were confined in their homes. “The Mahdi Army is still controlling most of these places,” the editor said. “The result is negative.”

James Glanz reported from Baghdad and Graham Bowley from New York. Employees of The New York Times contributed from Basra. David Stout contributed reporting from Washington.

Protesters enter Bear Stearns building in New York

Karen Brettell, Reuters, March 26, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 60 protesters opposed to the U.S. Federal Reserve's help in bailing out Bear Stearns (BSC.N) entered the lobby of the investment bank's Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday, demanding assistance for struggling homeowners.

Demonstrators organized by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America chanted "Help Main Street, not Wall Street" and entered the lobby without an invitation for around half an hour before being escorted out by police.

"There are no provisions for homeowners in this deal. There are people out there struggling who need help," said Detria Austin, an organizer at NACA, an advocacy group for home ownership.

Bear Stearns employees were amused and perplexed, some taking pictures. One man in the lobby applauded.

"Homeowners, that's more than $1 trillion (in mortgage debt), you're crazy," another man in a suit screamed at a protester on the street.

The protesters blamed Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase & CoCo (JPM.N) employees for helping fuel the mortgage crisis.

Demand for mortgage debt from investment banks including Bear Stearns encouraged lenders to drop standards to create new loans. Some lenders resorted to scams and fraud to initiate loans.

The banks repackaged and resold the debt to investors.

"Blame the mortgage tsunami on Bear Stearns," read one sign. Another read, "Bear Stearns employees aren't worth $2."

After leaving Bear Stearns, the crowd moved to JPMorgan.

"We will go to their neighborhood, we will educate their children on what their parents do. They should be ashamed," NACA founder Bruce Marks said of employees at both banks.

On March 16, JPMorgan Chase & said it would acquire its rival the Bear Stearns Co Inc. for $2 per share, in a deal brokered by the Federal Reserve aimed at heading off a bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.

On Monday, JPMorgan raised its offer to about $10 a share to appease angry stockholders who vowed to fight the original deal. Bear Stearns traded at $11.25 a share at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, up 2.8 percent.

As part of the deal, the Fed agreed to guarantee up to $29 billion of Bear Stearns assets.

The agreement has raised concerns that the U.S. government is prepared to help rescue a failing Wall Street bank while declining to bail out millions of home owners facing the possibility of foreclosure.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Cynthia Osterman)

A Conscientious Objection

Chris Hedges, Truthdig, March 23, 2008

Those of us who oppose the war, who believe that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn and the network of permanent bases in Iraq dismantled, have only two options in the coming presidential elections—Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. A vote for any of the Republican and Democratic candidates is a vote to perpetuate the occupation of Iraq and a lengthy and futile war of attrition with the Iraqi insurgency. You can sign on for the suicidal hundred-year war with John McCain or for the nebulous open-ended war-lite with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, or back those who reject the war. If you vote Democrat or Republican in the coming election be honest with yourself—you have voted to allow the U.S. government to continue, in some form, the campaign that needlessly kills ever more Americans and Iraqis in a conflict that has become the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history and a crime under international law.

“When will the American people actually vote to give to the world more than bombs and missiles, sweatshops, dubious science, frankenfood, poverty and misery?” Cynthia McKinney, the presidential candidate in the Green Party primaries, told me. “Not only do we need an immediate, orderly withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, we need an end to the militarism that has placed U.S. troops on the soil of over 100 countries. A true peace agenda means a complete redefinition of security. I remain convinced that if people in Haiti, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua can vote a peace and justice agenda into power, then so too can we.”

Examine the proposals on Iraq offered by Clinton and Obama. They talk about withdrawing some troops, but they also talk about leaving behind forces to protect U.S. bases in Iraq, assigning troops to train the Iraqi army and continuing the fight against “terrorism.” Clinton and Obama do not throw out numbers, but a rough estimate would be 40,000 or 50,000 troops permanently stationed in Iraq. Obama, his advisers say, will also not rule out continuing to use private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The war would not end under a Democratic administration. It would drag on until the mission collapsed and the U.S. retreated in humiliation. And when pressed, the Democratic candidates have admitted as much. Tim Russert in the New Hampshire debate asked the Democratic candidates to guarantee that all U.S. troops in Iraq would be home by 2013. No one, including John Edwards, was prepared to make such a commitment. Dennis Kucinich, the only Democratic candidate who opposed a continuation of the war, had been excluded from the debate. When the question was asked he was standing outside the hall in the snow with supporters to protest his exclusion.

But the lust for militarism by Clinton and Obama does not end with Iraq. The two remaining Democratic candidates back the occupation of Afghanistan. They defend Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon, which killed hundreds of Lebanese, destroyed huge parts of Lebanon’s infrastructure and left U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs littered over southern Lebanon. Clinton and Obama praise the right-wing government in Jerusalem and callously blame the Palestinian victims for the suffering inflicted on them by Israel. They support, in open defiance of international law, the 40-year Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the draconian siege of Gaza, dismissing the grim humanitarian crisis it has unleashed on the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in the world’s largest open-air prison.

The Democrats, who took control of the Congress in midterm elections largely because of public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, have continued to fund the war, ignoring anti-war voters. The party, as a result, has sunk even lower in public opinion polls than the president, to a 19 percent approval rating, according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Clinton and Obama dutifully lined up with most other Democratic legislators to cast ballots in favor of squandering more than $300 billion in taxpayer money on a war that should never have been fought. And, if either is elected, he or she will spend billions more on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will skip the rest of the mediocre voting records of Obama and Clinton, which include pandering to corporate interests, failing to back a universal single-payer health care system, refusing to call for the slashing of the bloated military budget, not urging repeal of NAFTA and the Taft-Hartley Act, which cripples the ability of unions to organize, and not seeking an end to nuclear power as an energy resource. Let’s stick with the war. It is depressing enough.

The anti-war movement bears much of the blame. It sold us out to the Democratic Party. The decision by anti-war activists to accept a moratorium on demonstrations in 2004 in order to support John Kerry ended our chance to build a widespread, grass-roots movement against the war. Kerry, in return for this support, ridiculed and humiliated those of us who opposed the war. He called for more troops in Iraq. He mouthed thought-terminating patriotic slogans to out-Bush Bush. He promised victory in Iraq. He assured voters that he, unlike George W. Bush, would never have pulled out of Fallujah. Anti-war voters stood passively behind him as they were humiliated and abused. And the anti-war movement has never recovered. The groundswell of popular revulsion that led hundreds of thousands to take to the streets before 2006 collapsed. The five-year anniversary of the war was marked with tepid protests that were sparsely attended. Why not? If the anti-war movement gutlessly backs pro-war candidates, what credibility does it have? If it fails to support those candidates on the margins of the political spectrum who stand with it against the war, what is the movement worth? Why not be cynical and go home?

“It is a virus,” Nader said in a phone interview. “It is self-defeating. What are they doing this for if they can’t push it into the political arena? Is it all theater?”

“The strategy of the Democratic Party is to beat the Republicans by becoming more like them,” Nader said. “How can they get away with that? If they become more like the Republic Party they start eating into the Republican vote. This usually would inflict a price on them. They would lose the left’s vote, but since the left signaled to the Democrats that their vote can be taken for granted because the Republicans are too horrible to contemplate, they get both. As a result, when you put this cocktail together, becoming more Republican to get Republican votes and hanging on to the left because they have nowhere to go, you set up a tug in the direction of the corporations. There is no discernable end to this strategy by the left. When you ask the left they say not this year, sometime later. But when? If it is not now, if it is sometime in the future, when? What is their breaking point? If you do not have a breaking point you are a slave.”

The energy and idealism are out there. Nader, in a March 13-14 Zogby poll, took 5 to 6 percent in a race between McCain and either Clinton or Obama. Nader, among voters under 30 and among independents, polled 12 to 15 percent. If the anti-war movement gets behind him and McKinney, if it stands behind its principles, it could begin to shake the foundations of the Democratic Party. It could re-energize itself. It might even force Democrats to offer voters a concrete plan to withdraw from Iraq.

War is not an abstraction to me. I know its evil. It is time, if we care about the state of the nation, to take an unequivocal stand against the war. If Clinton and Obama do not want to join us, so be it. I support those candidates and organizations that fight back. We should, in solidarity, strike with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on May 1 against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should support Code Pink’s refusal to pay the portion of our taxes that go to funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But most of all, we should refuse to be suckered by Democratic candidates who use fuzzy language and will not commit to a total withdrawal from Iraq. We owe it to the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured. We owe to those Iraqis and Americans who will die in the coming days, weeks and months. We owe it to ourselves so, at the very least, we can salvage our integrity.

U.S. airstrike kills 5 more civilians in Iraq

A member of the Red Crescent looks at a destroyed house after a U.S. airstrike in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, March 26, 2008. A U.S. airstrike killed five Iraqi civilians, including a judge, and wounded 10 in the northern town of Tikrit on Wednesday, Iraqi police said.
REUTERS/Sabah al-Bazee (IRAQ)

Make oil a public utility

ED LUDWIG, timesunion.com, March 23, 2008

The furious moans and groans about gasoline and heating oil prices have been met with a public-be-damned attitude from the oil industry -- and nothing is being done to rectify the problem. Prices continue to sky-rocket.
Why not designate oil companies as public utilities?

A public utility has been defined as "a business that provides an everyday necessity to the public at large" -- such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, transportation, cable TV and other essentials.

Because of the need for and dependence on these commodities and products, the business of supplying them is readily subject to abuse. Without regulation, price gouging can become rampant in a time of great demand and economic turmoil, such as this.

A public utility regulated by the state or federal government, or the two working together, is entitled to charge reasonable rates for its products and services. It also is entitled to earn a reasonable profit. But that's far less than what Big Oil is making. Public utilities are corporations that distribute dividends to their shareholders amounting to perhaps 5 percent a year of the stock's value.

Oil energy fits squarely into the criteria for a public utility. How can it be distinguished from electricity and natural gas? It can't be. But right now, it's a political "untouchable."

The oil industry recently posted record earnings for 2007, as it had for the previous two years. Exxon Mobil, known as the industry gold standard, had a net income of $40.6 billion, attributed to surging oil prices. For every blink of a second in 2007, that amounted to $1,287.

Exxon Mobil's sales exceeded $404 billion, which was more than the gross domestic revenue of 120 countries. Chevron and other big oil companies also announced the largest profits in history.

"Congratulations to Exxon Mobil and Chevron -- for reminding Americans why they cringe every time they pull into a gas station," said New York Sen. Charles Schumer.

Some members of Congress have supported an excess profits tax. Others have said the tax breaks accorded two years ago to encourage domestic production should be rescinded. Advocacy groups say the profit margins are unjustifiable.

The oil industry's defense relies on the economics of the market place and the mounting difficulties of competing with subsidized foreign oil companies -- PetroChina, Petrobras in Brazil, Gazprom in Russia.

The lack of domestic refinery capacity also has been cited as a reason for escalating prices.

What is left out of these various assessments and ripostes is, most importantly, the consumer. The consumer's only recourse is to reduce consumption. But consumption most often is an economic necessity -- the most harmful effects falling on those who may be the neediest and who can least afford the price increases. What is a less-than-wealthy person who must drive to work or pay for home heating oil to do?

None of the proposals, such as an excess profits tax or a retraction of tax incentives, will directly benefit the public or make up for the overrides paid for oil products in the last several years.

On 9/11, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline was about $1.25. It has climbed almost vertically since then. In the past year, it has more than doubled and is now close to $3.50.

Part of the problem is that the United States has no comprehensive energy policy or oversight. For example, the war in Iraq for the last five years has placed a great demand on the availability of oil products -- both because of their use for military purposes and the lack of the predicted production of Iraqi oil.

Neither of these down sides have been quantified or publicized. Both are important contributors to the high cost of oil energy.

And while our government wrings its hands, what is it really doing, geopolitically, to bring down prices?

Given the political implications and the strength of the oil industry's influence, the chances of regulating it are presently nonexistent. However, the inordinate profits in the past several years, regardless of the explanations, cry out for demanding that oil be treated as a public utility. It is an indispensable commodity, and the opportunity for abuse at the public's expense is undeniable.

The industry has demonstrated that it will not regiment or control itself. If the industry were confronted with even the mere possibility of becoming a government-regulated utility, gasoline and heating oil prices would come tumbling down in a hurry.

Ed Ludwig is a U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia.

US ship shoots at boat in Suez Canal; kills one & wounds three

NASSER NASSER and PAUL SCHEMM, AP, March 25, 2008

SUEZ, Egypt - Dozens of angry mourners buried an Egyptian man Tuesday who they said was killed by shots fired from an American cargo ship contracted to the U.S. Navy as it passed through the Suez Canal.

U.S. officials said American military guards aboard the ship only fired warning shots toward approaching motorboats Monday night and said they had received no report of anyone being killed.

The incident occurred when the merchant ship Global Patriot entered the canal from the Red Sea and was approached by small motorboats that ply the waterway selling goods to passing ships, according to both Egyptian and U.S. accounts of the incident.

The Navy has been leery of small boats getting near its warships since al-Qaida suicide attackers rammed an explosives-packed motorboat into the USS Cole off Yemen, killing 17 sailors in 2000.

Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet, said cargo ships sailing under contract to the Navy follow the same rules of engagement as American warships in dealing with approaching boats.

"The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired," the U.S. Embassy in Cairo said in a statement. "One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow. All shots were accounted for as they entered the water."

A U.S. Navy security team aboard the ship fired the shots, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, the 5th Fleet's deputy spokesman.

The Navy said in a statement that it was investigating, but that initial reports from the ship indicated there were no casualties.

An Egyptian security official at the canal, however, said one man was fatally shot in the small boat and the three other men with him were wounded. The official agreed to discuss the incident only if he was not identified, because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.

The Egyptian state news agency MENA also reported one man was killed. There was no immediate comment from Egypt's government.

Family and friends buried the reported victim — Mohammed Fouad, a 27-year-old father of two — in Suez, the city at the Red Sea entrance to the canal.

"I saw the body. The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side," Abbas al-Amrikani, head of the local seaman's union, told The Associated Press.

After the burial, dozens of mourners converged on the two-story house shared by Fouad's family and those of his brothers and sisters. Women in black wailed and cried while some of the men buried their heads in their arms.

They railed against America as well as the Egyptian government, which they said does not stand up for them.

"There were no warning shots from the ship. They just turned a spotlight on it and started firing immediately," said Abdullah Fouad, the dead man's brother, who was not on the motorboat but said he spoke to the three other men who were.

"He was shot while trying to take cover," Fouad said of his brother. "We expect this from foreigners, especially Americans who hate us, but we thought our government would help us."

The dead man's sister, Manal, also complained about the government. "If we were protected and people knew there was someone to defend us and stand up for us, they would not have dared gun us down like animals," she said.

Mohammed Fouad's wife, Saadah Abdel-Al, was in shock and could only numbly recall that her husband had been a hard worker. "He went to work every morning. He was not a troublemaker and took care of his family well," she said.

The victim worked on the small boats that sell cigarettes and other products to the crews of ships going through the canal.

The waterborne merchants know not to approach military vessels, but the Global Patriot looked like an ordinary freighter, the brother said. "Normally we go nowhere near military ships," he said.

Hormoz Shayegan, vice president of Global Container Lines Ltd., the New York-based company that owns the Global Patriot, said the ship "does not have any markings to suggest it is a military ship or anything like that." He said the vessel's crew was unarmed.

Robertson, the 5th Fleet spokeswoman, said the Navy team on board took the appropriate "measured steps to warn the vessels that were getting too close."

"We are very conscious of being in heavily trafficked areas and we as professional mariners try to keep people from getting too close," she told the AP by phone from Bahrain.

On Jan. 6, Navy warships nearly opened fire on armed Iranian speedboats that repeatedly sped toward their convoy in the cramped waters of the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. was working with Egypt "to understand exactly what happened here and make sure we have good, clear, open communications so you don't have a repeat of these kinds of incidents."

He said he expected Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Egyptian Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi to discuss the incident during a private meeting at the State Department on Tuesday.

Egyptian officials confirmed the cargo ship was continuing on through the canal en route to Port Said, at the canal's Mediterranean end.

About 7.5 percent of world sea trade passes through the canal, which is 120 yards across at its narrowest points. Canal tolls are a major source of foreign currency for Egypt.

Phony surge success unravels further

Iraqi leaders face grave Shiite crisis
ROBERT H. REID, AP, March 25, 2008

BAGHDAD - Iraq's leaders faced their gravest challenge in months Tuesday as Shiite militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr battled for control of the southern oil capital, fought U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad and unleashed rockets on the Green Zone.

Armed Mahdi Army militiamen appeared on some Baghdad streets for the first time in more than six months, as al-Sadr's followers announced a nationwide campaign of strikes and demonstrations to protest a government crackdown on their movement. Merchants shuttered their shops in commercial districts in several Baghdad neighborhoods.

U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by helicopters fought Shiite militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City district after the local office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party came under attack, the U.S. said. Residents of the area reported intermittent explosions and gunfire in the area late Tuesday.

An American soldier was killed in fighting Tuesday afternoon in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released, and it was unclear whether Shiite militiamen were responsible.

Although all sides appeared reluctant to trigger a conflagration, Brig. Gen. Ed Cardon, assistant commander of the U.S. task force operating south of Baghdad, said the situation in the south was "very complicated" and "the potential for miscalculation is high."

The burgeoning crisis — part of an intense power struggle among Shiite political factions — has major implications for the United States. An escalation could unravel the cease-fire which al-Sadr proclaimed last August. A resumption of fighting by his militia could kill more U.S. soldiers and threaten — at least in the short run — the security gains Washington has hailed as a sign that Iraq is on the road to recovery.

The confrontation will also test the skill and resolve of Iraq's Shiite-led government in dealing with Shiite militias, with whom the national leadership had maintained close ties.

Underscoring the serious stakes at play, al-Maliki, a Shiite, remained in the southern city of Basra to command the security operation. Sweeps were launched at dawn to rid the city of militias and criminal gangs that ruled the streets even before the British handed over control to the Iraqis in December.

U.S. and Iraqi officials believe some factions of al-Sadr's movement maintain close ties with Iran, which provides them with weapons, money and training. Iran denies the allegation.

Basra, located near the Iranian border about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, is the center of the country's vast oil industry. Stability in the city is essential if Iraq is to attract huge investments needed to restore its neglected oil fields and export facilities.

Throughout the day, the sounds of explosions and machine gunfire echoed through Basra's streets as Iraqi soldiers and police fought the Mahdi Army in at least four strategic neighborhoods.

At least 31 people were killed and 88 wounded, according to police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

Associated Press Television News video showed smoke rising over Basra, and coalition jets prowling the skies while ambulances raced through the streets.

Iraqi police and soldiers prevented journalists from reaching the areas of heaviest fighting, and it was unclear which side had the upper hand by sundown.

Iraqi military spokesman Col. Karim al-Zaidi acknowledged that government troops were facing stiff resistance.

Residents of one neighborhood said Mahdi Army snipers were firing from rooftops. Others fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops, then scurried away on motorcycles. Other residents said police fled their posts.

Residents spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals, and their accounts could not be confirmed.

British troops remained at their base at the airport outside Basra and were not involved in the ground fighting Tuesday, according to the British Ministry of Defense. Air support was being provided, but a spokesman would not say if it was U.S. or British planes.

The British had given assurances that the Iraqis could handle security in the city when they withdrew last year.

In Baghdad, several salvos of rockets were fired at the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which houses the American and British embassies. There were no reports of casualties, but the blasts sent people scurrying for concrete bunkers.

Lawmakers from al-Sadr's movement announced that a civil disobedience campaign which began Monday in selected neighborhoods of the capital was being extended nationwide. The campaign was seen as an indication that the Sadrists want to assert their power without provoking a major showdown with the Americans, who inflicted massive casualties on the Mahdi Army during fighting in 2004.

Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, was in contact with the Sadrist leadership in hopes of easing the crisis, said a top Sadrist official, Liwa Smeism.

Schools and shops were closed in many predominantly Shiite districts. "All shops are closed in my area except bakeries and vegetable stands," said Furat Ali, 35, a merchant in southwestern Baghdad.

Police also reported fighting between Iraqi security forces and Mahdi militiamen in the Shiite cities of Hillah and Kut, which lies on a major route between Baghdad and the Iranian border.

The showdown with al-Sadr has been brewing for months but has accelerated since parliament agreed in February to hold provincial elections by the fall. The U.S. had been pressing for new elections to give Sunnis, who boycotted the last provincial balloting three years ago, a chance for greater power.

Al-Sadr's followers have also been eager for elections, believing they can make significant gains in the oil-rich Shiite south at the expense of Shiite parties with close U.S. ties.

Sadrists have accused rival Shiite parties, which control Iraqi security forces, of engineering the arrests to prevent them from mounting an effective election campaign.

They also complain that few of their followers have been granted amnesty under a new law designed to free thousands held by the Iraqis and Americans.

"The police and army are being used for political goals, while they should be used for the benefits of all the Iraqi people," said Nassar al-Rubaei, leader of the Sadrist bloc in parliament. "If these violations continue, a huge popular eruption will take place that no power on Earth can stop."
___

Associated Press reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

So? ... A Note from Michael Moore

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Friends,

It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn't it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, "two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting." Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: "So?"

"So?" As in, "So what?" As in, "F*** you. I could care less."

I would like every American to see Cheney flip the virtual bird at the them, the American people. Click here and pass it around. Then ask yourself why we haven't risen up and thrown him and his puppet out of the White House.

The Democrats have had the power to literally pull the plug on this war for the past 15 months -- and they have refused to do so. What are we to do about that? Continue to sink into our despair? Or get creative? Real creative. I know there are many of you reading this who have the chutzpah and ingenuity to confront your local congressperson. Will you? For me?

Cheney spent Wednesday, the 5th anniversary of the war, not mourning the dead he killed, but fishing off the Sultan of Oman's royal yacht. So? Ask your favorite Republican what they think of that.

The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words, "God Bless America." That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn't command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving. John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove His point that America was not worthy. They and the others believed it would be arrogant on their part to assume that God would single out America for a blessing. What a long road we have traveled since then.

I see that Frontline on PBS this week has a documentary called "Bush's War." That's what I've been calling it for a long time. It's not the "Iraq War." Iraq did nothing. Iraq didn't plan 9/11. It didn't have weapons of mass destruction. It DID have movie theaters and bars and women wearing what they wanted and a significant Christian population and one of the few Arab capitals with an open synagogue.

But that's all gone now. Show a movie and you'll be shot in the head. Over a hundred women have been randomly executed for not wearing a scarf. I'm happy, as a blessed American, that I had a hand in all this. I just paid my taxes, so that means I helped to pay for this freedom we've brought to Baghdad. So? Will God bless me?

God bless all of you in this Easter Week as we begin the 6th year of Bush's War.

God help America. Please.

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Building an Activist Movement to End the Occupation of Iraq

Remarks at American University Teach-In on March 22, 2008
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org, March 23, 2008

Robert Dreyfuss's presentation that I now have to follow was tremendous and I learned a lot, but I disagree with his pessimism. I am fond of the saying "Let's save our pessimism for better times." It's a choice to be a pessimist, and it is a wrong one, always.

So, here we are again, a crowd dominated by old white people on a college campus in a black city. But on March 12th and 19th in this city I watched hundreds of college students and African Americans put their bodies in the way of arrest and abuse for peace. If I had to choose, I'd rather have people in the streets than in a teach-in.

Still, I think this all-too-typical turnout suggests how segregation and civic weakness in this country allows mass murder to occur in other countries. We have long term work to do assuming we live long enough to do it.

Today was billed as a dialogue on the war, and I want to speak first and if there's time have a dialogue or a multilogue, but not about a war. A war is a contest between two armies, and can be won or lost, can end in victory or defeat, and is understood as intended to have an end some day. What we have in Iraq is an occupation of a people by a single foreign military force. It can never be won or lost and is not intended to ever end. The movement we need to build cannot, I think, most easily succeed by using language that defines our success as defeat. Instead our success should be understood as getting tough on crime, as the American people reining in the abuse of power of the least popular president and vice president we have ever known.

I know you may want to tell me that certain allegedly mainstream Americans cannot possibly think of their president as a war criminal and would be more likely to support a responsible and slow redeployment of part of the occupying army to elsewhere in the empire if we don't use the word crime - except, perhaps, in blaming the Iraqis for how they've handled our genocidal charity mission to their country. But I think you would be underestimating a sufficient number of Americans to make that the wrong approach, that you should recycle your television as soon as possible, that it is their posture toward Bush more than toward Muslims that makes the Democrats look like wimps and makes Congress so unpopular, and that only a reversal of our imperialism can leave us a sustainable world, so there's no time like the present to start working on it. We don't need to win over every last American; we just need a significant minority of the majority that is already with us TO ACT.

CNN says that in a poll of 1,019 adults between March 14 and 16, 52 percent said that the United States' action in Iraq is not morally justified. That's not a bad response for a question that's rarely been polled or discussed in the media.

We're also, according to today's agenda, supposed to base our movement for withdrawal on an analysis of failed policies, but I'm not going to do that because I don't see any failed policies. The Cheney-Bush gang intended to install a permanent occupation of Iraq, enrich oil barons and arms makers and disaster capitalists, win or steal elections, eliminate civil rights at home, transfer wealth upward, and transfer power from Capitol Hill to the White House. We've just heard how ignorant they are, but they are ignorant of things they do not care about. They may have had dreams of quickly pacifying Iraq and moving on to the next victim in Iran, rather than empowering Iran as they have done, and we in the peace movement and the counter recruitment movement and the independent media can share credit with the Iraqi people for having slowed things down. But I don't see any fundamental failure. The forces against which we need to build a movement are succeeding. And that is unequivocally BAD news. Their goals are murder and theft. The last thing we should be doing is wishing them success or lamenting their "failed policies."

We succeeded over five years ago in denying our U.S. warmongers U.N. authorization of the invasion, although they now try to claim that the occupation is legal. We have succeeded in slowing recruitment, although they've responded by stop-lossing those they've already recruited. We succeeded in 2006 in turning congressional elections into a referendum on the occupation of Iraq and won the Democrats probably 50 new seats to use in bringing it to an end. But election fraud left them with only 30 new seats, and their leadership immediately decreed that they would keep the occupation going in order to run against it again in 2008. We even elected some anti-war activists, like Carol Shea Porter, to Congress who immediately signed onto the plan to keep the occupation going for two years.

We have succeeded in making the American public extremely aware of the dishonesty used in promoting the invasion of Iraq, and that awareness has helped forestall an attack on Iran. But we have been less successful in communicating the dishonesty involved in promoting the ongoing occupation and in communicating the murderous costs of the occupation. The primary reason for this is probably activists' subservience to a political party and that party's misguided fear of the absolutely nonsensical accusation of not "supporting the troops". We're also up against the corporate media's complete lack of interest in Iraqis' deaths.

And we have failed dramatically in communicating the fact that the Democrats in Congress have the power to cease funding the occupation right now, as well as the fact that the next 10 months exist, that contrary to popular belief we will not have a new president tomorrow, but rather must survive 10 more months under the reign of the Decider and the Dark Lord.

It's very hard to build an activist movement without hope of quick success, but it's impossible to build an activist movement without the belief that success is at least possible and the willingness to endure the ridicule of those wise souls who claim to support us while telling us that failure is guaranteed. We have to be willing to endure that, and we have to find ways to provide solidarity and fun and other compensations for the lack of hope.

Look around at all of the people in this room. Now imagine a few thousand of these rooms, all with the same number of people. Now imagine all of those people dying. That is the result that will come from Congress handing Bush another $100 billion in the coming weeks. Over the next 10 months, Iraqis will die because of the occupation, and people around the world will die for lack of the resources we are pouring into the corporations profiting from the occupation. And many who do not die will consider the dead the lucky ones. When anyone tells you that they want to end the occupation but can't do it until 2009 because they're too smart and know better, question their wisdom. And especially do so if they work for the corporate media. Write letters. Call talk shows. When you read that the Democrats are helpless as babies because they don't have 67 senators, do not let that lie spread unchallenged. Let every producer and editor know that we know that it takes 41 senators to block a funding bill, or a simple majority of House members, or simply the leadership of the so-called leadership. Pelosi has successfully badgered progressive Democrats to vote for funding in the past and badgered rightwing Democrats to oppose telecom immunity. She could cut off the money right now and spare all of those lives. She and Harry Reid prefer to portray themselves as critics of an occupation for which they are responsible.

A number of very well funded peace organizations that have tended to put Democratic partisanship ahead of peace have finally just launched a new effort to urge Congress to stop funding the occupation. You can find it at Stand Up Congress dot org. I find this highly encouraging. However, these organizations, some of which are dumping tens of millions of dollars into partisan election ads in the corporate media, are not investing a dime in this new campaign. The campaign involves no on-the-ground organizing, no events, no advertising, just a website to collect our Email addresses. (Unless the answers that Tom Andrews gave to me and Ray McGovern in this room earlier today were honest and some money is put behind this.) But that doesn't mean we shouldn't overwhelm it with success. It costs us nothing to sign on and to urge real action and serious funding. We have to lobby our potential allies among the grassroots and astroturf organizations as well as lobbying Congress directly.

