This sort of thing has become so common in Iraq that it rarely makes headlines any more. But this one inconveniently happened just as a break has been announced in the deadlock over forming a new government. This obvious escalation contradicts Bush's facile claim that the US "strategy is working." On the contrary, the war is spreading. From Bloomberg, May 9:

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.

From the Jurist, April 11:

A medical officer in the UK's Royal Air Force has pleaded not guilty to charges that he failed to comply with a legal order for refusing to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty. Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, who has dual British and New Zealand citizenship, refused to go back to Iraq because he felt Britain's participation in the war was illegal since Iraq had not attacked the UK or one of its allies. Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss is presiding over Kendall-Smith's court-martial, which began Tuesday, and ruled that the doctor should face trial for the five charges against him because the orders were lawful.

From The Independent, April 3:

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq.

The Iraqi Freedom Congress and the Civil Resistance

by Bill Weinberg

Houzan Mahmoud is a co-founder of the Iraqi Freedom Congress (IFC), a new initiative to build a democratic, secular and progressive alternative to both the US occupation and political Islam in Iraq. Mahmoud, who fled Iraq in 1996 and is currently studying at the University of London, is also a co-founder of the Iraqi Women's Rights Coalition and editor-in-chief of Equal Rights Now, paper of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). A key representative abroad of the Iraqi civil resistance, she spoke in New York City on March 21 at a talk sponsored by the New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education (The New SPACE). Later that night, she spoke with WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg on WBAI Radio.

From the London Times, March 27:

US TROOPS were accused of killing up to 22 Iraqis yesterday after becoming embroiled in a fierce battle with a powerful Shia militia at a Baghdad mosque, The reported clash, the circumstances of which were disputed by US Forces, raised fears in Washington that America was being drawn into the growing sectarian violence.

We always maintained Bush and his gang want high oil prices, not low. But Greg Palast, as usual, is long on hype and short on information and analysis. He won't even quote the full sentance of his leaked document before he condescendingly tells us "There you have it." And he is overlooking the fundamental question of control of oil. The price, the buyers, the sellers—all that is peripheral compared to the question of control which determines the rest. And as long as the US is in control of Iraq, no other world or regional power will have access to that oil except on Washington's terms. So the critical factor behind the Iraq adventure is not the price of oil any more than it is AIPAC's notorious "influence." Look instead to: 1.) the longterm threat to US global dominance represented by China's military-industrial rise, 2.) continued rivarly with Russia (watch Belarus), and 3.) the rift with the Saudis since 9-11, and the need to have a counter-balance to Arab-OPEC petro-hegemony (Palast's secret document notwithstanding). And while the Bush gang may not care about oil going to waste in insurgent attacks, they are assuredly not happy about the prospects of increasing chaos that could pose a challenge to US control of Iraq...

From AP, March 23:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and British troops Thursday freed three Christian peace activists in a rural area of Iraq without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.