A US army mechanic, sentenced to 15 months in jail for refusing to return to Iraq with his Army unit, told the military judge in his case that he acted out of conscience, not a disregard for duty. "I am not against soldiers," Sgt. Kevin Benderman, 40, said at his court-martial July 28. "Though some might take my actions as being against soldiers, I want everyone to be home and safe and raising their families. I don't want anyone to be hurt in a combat zone." Benderman was earlier acquitted of desertion, but convicted on the lesser charge of missing movement—meaning, having skipped his Jan. 8 deployment flight. He could have received five years in prison if convicted of desertion. In addittion to his 15-month prison term, Benderman will receive a dishonourable discharge and have his rank reduced to private. (Al-Jazeera, July 29)

How depressing. The lead op-ed piece in today's New York Times (picked up by several papers around the country, such as the Houston Chronicle) is an open and abject call—not only for surrendering our privacy rights in the name of "security," which nearly everybody seems to take for granted—but for racial profiling. Utterly terrifying how quickly these ideas are being legitimized.

No, we aren't being sarcastic.

The Space Shuttle "Discovery"—the first sent into flight since the Shuttle fleet was grounded following the mid-flight destruction of the "Columbia" in 2003—succeeded in docking at the International Space Station this week, but only after performing an unprecedented back-flip so astronauts on board could photograph the craft's underbelly for signs of damage. NASA managers discovered the "Discovery" was still shedding big pieces of foam insulation on launch, and have again suspended future flights. One chunk captured on camera was almost as big as the one that banged into the heat shield of Columbia's wing, dooming the craft and its seven astronauts. NASA has already poured $1.4 billion into trying to make the shuttle fleet safer since the Columbia disaster, and frustrations are mounting. "Maybe the money would be better spent on replacing the shuttle, rather than flying it," suggested John Pike, who directs the web site Globalsecurity.org. (AP, July 28)

We've heard this before. As we recently recalled, official optimism on troop reductions in Iraq should give anyone who is paying attention a sense of deja vu. Even under the most optimistic scenario—credited to a "secret memo" and never officially acknowledged—the foreign troop presence in Iraq is to drop from the current 170,000 to "just" (as this account says) 66,000 next year. That is still double the number Bush pledged they would be dropped to within four months at the time "major combat operations" ended in May 2003. There are more troops in Iraq now than there were then. Via TruthOut:

US Aims to Sharply Cut Iraq Force within a Year
By Peter Graff
Reuters

Wednesday 27 July 2005

The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in Iraq by the middle of next year if all goes according to plan, its top commander on the ground said on Wednesday.

But underscoring the challenges faced by the new Iraqi government, al Qaeda in Iraq said it had killed two Algerian envoys kidnapped last week in a spate of attacks that are driving diplomats out of Baghdad.

A recent story in the Indypendent, the weekly print edition of the NYC Independent Media Center, helps make sense of the conflict between the new labor organizations in post-Saddam Iraq. Via New York's Independent Press Association:

Iraqi labor tour in U.S. stirs controversy
By Bennett Baumer, The Indypendent, 19 July 2005. English Language.

Representatives from three Iraqi labor groups conducted a U.S. tour in June discussing the occupation, insurgency and the state of workers’ rights and organizing in Iraq. Sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War, the tour has sparked debate throughout the left internationally on how to resist the occupation. The three Iraqi unions all oppose the American-led military occupation – but differ on how to end it.

US Indymedia has posted a short story on the July 22 vigil held at New York City's federal building to mark the one-year anniversary of the passing of Farouk Abdel-Muhti. That was the same spot where Farouk's friends and supporters had gathered weekly to demand his release during the two years the local Palestinian spokesman and activist was illegally held by federal immigration authorities. Farouk had been released in April 2004 following a long legal struggle and activist campaign. Here is what Indymedia wrote up on the memorial, but go to their website for photos:

Ya gotta love the New York Post. It may make not even a pretense of objectivity, using shameless locutions like "evil plot," and it may rely entirely on unverifiable anonymous sources. But it sure makes for fun reading.

Report: Bin Laden Cocaine Plot Fell Through
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
By Dan Mangan

WASHINGTON — Usama bin Laden tried to buy a massive amount of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans one year after the Sept. 11 attacks, The Post has learned.

The evil plot failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden approached decided it would be bad for their business — and, possibly, for their own health, according to law-enforcement sources familiar with the Drug Enforcement Administration's probe of the aborted transaction.

In another charming nugget for Jewish World Review July 26, official Islamophobe Daniel Pipes writes "The attempt to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a has begun — but the world is in denial":

What do Islamist terrorists want? The answer should be obvious, but it is not.

A generation ago, terrorists did make their wishes very clear. On hijacking three airliners in September 1970, for example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanded, with success, the release of Arab terrorists imprisoned in Great Britain, Switzerland, and West Germany. On attacking the B'nai B'rith headquarters and two other Washington, D.C. buildings in 1977, a Hanafi Muslim group demanded the canceling of a feature movie, Mohammad, Messenger of G-d, US$750 (as reimbursement for a fine), the turning over of the five men who had massacred the Hanafi leader's family, plus the killer of Malcolm X.