Insurgency and counterinsurgency grind on in the North Caucasus, with the world's attention elsewhere. Two police were killed and five wounded April 15 when gunmen ambushed their armored personnel carrier in Chechnya, Russia's RIA reported. One was killed by a roadside bomb and the second when gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire.

Another exercise in just how far off-base the supposed "left" has drifted. Greg Palast's latest, on the retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, is happly picked up by all the lefty blogs, like Smirking Chimp. None seem to have a clue how profoundly wrong-headed—indeed, downright sinister—his political prescriptions are. Palast takes the generals to task for aiming their ire at Rumsfeld for poor planning of the war, rather than Bush for ordering it in the first place. His analogy (or is it just an analogy?) about who the generals should be "shooting" at sounds (or does it just "sound"?) like a call for a military coup d'etat. Palast seems to have as much contempt as his nemesis Bush for the democratic principle of civilian control of the armed forces. Now obviously, Bush is not a legitimate president. His first election was blatantly stolen, and maybe his second one too, and his invasion of Iraq violated the Neutrality Act, the War Powers Act, the Nuremberg Principles and a host of other laws and treaties. But a progressive response would be a popular mandate for impeachment—not a generals' putsch!

A new and dramatic attack by India's Maoist Naxalite rebels. From the Times of India, April 16:

RAIPUR: At least 10 policemen were killed on Sunday in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, an official said.

An estimated two million people took part in coordinated demonstrations in more than 140 US cities on April 10, a National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice demanding legalization and other rights for out-of-status immigrants. Organizers scheduled the protests for a Monday during congressional recess so elected officials would be in their home districts to witness them. Hundreds of thousands more marched on the previous day, April 9. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, April 11)

Received by e-mail from UK Pledge of Resistance:

SUPPORT MALCOLM KENDALL SMITH
Yesterday, Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF was jailed for 8 months for refusing to go to Iraq on the grounds that the war was illegal.

Somebody please wake us when this madness is over. From the New York Times, April 15:

Jazz Lover Fiddling With Bass Causes Bomb Scare on East Side
The easy listening habits of Grantley Richards met with a large police response early yesterday, shutting several Manhattan blocks and causing a brief panic.

We recently argued that the planned NATO intervention in Darfur has more to do with securing the oil resources of neighboring Chad for Exxon than with saving lives in Darfur. Yeah we know, us leftists and our conspiracy theories. But all we do is read the newspapers, honest. First, from Reuters, April 16:

Chad says to stop oil output if no WB deal

N’DJAMENA: Chad will stop its oil production from Tuesday unless it reaches an agreement with the World Bank to end a dispute over the use of oil revenues, a government minister said on Friday.

As in recent similar cases in Bangkok and Nazareth, the attacks on religious targets in Alexandria are being dismissed as the work of a "mentally disturbed" loner. Could be (although note that in this case there were three near-simultaneous attacks). But (as we argued before) even the choice of targets by the proverbial lone nut reflects a general zeitgeist—and the response to the attacks is assuredly political. "Fanatics"? Certainly. But why are there so many fanatics in the world these days? (They are, of course, asking the same question in Delhi right now.) From AP, April 15: