] NEAR KARBALA, Iraq, March 31 -- As an unidentified
] four-wheel-drive vehicle came barreling toward an
] intersection held by troops of the Army's 3rd Infantry
] Division, Capt. Ronny Johnson grew increasingly alarmed.
] From his position at the intersection, he was heard
] radioing to one of his forward platoons of M2 Bradley
] Fighting Vehicles to alert it to what he described as a
] potential threat.
]
] "Fire a warning shot," he ordered as the vehicle kept
] coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the
] platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its
] radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Johnson yelled into
] the company radio network when he still saw no action
] being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice,
] "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"
]
] That order was immediately followed by the loud reports
] of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's
] Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.
]
] "Cease fire!" Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he
] peered into his binoculars from the intersection on
] Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just
] [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a
] warning shot soon enough!"

A Gruesome Scene on Highway 9 (washingtonpost.com)

] The people I spoke with at Umm Qasr said they were happy
] about the removal of Saddam, as he had held them in
] terror for years. They took me to see the local Baath
] Party headquarters. They told me that many bad things
] happened there and that most of those picked up in the
] middle of the night and taken to that building were never
] seen again.
]
] I entered the building and walked around. I couldn't
] help noticing the excitement in the people's voices
] as they pointed out the bullet holes and the charred
] remains of where the building burned.
]
] That was when I first got the sense that these people
] were really eager to see Saddam and Baath gone.
]
] I asked several what they thought of the US/UK plan to
] remove Saddam. They told me: "Now that they have
] started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then
] we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in
] Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who
] isn't."

ArabNews: Exclusive: 'If They Stop Now We're As Good As Dead'

Yet another anti-Bush rally that I wish I could have attended.

The protesters would disrobe, form the Chinese symbol for peace, and a photographer would climb up into a cherry picker and take their picture from above. I wasn't really sure how nudity was going to help the peace movement, but I'd never gotten naked in front of more than two people at a time, and the idea of doing it for something I believed in seemed like a great idea.

Salon.com Life | Bushes against Bush

Donald Rumsfeld often quotes a line from Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone."
But should the guiding philosophy of the world’s leading democracy really be the tough talk of a Chicago mobster?

The Arrogant Empire by Fareed Zakaria