From the UK Telegraph, March 12:

An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.

A March 13 report from Pakistan's Daily Times on the army-occupied town of Miranshah in North Waziristan:

PESHAWAR: Authorities in Miranshah further eased an eight-day-old curfew on Sunday after soldiers killed dozens of militants in an operation last week.

The military said that security forces killed up to 30 pro-Taliban foreign militants and their local supporters in a village about 10 kilometres west of Miranshah on Friday night. The curfew was relaxed from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Shops and markets remained open during the day but many residents were seen leaving their homes in private cars and pickups piled with household belongings, witnesses said.

With all the global horrors in the headlines, this one barely grabbed any attention. Ironically, our attention is distracted precisely by the Middle East instability being used to justify the expansion of oil exploitation on Alaska's public lands. From MarketWatch, March 10:

BP Plc. said Friday it hoped to soon wrap up repairs to a leaking pipeline on Alaska's giant Prudhoe oil field that has already spilled over 200,000 gallons of crude, one of the biggest spills ever seen on the state's North Slope.

A statement from an entity called the Iraqi National Resistance purports to put forth conditions for peace. It is said to represent both armed insurgent groups and supporters in civil society. From Tom Hayden's blog in The Huffington Post:

On the Iraqi side, there also is a proposed withdrawal plan that generally fits the contours of the American "strategic redeployment" proposal. According to reliable sources in Amman, the author is Dr. Khair-eddin Haseeb, a former governor of Iraq in the Sixties. The core provisions of the draft, titled "Iraqi National Initiative to End Occupation of Iraq Unconditionally, Reflecting the Will and View of the Iraqi National Resistance and Other Major Political Forces Opposing Occupation", are these:

This March 12 piece by Nerma Jelacic from The Guardian reflects our sentiments precisely.

Even in death, Milosevic wins again
The death of Slobodan Milosevic has put a smile on many Bosnian faces, but I am sad. Not because the man, whose actions earned him the title 'the butcher of Belgrade', has my sympathy, but because he has not lived to be punished in a court of law. Because he will not answer for his crimes and because thousands of victims will not get the long-awaited sense of closure on their usurped lives. They will not see justice done.

From Turkey's Zaman, March 9:

Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said they spoke with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) President Mohammed El Baradei about Turkey’s nuclear energy program, which is expected to be announced shortly, in addition to current regional issues.

From AP, via the Burlington Free Press, March 9:

NEWFANE -- Voters gathered Tuesday in an 1832 white-clapboard town hall to conduct their community's annual business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.

As we have noted before, these annual State Department human rights reports are not always so objective. But this year's report throws a little cold water in the face of the Administration's official optimism on Iraq—even if it implicitly gives the US a pass on "rendition." From the International Herald Tribune, March 9: