My cable modem finally came back at 3pm yesterday, so I've been working frantically to try to catch up with missed work -- I work from home.
One thing I noticed while looking around some weblogs: I was disturbed that so few people seemed to be talking about the death of Mazen Dana, the Reuters cameraman, at the hands of U.S. soldiers. It barely showed up on the main blogs I read. Here is a link to the Committee to Protect Journalists, who are continuing to cover this, plus the lousy "investigation" our government made of the attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad -- which housed journalists covering the war. Two cameramen were killed when we shelled the hotel.
The other thing I wanted to bring up was how saddened I am by the bombing in Baghdad of the U.N. headquarters. Our country went in and toppled a regime without adequate planning, and is trying to have an occupation "on the cheap." We've plunged Iraq into chaos and anarchy, with no end in sight. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's special representative in Iraq, was killed in the bombing. He was a man with a great career, having served as the head of the U.N.'s operations in East Timor. He guided that country from being a rebellious Indonesian province to an independent country with democratic elections. His expertise would have been invaluable during the creation of what the Bush regime allegedly wants to happen in Iraq -- a democracy.
Tom Moody
Re: the dearth of reaction to the incidents you mentioned. Outrage overload? "It can't happen here?" I told some of my co-workers about the Mazen Dana slaying, but as soon as I suggested there might be a pattern to journalist deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, they tuned me right out. Bush and other top guys are petty and vengeful, but few are willing to believe this vindictiveness extends to "ordinary" troops killing journalists. Propaganda is clearly important to the Bushites, but is it a life and death matter? It does seem highly unlikely the repeated attacks on al-Jazeera facilities were just accidents.
Dan Hilton
Concerning the UN attack...Bush announced today that this should send a signal to the UN members that more troops and monetary support are necessary. Of course, any supporting UN troops would be under the command of US forces. And never mind that the Geneva Convention, ratified as US law, requires any occupying force to be responsible for the administration and security of occupied nations. The administration spurns the UN when expedient, but expects monetary and military support in keeping the peace, something the US never had any interest in.