If we are going to change the public discourse and apply the necessary pressure to force an end to the funding, it will take a fair amount of energy and focus from a great many people. We cannot waste time on other things. That starts by making the area around you an election-free zone. We have an election DAY, and on that day you can vote for the least bad candidate. We don't need an election eternity. So, when people start talking to you about whether it's sexist to consider a female candidate's male supporters' statements racist always or only if those supporters are Latino, tell them to get you a candidate who will filibuster the occupation funding and a nonpartisan public hand counting of your paper ballots, but tell them that in the meantime you have important work to do.

Elections may be the heart and soul of a republic, and we may have a handful of examples where election challenges, like Donna Edwards' challenge of Al Wynn, have reformed incumbent congress members. And Cynthis Papermaster's challenge led Pete Stark to sign onto impeachment, and now she's running against Zoe Lofgren, hoping for the same result. But elections in this country now serve primarily to dissuade activist organizations and individuals from lobbying elected officials. If we hadn't had any elections since 2003, we might have mobilized the public pressure to shut down this city and compel our government to end the occupation of Iraq. If no member of Congress belonged to any political party, we might have long since persuaded enough of them to listen to their constituents. One thing you can do is send checks to the campaigns of elected officials and challengers who get it right, and send photocopies of those checks to other key congress members, noting why they won't be receiving the same.

A serious movement to stop funding the occupation would include a filibuster strategy for the Senate and would think ahead to the next step following a refusal to fund by either the Senate or House. Almost certainly Bush would misappropriate funds to continue the occupation with a new level of illegality added. Congress would then have to impeach or whimper away with its tail between its legs. Taking the peace and impeachment movements in the opposite order might make more sense, however. Impeachment hearings might embolden congress members to end the funding, and Congress would be free to impeach for its top choice from the long list of Cheney's and Bush's impeachable offenses. There are nine Judiciary Committee members and dozens of other congress members urging John Conyers to hold hearings. Every one of you should phone John Conyers every morning to ask the same.

It only makes sense, of course, that an occupation we want to end involves actions we consider impeachable offenses. So we should be pushing for an end to the funding and a commencement of impeachment hearings. It is far from too late for either project. Impeachments and impeachment movements that accomplish worthy goals without reaching impeachment tend to happen late and to not take much time. The movements to impeach Truman and Hoover happened significantly later in their terms than where we are now with Bush and Cheney. Andrew Johnson fired Edwin Stanton on February 21, 1868. On March 2nd, ten days later, the House voted to impeach him for that action. No lengthy process is necessary.

Internet organizing, which is the only real organizing I do, is most effective if it inspires real world groups on the ground to take collective action and facilitates that action. Useful actions can be taken at any time, but can also gain strength through national coordination. One possibility that has been tossed around is to turn May First into a national strike day for peace, impeachment, and human rights. What if some funded organizations invested in that instead of in ads to fund the corporate media and make sure the last four people in the country know that John McCain likes wars?

As an individual, we can all take actions every day, including outreach to potential activists. Memorize (202) 224-3121 and phone your congress member and senators every day. Contact the corporate media and support honest independent media in some way every day. Work with local peace and justice groups in your area to plan fun and creative events to bring more people into the movement. Advertise your views on your clothing, start conversations, hand out flyers. Recruit people into local and national groups. Send them to impeachcheney.org or unitedforpeace.org or any of a thousand websites where they can get connected to a movement.

Plan local events and activities that apply pressure to your congress member and senators. Do what it takes to disrupt and attract attention, but have a good-cop on your team as well. Talk to your elected officials, but be aware that most of their excuses are simply excuses. Refuting them will just be an annoyance. What you need to communicate is the electoral advantage of doing what you ask.

If the Democratic leadership believed, as I do, that there was more electoral risk in not ending the funding than in ending it, the funding would stop. If they believed failure to impeach to be a greater risk for them at the polls than impeaching, impeachment hearings would be happening. There is no reason we cannot change their thinking quickly in both regards. The Republicans won after impeaching Johnson and trying to impeach Truman. The Democrats won after trying to impeach Nixon, but lost after failing to pursue Reagan. The Republicans, against the public will, impeached Clinton for a private non-offense and still took both houses of Congress and the White House. For an impeachment movement to succeed in restoring justice and succeed electorally, it need never reach impeachment. Impeachment hearings now on torture, detentions, spying, rewriting laws, lying to the public and Congress, etc., would compel John McCain to defend each offense even while campaigning against it. Impeachment would be a gold mine for a political party capable of thinking offense rather than only defense.

If enough of us choose to act in very easy ways, we can change the US approach to the world over the next 10 months. But what if we don't? Then would we be better off to have worked on the elections? I don't think so. I think the best way to help Obama and other Democrats get elected is to push them toward stronger clearer positions for peace and justice. Were Obama to lead the way with a filibuster of the funding of the occupation, he would look stronger and more decisive, and his supporters would be energized. And the best way to put ourselves in a position to accomplish our goals in 2009, no matter who ends up in the White House and Congress, is to try to accomplish our goals in 2008. If we educate the American public now on the fact that Congress can end the funding of the occupation of Iraq, we will be in a better position to make that happen in 2009 should we not succeed this year. And succeeding this year is entirely possible. New scandals we don't know about will emerge to assist us. New wars not yet launched will enrage those not yet taking action. And awareness will begin to penetrate the Democratic Party that the failure to act is a liability. Important victories never look likely until they happen, but they do happen. Let's keep our republic. Thank you.

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Overall US death toll in Iraq hits 4,000

KIM GAMEL, AP, March 24, 2008

BAGHDAD - The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for the withdrawal of American forces as the war enters its sixth year.

The American deaths occurred Sunday, the same day rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide.

An Iraqi military spokesman said Monday that troops had found rocket launching pads in different areas in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad that had been used by extremists to fire on the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.

"We hope to deal with this issue professionally to avoid civilian casualties," said spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

The four soldiers with Multi-National Division — Baghdad were on a patrol when their vehicle was struck at about 10 p.m. Sunday in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another soldier was wounded in the attack — less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the conflict.

Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, a military spokesman, expressed condolences to all the families of soldiers killed in Iraq, saying each death is "equally tragic."

"There have been some significant gains. However, this enemy is resilient and will not give up, nor will we," he said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."

Last year, U.S. military deaths spiked as U.S. troops sought to regain control of Baghdad and surrounding areas. The death toll has seesawed since, with 2007 ending as the deadliest year for American troops at 901 deaths. That was 51 more deaths than 2004, the second deadliest year for U.S. soldiers.

The Associated Press count of 4,000 deaths is based on U.S. military reports and includes eight civilians who worked for the Department of Defense.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians also have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion on March 20, 2003, although estimates of a specific figure vary widely due to the difficulty in collecting accurate information.

One widely respected tally by Iraq Body Count, which collects figures based mostly on media reports, estimates that 82,349 to 89,867 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives in the conflict (The Lancet reported over a million Iraqis may have been killed-ACJ).

Overall attacks also have decreased against Iraqi civilians but recent weeks have seen several high-profile bombings, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups.

Mosul, Iraq's third largest city about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been described as the last major urban area where the Sunni extremist al-Qaida group maintains a significant presence.

The persistent violence has led to strong public opposition to the war in the United States, with both Democratic presidential hopefuls Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promising a quick pullout if they are elected.

President Bush has insisted the decline in violence shows his strategy is working and needs more time, a position taken by Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Iraq's National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said he sympathized with the American losses but warned against pulling out U.S. troops before Iraqi forces are ready to take over their own security and the situation is sufficiently stable.

"Honestly, this war is well worth fighting. This war, we are talking about war against global terror," he said Sunday in an interview with CNN.

No group claimed responsibility for the Green Zone attacks, but suspicion fell on Shiite extremists based on the eastern areas from which the weapons appeared to have been fired.

At least 10 civilians were killed and 20 more were wounded in rocket or mortar blasts in scattered areas of eastern Baghdad, some probably due to rounds aimed at the Green Zone that fell short.

The U.S. Embassy said at least five people were injured but no Americans were reported killed in the Green Zone attacks, which sent dark plumes of smoke rising over the district in the heart of the capital.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to release the information, said those injured included an American and four third-country nationals, meaning they were not American, British or Iraqi.

The heavily fortified area has frequently come under fire by Shiite and Sunni extremists, but the attacks have tapered off as violence declined over the past year.

The attacks followed a series of clashes last week between U.S. and Iraqi forces and factions of the Mahdi Army, the biggest Shiite militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr has declared a cease-fire through mid-August to purge the militia of criminal and dissident elements but it has come under severe strains in recent weeks.

Al-Sadr's followers have accused the Shiite-dominated government of exploiting the cease-fire to target the cleric's supporters in advance of provincial elections expected this fall and demanded the release of supporters rounded up in recent weeks.
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Associated Press writer Bushra Juhi contributed to this report.

God Damn America - Especially Pennsylvania

Greg Palast, March 23, 2008, Forest City, PA

The kids were snoozing so I drove along the back roads skirting the Lackawanna River on a dawn hunt for black coffee and a newspaper.

I think even Norman Rockwell would have found this place too sticky sweet, too postcard: the weathered barns, the fallow fields perfectly snow-frosted; red, white and blue flags already up on the clapboard farmhouses and the white-washed church in the valley already full for Easter prayers.

At a gas station, I scored the paper and coffee, spilled some on the front page – the closest thing I’ve got to a religious ritual – then parked in front of a row of insanely pretty salt-box houses shining like mad teeth on the river bank.
One was missing a pick-up in the driveway; its screen door was left half-open, and there was a letter taped to the window. The Sheriff’s Notice of eviction. Another foreclosure.

God damn America.

I know that’s what Obama’s spiritual guide would say.

But why? It seems likes He’s already done a pretty good job of damning these United States.

And He seems to have really taken it out on this corner of Pennsylvania.

The gargantuan Bethlehem steel works have dwindled to a few robot-operated mills controlled from Mumbai, India. The only remainders of nearby Carbondale’s mining industry are in display cases at the ageing Coal Inn. But you could still get out by selling your home to ski tourists from New York – until this year when mortgage markets turned cancerous.

That leaves Forest City’s one industry, lumbering – which we can kiss goodbye since a recent ruling by the NAFTA board which allows the import of cheap Canadian wood.

Some local kid has made the paper having been thrown, helmet first, into the volcano called Iraq. The Scranton Times-Tribune, two pages after the photo of a priest blessing a bowl of who knows what, noted that three soldiers killed in yesterday’s bombing are, “pushing the death toll in the five-year conflict to nearly 4,000” – which is true if you don’t count Iraqi dead. But Someone must be counting them. (From way up in heaven, I wonder if we look like a nation of Christians – or an empire of Romans.)

Phil Ochs, before he killed himself, wrote,

“This is a land full of power and glory,
Beauty that words cannot recall.
But her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom.
Her glory shall rest on us all.”

Whatever. It’s a difficult place to be an atheist, in this America, surfeited as it is on every vista with signs of His overwhelming grace and His exasperated wrath. It’s as if the Lord Himself is just as confused and frustrated and disappointed as the rest of us by blessings so abused.

There’s one consolation. He has apparently granted Pennsylvanians the privilege, come April 22, of choosing which Democrat will lose in November.

Which may not mean much to Sandy Ryder on whom the spirit of Easter has landed like a ton of bricks. Sandy, says the flyer tacked up at the Bingham diner, was, “Recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.” She’s a, “Single mother of two – Tony and Brandon – and Grandmother of one – Jason.”

