One of Ours

According to the draft indictment submitted by State Prosecutor Edna Arbel, Ariel Sharon accepted a bribe from Appel, via his son Gilad, and committed crimes of fraud and breach of trust. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is expected to take about a month to decide whether to press charges against the prime minister.

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, decided Monday to compel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon`s son Gilad to hand over to police documents related to the Cyril Kern bribery affair, rejecting his appeal of a lower court ruling...

French President Jacques Chirac suffered a new pasting at the polls Sunday, as the electorate punished his government's policies of public sector reform and defected massively to the Socialists (PS) in the second round of regional elections.

In what was seen as a key test for the president's two-year-old administration, his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party looked set to be almost wiped from the regional map, with the left taking control of at least 20 of the 22 regions in metropolitan France...

...Speaking on national television, the prime minister conceded that the government had to heed the message from voters, but he said the policies of economic and social reform could not be halted. "I am sure the French do not want a return to immobility. Reforms must be continued very simply because they are necessary"...

...Raffarin's attempts to streamline parts of France's large public sector have provoked a wave of protests by groups including scientific researchers, lawyers, hospital staff and performing artists - while his aim of liberalising employment law has prompted the criticism that he sides with big business.

Chirac was likely to announce a cabinet reshuffle in the coming days, and informed comment before the weekend had it that Raffarin would survive if the regional defeat was containable - but go if it turned into a rout...

Arab governments were in disarray on Sunday after the Arab League summit meeting, set to grapple with vital regional issues like democratic reform, Arab-Israeli bloodshed and the American occupation of Iraq, was abruptly called off just before it was to open Monday. The exact reason is a matter of some dispute, but all sides viewed the meeting's collapse — even as some heads of state were on their way — as an embarrassment. It was a stark public admission that the commitment to change voiced by Arab leaders risks becoming just more words...

...The very idea of reform remains too divisive, and many nations' governments have yet to decide how to deal themselves with issues like elections...

...Foreign ministers said they were exploring possible dates in April. Tunisia still objected, however, saying the problem was the issues, not the setting. Given the the American invasion of Iraq, and spiral of violence in the region, including terrorist bomb attacks from Casablanca to Riyadh, there had been some expectation that Arab leaders might commit themselves to change...

...represented in stark colors the Arab world's inability to cope with American efforts to redraw the region's political map. "You feel they are completely lost," said Mr. Khairallah, the political commentator. "The Arab League is finally feeling the impact of the fall of Baghdad. It took them a whole year." A reluctance to take the first step toward reform was evident in the two days of preparatory talks about the agenda, which bogged down in details like how to present Arab culture at the Frankfurt book fair next fall...

...Tunisia pulled the plug, announcing that it would not preside over a gathering willing to make what it called only a tepid commitment to reform...

...the general consensus had divided into two broad groups, participants said. One group was made up of those who wanted to resist what was seen as a fiat from the Bush administration for the Arab League to push for sweeping changes. The other group included those who said the call for change was not a Washington monopoly and that a wider demand for greater democracy had to be addressed...

...Tunisian officials denied acting in pique, saying they merely wanted the summit meeting's final communiqué to be something of substance. Three hundred fifty million Arabs want a sense that the repression that scars their region is ending, the Tunisians maintained. "The Arab world will not advance unless it faces to this reality," said an Arab diplomat familiar with the Tunisian assessment. "It's not just the paper you field; it's the attitude."...

...Arab foreign ministers lined up Sunday to criticize Tunisia, and there were broad hints from analysts that its president must have come back from a visit to Washington earlier this year with specific instructions to wreck the summit meeting...."To fail to even hold a meeting is a disaster, taking into consideration all the challenges of the region," said Hoshar Zubairy, the Iraqi foreign minister. "This encourages extremism, when people see that even the formal Arab system is not functioning, not operating. The sense of frustration will only deepen."

I stand to be corrected on this, but Noam Chomsky seems to be suggesting that coverage of US deaths in Iraq is designed to somehow increase support for the Illegal Unilateral Invasion:

There's a lot of focus on the American death toll but personally I think that's partly propaganda exaggeration. Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll - although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it - if they think it's a just cause.

