Active duty soldiers are voting with their feet: The New York Times reports 6,000 desertions. Journalists should also investigate how many reserve and National Guard soldiers are failing to report for military duty. In combination, the desertions, the back door draft (stop loss), faltering recruiting, and $150,000 bonuses for re-enlistment, the military personnel system hangs on the brink of destruction and ready for the draft.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=2997

In one of the most lengthy, detailed, and accurate editorials ever written by the New York Times, their editorial board lays bare the phony reasons given to attack Iraq and some reasonable suggestions to extract the U.S. from what the Times calls "Bush's war."

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=2996

A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become 'the biggest corruption scandal in history.'

By Mark Rice-Oxley
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 17, 2005 edition

LONDON – Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested for allegedly taking $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri Lankan officials are suspended for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large financial discrepancies in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia.

Two of the world's biggest-ever reconstruction projects - Iraq and post-tsunami Asia - are facing major tests of credibility, as billions of dollars of aid and reconstruction money pour in.
And according to a major report released Wednesday by Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses on issues of corruption, the omens are not good. [...]

Read the rest at the Christian Science Monitor online:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0317/p06s01-wogi.html


© Virginia Metze

Wonky But Worth It: The True Costs Of War

by The Institute For Policy Studies

IPS crunched the numbers to give us a true picture of what the war has cost Iraq and the United States.

http://tompaine.com/action/#004139

Report Uncovers Massive Corruption in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031805Y.shtml

The US Army has asked Congress to allow it to extend enlistment contracts offered to future soldiers by two years in order to "stabilize the force," as top defense officials warned that key recruitment targets for the year could be missed.

http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story_id=30824
http://tinyurl.com/6sc67


From Information Clearing House

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took a battering from the press and opposition parties, after being forced into an ignominious climbdown by his more powerful allies over his stated intention to withdraw Rome's troops from Iraq...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&ncid=732&e=4&u=/afp/20050317/wl_mideast_afp/italyiraqtroops
http://tinyurl.com/5qy6l


From Information Clearing House

This rage to march in lockstep to the war music is a fundamentalism of thought that enslaves America

By Luciana Bohne

A day will come when this crazed war music will stop, and the American people will hear the judgment that the Germans heard at Nuremberg—that, in Justice Robert Jackson's words, they had supported a regime which had committed "acts which have been regarded as criminal since the time of Cain."

http://tinyurl.com/64eap


From Information Clearing House