And there they were in a photocopied portrait, the earnest elder son and little Jason to her right, the young slacker (Tony? Brandon?) slouched to her left. The town’s hawking a benefit for Sandy, $10 at the door, “including Food and Beverage” and a “Chinese auction.”

(I’ll bet Al Qaeda could pick up some recruits here – if Osama would offer health insurance.)

Whatever. This is, after all, Holy Week, which marks the anniversary of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the day the giant oil corporation soaked 1,200 miles of Alaska’s coast with crude sludge. March 24 marks 19 years since the grounding and 19 years since Exxon’s promise to compensate the ruined fishermen. You should watch the 19-year-old video-tape of Exxon’s man in Alaska. I especially like the part where he tells the fishermen, “You have had some good luck – and you don’t realize it."

I know some of the fishermen on the TV footage, like the Anderson family, Eyak Natives. I can tell you, the Eyak don’t feel so lucky, still waiting for the Supreme Court to act on Exxon’s latest stall on payment. They’ve seen plenty of Sheriff’s Notices these past 19 years.

So Happy Easter.

George Bush tells us he’s, “feeling just fine.” And we should be glad for him, I suppose.

Bush ends his most belligerent speeches by saying, “God bless America.”

So, why hasn’t He?

Maybe you can tell us, Mr. President: Why hasn’t He?

***************
Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times best-selling books Armed Madhouse and Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Read his reports at www.GregPalast.com and sign up for the audio podcasts RSS here.

War protesters halt traffic, recall dead

SARAH KARUSH, AP, March 19, 2008

WASHINGTON - Protesters blocked traffic and government buildings in Washington, acted out a Baghdad street scene in Syracuse, N.Y., and banged drums in a parade through San Francisco on Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In other, more somber observances, organizers set up a two-mile display of about 4,000 T-shirts in Cincinnati, meant to symbolize the members of the U.S. military killed in Iraq, while in Louisville, Ky., demonstrators lined rows of military boots, sandals and children's tennis shoes on the steps of a courthouse.

Laurie Wolberton of Louisville, whose son just finished an Army tour of duty in Iraq, said she fears the worsening U.S. economy has caused Americans to forget about the war.

"We're not paying attention anymore," she said. "My son has buried his friends. He's given eulogies, he's had to go through things no one should have to go through, and over here they've forgotten. They just go shopping instead."

On previous anniversaries, tens of thousands of people marched through major U.S. cities, and more than 100,000 gathered on several occasions leading up to the invastion.

Only a few hundred mustered for one of Wednesday's largest gatherings, in Washington, the crowds' size perhaps kept in check by a late-winter storm system that stretched the length of the country.

More than 80 people were arrested, most of them outside in Washington and at the Syracuse demonstration.

At the Internal Revenue Service building in the nation's capital, about 100 protesters led by a marching band gathered at the main entrance. Several jumped barricades and sat down in front of the doors and were immediately detained. The demonstrators said they were focusing on the IRS, among other institutions, because it gathers taxes used to fund the war.

Brian Bickett, 29, was among the first arrested. The high school theater teacher from New York City said he had never engaged in civil disobedience before.

"We need to find lots of different ways to resist the war, and I decided to try this," he said.

About 20 protesters were arrested about a block from the U.S. Capitol after blocking traffic. In some cases, police had to drag the protesters off the street.

In Syracuse, police arrested 20 protesters who blocked traffic by creating a mock Baghdad street scene. One person dressed in camouflage lay on the ground. Another was covered in a white sheet with red markings and a woman leaned over as if grieving. They were from a group of more than 100 demonstrators who marched downtown in a steady rain over the lunch hour.

In Chicopee, Mass., eight people were arrested when they blocked a gate at Westover Air Reserve Base, police said. Five people were arrested In Hartford, Conn., for blocking the front door of a federal courthouse.

On the West Coast, police arrested a handful of protesters outside of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, police Sgt. Steve Manina said. Black balloons were tied to trees along San Francisco's main downtown thoroughfare, and protesters at a table offered coffee, oranges and "unhappy birthday cake" to passers-by.

A few hundred protesters banging drums and waving banners that read "Was it worth it" took to the streets for a parade that blocked morning traffic.

Demonstrators also converged in Ohio, where more than 20 vigils, rallies, marches and other events were planned.

In New York City, women sang songs and counted out the war dead outside the military recruiting station in Times Square, which was recently the target of a bomb.

Half a dozen war protesters in Miami dressed in black placed flowers outside the U.S. Southern Command during rush-hour Wednesday morning.

Outside a military recruitment office in Washington, protesters were met by a handful of counterdemonstrators, one of several shows of support for the war and the troops.

Colby Dillard, who held a sign reading, "We support our brave military and their just mission," pointed to some red paint that one of the war protesters had splattered on the sidewalk.

"The same blood was spilled to give you the right to do what you're doing," said Dillard, who said he served in Iraq in 2003.

Earlier, about 150 people, mostly with the group Veterans for Peace, marched down Independence Avenue. Many of them carried upside-down American flags, which they said symbolized a nation in distress.

Daniel Black, who was stationed in Fallujah with the Marines in 2004, said he came to believe the war was a mistake after he returned.

"The more I read the more it just didn't add up," said the 25-year-old, a student at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

A couple of miles away at the American Petroleum Institute, protesters chanted "No blood for oil!" and tried to block traffic by sitting in the street and linking arms. At least once, they were dragged away by police.

Vandals in Milwaukee damaged the front door of an Army recruiting center and spray-painted anti-war graffiti across its front windows. Milwaukee police said the vandalism occurred Monday night or Tuesday.

The Iraq war has been unpopular both abroad and in the United States, although an Associated Press-Ipsos poll in December showed that growing numbers think the U.S. is making progress and will eventually be able to claim some success in Iraq.
___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Karen Mahabir in Washington; Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn.; Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami; William Kates in Syracuse, N.Y.; Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco; Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee; Stephanie Reitz in Springfield, Mass.; Will Graves in Louisville, Ky.; and Deepti Hajela in New York.