Beats me. Of course, when Cambodia was being erased by the Khmer Rouge, Noam had another body-count theory:

Allegations of genocide are being used to whitewash Western imperialism, to distract attention from the `institutionalized violence' of the expanding system of subfascism and to lay the ideological basis for further intervention and oppression.

Those pesky “allegations”. They haunted Pol Pot to the grave.

There is a very run-down part of town in Baghdad which the military calls Saddam City. At the moment, many locals now refer to it as Sadr, named after a very popular Muqtada al-Sadr in that area. The military still refers to it as Saddam City though, the name just kind of stuck. It is where the most resistance can be find in Baghdad. In fact, the military pulled out of that area awhile ago because of the attacks. It is considered to be even alittle more dangerous than Fallujah, but Fallujah is a big city, and Saddam City is a neighborhood...RPGs and the attackers quicker ran into the side streets and got away. It was VERY frustrating because the NCO (Non-commissioned Officer) didn't have a handle on the situation or seem to know what he was even doing. Plus, the Bradley's hadn't even attempted to strike back at the attackers. In the Infantry, we believe you need to be tough and firm and willing to use force or the enemy will use that as a weakness and attack you. That is why they attack in neighborhoods, to exploit it for that very reason. It was also very frustrating to see all the Iraqis just walking around like nothing had happened at all. Guys were still selling goods in their carts right by the roads, they totally seemed oblivious...One of the hit Hmmwvs didn't look anything like a vehicle, just a hunk of burning and smoking rubble. I can never forget the pieces of brain matter that was on the ground and people were unintentionally stepping on...We fight a group that claims to be brave and fighting for Iraqis, and yet, in alot of their own ambushes they set up against military convoys they kill more of their own and seem to think of it as acceptable. However, if we get into a fire fight and some Iraqi bystander dumb enough to watch gets wounded, we are murders. Their logic just doesn't seem right most of the time...

...We got into a fierce fire fight. The Iraqis kept bringing in more and more reinforcements. As a bunch of them came in a group, I quickly mowed down a bunch of them with the weapon before they hit the ground and took cover. We were losing alot of our own guys. However, it seemed like we were winning. Until, I looked and say Iraqis drag up 120mm and 81mm mortars to their front position. They started firing rounds through the tubes and started killing ALOT of us...A few guys shouted mortars and pointed towards the mortars, and themselves got blown up. Until me and few guys sprayed in that direction and finally killed them. Once that happened, they all started to retreat...As much of them gathered up in a group while running away, I took quick advantage of this and shot and killed many of them until they loaded up into their trucks and drove off...during a ceremony where the rest of our Company finally came back from Iraq. They had the division band there and all. They were practicing until one of the drummers with the really big drum...beat it, and it sounded just like an explosion from an RPG, the way it echoed inside the building. I and a few others jumped and thought for a second we were under attack. Funny how none of the explosions that happened around us when I was in Iraq never really bothered me, I could even ignore them. I even slept through the Al-Rasheed hotel attack incident that happened about a mile away and shook the place. I didn't think it would really have any effect on me.

Less than 100 days to go for the end of occupation and the return of the sovereignty to Iraq. The sovereignty of Iraq has been lost partially when Saddam fully controlled power in 1979. After that the Iraqi sovereignty & dignity start to decline gradually...

...Under the eyes of the reckless members of the UN teams in Iraq was the leader of the killers doing his atrocities and no thing was done about it. Instead they act in an arrogant, reckless and humiliating way to the Iraqis...

...The Iraqi sovereignty had been lost long time ago before the present occupation. In deed the present occupation may be considered as a turning point to return the long time lost Iraqi sovereignty...

...Sovereignty of Iraq will never go to the Iraqis unless the criminals who ripped it off from them submitted into trials to face their crimes and their punishment. Therefore we consider the handover in the July 2004 from the CPA is nothing but the beginning of the return of sovereignty. Full return will only be achieved after the Mother of All Trials and the mother of all punishment finished. Only then the Iraqis may take a deep breath after the long storm which was lasted for 35 years and destroyed every good thing. Every one knows if Iraq was in the hands of a wise and peaceful leader it will be one of the best countries at least in the ME. The healing of our wounds & scars will never start until we see those who reached by our country into its present condition face what they deserve.