As we have noted, all US soldiers accused of killings in Iraq have thus far been acquitted. This particularly grisly case will really put Pentagon justice to the test. But we again note that, in any case, higher-ranking officers--who the accused GIs say "had sanctioned their actions"--are getting off the hook...

The Russia-based Iraqi Resistance Report website cites a story from the Iraqi newspaper Mafkarat al-Islam June 1 that US forces beseiging the central town of al-Ramadi are using restoration of water and other basic services as a bargaining chip to get the populace to turn over information on resistance fighters:

Amnesty International is defending its description of Guantánamo prison as a "gulag," and urges the US to allow independent investigations of allegations of torture at its detention centers for terrorism suspects. A verbal feud between Amnesty and Washington has escalated since the group's new annual report compared Guantánamo Bay to the brutal Soviet system of forced labor camps where millions of prisoners died. President Bush dismissed the report as "absurd" the Amnesty report, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the description "reprehensible."

"The administration's response has been that our report is absurd, that our allegations have no basis, and our answer is very simple: if that is so, open up these detention centers, allow us and others to visit them," Amnesty International secretary general Irene Zubaida Khan told a news conference.

Emulating recent jihadi tactics in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Iraqi resistance has targetted a gathering of Sufis for a suicide attack, as well as escalating attacks against Shi'ites.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of Sufi Muslims north of Baghdad June 2, killing 10 and injuring at least 12. The attack took place at a house in the village of Saud, near the northern town of Balad as Sufis gathered for a religious ceremony, Interior Ministry officials said. Ahmed Hamid, a Sufi witness, told the AP: "I was among 50 people inside the tekiya [Sufi gathering place] practicing our rites when the building was hit by a big explosion. Then, there was chaos everywhere and human flesh scattered all over the place."

A suicide bomb tore through a mosque in Kandahar June 1 at the funeral of Mullah Abdul Fayaz, a Muslim cleric who spoke out against the Taliban, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens. Hundreds of mourners were crowded inside the Mullah Abdul Fayaz Mosque in the center of the city when the bomb went off. Kabul's police commander, Gen. Akram Khakrezwal was among the dead. Mullah Fayaz, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead in Kandahar on May 29 by suspected Taliban gunmen--a week after he led a call for people not to support the rebels.

In a second attack west of Kandahar June 1, a bomb exploded on a bridge as a group of Afghan de-miners were driving over it, killing two and wounding five others, said Patrick Fruchet, spokesman for the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan.

More chilling revelations in the ongoing scandal over abuse at Guantanamo Bay and other US military detention centers...

Gitmo Detainees Say Muslims Were Sold
By Michelle Faul
The Associated Press

Tuesday 31 May 2005

San Juan, Puerto Rico -- They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

A front-page story in the NY Times reveals some details of the secret air fleet the CIA uses to carry out "renditions"--but unfortunately fails to emphasize the global outcry over the practice from human rights groups and even the judiciary in allied countries.

CIA Expanding Terror Battle under Guise of Charter Flights
By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
The New York Times

Tuesday 31 May 2005

Smithfield, NC - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

From Spanish TV ABC.es, Sevilla, May 26:

When I see Bush, he reminds me of Benito

Like the great humorists, who are certainly the most sad, Harold Bloom will never laugh at his own jokes nor betray the effect they produce in their interlocutor. Bloom believes the "United States has gone crazy. I cannot refer to the sitting president in any manner other than Benito Bush. When I see him on television with this rigid grimace on his face he reminds me of Benito. We find ourselves in a demented situation. Some time ago we ceased being a democracy and have been converted into a theocratic plutocracy. Its a very dangerous situation. It gives me the sensation that my compatriots are sleeping. Here we are fulfilling the prophecies of Orwell, but [20] years after they were predicted by Orwell."