ROADSIDE BOMB Shakespeare wrote once that "all's fair in love and war". Associated Press just now reports that in Tikrit, a roadside bomb killed two American soldiers and wounded three this Saturday. They were the first casualties suffered by a new US army regiment taking over security in Saddam Hussein's hometown, as part of a troop rotation in Iraq pulling out 130,000 troops, some of whom have been in Iraq since the March 2003 foreign invasion.
The bomb damaged the troops' armoured Humvee, as they patrolled through downtown Tikrit at around 5 am, hours before the outgoing 4th Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment handed over security duties from the 18th Infantry Regiment at a ceremony on Saturday. In the attack, gunmen reportedly opened fire on the rear vehicle in the three-Humvee patrol, then a bomb went off by the second Humvee. A Bradley fighting vehicle sped to the scene, spraying the area with machine gun fire. It is not known if any of the attackers sustained casualties. Afterwards, platoons fanned out through Tikrit searching for evidence, asking locals for information. Three wounded American soldiers were evacuated to a military hospital north of Tikrit, said 1st Infantry Division spokeswoman Major Debra Stewart. Roadside bombs are now the main threat to American soldiers on patrol in the Sunni Triangle. Saturday's deaths clocked the official death toll of American service members to 560, when counted from the start of military operations in Iraq. CONCERNS EXPRESSED Concerns have been expressed by the occupation forces, that insurgents might in fact infiltrate official Iraqi security forces. American troops said among other things, that they had discovered that four Iraqis and their translator, suspected of killing two civilians, later turned out to be in reality trained and active policemen. The victims were: (1) Ms. Fern Holland, 33 an Emma Peel-type lawyer from Oklahoma, who was employed in civilian duty by the Department of Defense, and served as an Iraqi interpreter. Ms. Holland grew up in Miami, Oklahoma and earned a law degree from TU. She worked on women's issues in the Hillah region, investigating human-rights violations, setting up conferences and centres, and assisting in writing up the women's rights section of the new Iraqi constitution. "I love the work, and if I die, know that I'm doing precisely what I want to be doing," Ms. Holland wrote in an e-mail to a friend on January 21 this year. (2) Mr. Robert John Zangas, 44, a regional press officer married to Brenda in suburban Pittsburgh, and previously a Lieutenant Colonel on active duty as marine in Al Kut. He had returned to Iraq as CPA press officer. On April 26, 2003, Ali Baba looters in Al Kut had smashed and looted local radio and broadcasting facilities. "When I saw the looting at the station, I felt exasperated and dejected," Colonel Zangas said on duty at that time, "but I wasn't surprised." As a salesman in his civilian career, he stated that dealing with the angry crowd in Al Kut was "the hardest sales call I've ever made. These people have been free for less than three weeks, and need to learn to police themselves and each other. They shouldn't blame us [for the looting], and should help us to help them." Polish troops patrolling Hillah suggested that the identified police officers had stopped a car containing Zangas and Holland at a checkpoint, and subsequently shot them at point blank range. But occupation force operations chief Major General Mark Kimmitt said, the real killers could have been in a second car, that actually ran the occupation force staffers off the road. Not since the construction of the Biblical Tower of Babel on a hill surrounded by a military base have so many different languages been spoken in Iraq. JACKASS COMPLAINT "Who on earth doesn't remember the heady rush of adrenaline, the thumping heart, the sweaty palms, the loss of reason, the thrashing about of unwieldy emotions love brings. When we face "the one" helplessly, and with abandon, when there are intimations of immortality and grandeur - when there seems to be no other option but to allow us to cross continents, run on empty, and float in a bubble that's not rooted in everyday reality. Broken marriages, illicit affairs, overdoses, grand theatre, great art, timeless writing is testimony to its power. Shakespeare says it even better in A Midsummer Night 's Dream than he does in Romeo and Juliet. Cupid aims his arrow and a beautiful woman falls in love with a Jackass. War is no different. Like the one against Iraq. The adrenaline of a man who can with his little pinkie set hundreds of thousands of soldiers in motion, flood a country with bombs and missiles, disregard the UN and buy up the support of smaller countries. Then there are the trigger-happy, testosterone-pumped soldiers, the intimations of grandeur in holding weapons that can wipe out 20, 30 or a few thousand lives in seconds. (...) All's fair in love and war until reality breaks in, and as the adrenaline drains from us, we sit wide-eyed and astonished at the carnage around us. What we need now is that clear voice of reality. With the dust of hate in their eyes America is following the jackass of war. Their networks have turned into a parody of reporting and propaganda machines. The families of their felled boys are being told they died to save "freedom". Everyone's following the jackass. The voices of reason are being ignored, dismissed. (...) Mainstream American and British TV continue to advertise themselves as "balanced" when their propaganda has achieved hallucinatory levels. (...) While the American people will end up paying for the war, oil companies, weapons manufacturers, arms dealers, and corporations involved in "reconstruction" work will make direct gains from the war. Many of them are old friends and former employers of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice cabal. (...) So all's fair in love and war then. But even those in the throes of love and war madness must realise that one day the dust will clear, and history will record how thousands died, because of those who blindly followed the jackass." http://www.iramathur.org/Articles/303_IN06.04.03.htm ROCK 'N' ROLL SUICIDE I'm a soldier of freedom, in the army of man We are the chosen, we're the partisan The cause it is noble, and the cause it is just We are ready to pay with our lives, if we must Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide Ride across the river, to the other side I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of war And we don't give a damn, who the killing is for It's the same old story, with a different name Death or glory, it's the killing game Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide Ride across the river, to the other side Nothing gonna stop them as the day follows the night Right becomes wrong, the left becomes the right And they sing, as they march, with their flags unfurled Today in the mountains, tomorrow the world Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide Ride across the river, to the other side - Dire Straits, "Ride across the River"
