3.30.2003

[Expletive Repeated]

• The U.N. Children's Fund representative in Iraq says that more than 570,000 traumatized Iraqi children could need psychological counseling by the time the war ends.

• A physician in Baghdad, where at least 58 civilians were killed by Allied bombs, implores, "I ask Bush and Blair to imagine how they would feel if their child died in their arms," while Rasoul Hammed Najeed, whose 5-year old son was killed in the market bombing, sobs uncontrollably: "After this crime, I wish I could see [US President George Bush] in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth."

• It turns out the resignation of accused war profiteer Richard Perle from the Defense Policy Board is just the tip of the iceberg. The Center for Public Integrity reports that at least nine of the board's 30 members--entrusted with guiding the Pentagon's war policy in Iraq--are involved with companies that "have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors."

• US Marine Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, a sharpshooter working along Highway 1 into Baghdad, reported, "We had a great day. We killed a lot of people." Discussing the possibility that he may be shooting at civilians, he replied, "We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" In an instance where an Iraqi soldier was in a group with 25 women and children, Schrumpt held his fire, but when a soldier was among two or three civilians, he let rip, killing the woman: "I'm sorry. But the chick was in the way."

• The architect of the "shock and awe" strategy, Harlan Ullman, says we'd better find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--or else. "What they are doing is waging a guerrilla war in the south which is going to persist and a really tough defensive campaign around Baghdad, with the expectation that Iraq will be viewed as the victims and the British and Americans as the bullies." Makes me wonder: to what lengths will the U.S. go to uncover WMDs? Would we fabricate evidence (as Bush did unsuccessfully in explaining his pre-war rationale on Iraq?)? Or simply blame it on Syria or Iran?

• Protesting biased news coverage of the war, 500 activists staged a "die-in" in front of New York's Rockefeller Center, home of NBC, CNN, and Fox. Proving their media target is legitimate, Fox News ridiculed the protesters by running bottom-of-screen news tickers that read "War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!", "Who won your right to show up here today? Protesters or soldiers?", and "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them."

• Apparently, it runs in the family. The president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, profited from Auschwitz slave labor and violated the Trading with the Enemy act for running front businesses for Hitler's Nazis throughout World War II. Former president George H.W. Bush, too, has close ties to tyranny--he allegedly kept business deals going with Osama's dad, Mohammed bin Laden, until two months after September 11. And Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore just got financing to make a film about the Bush-bin Laden link. The title: "Fahrenheit 911."

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