Never home are the heroes: Soldiers listed in the past week as killed in action in Iraq:

Sgt. George E. Buggs, 31, of Barnwell, S.C. (3rd Division Support Battalion)
Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, 38, of Cleveland, Ohio. (507th Maintenance Company)
Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 18, of El Paso, Texas. (507th Maintenance Company)
Spc. James M. Kiehl, 22, of Comfort, Texas. (507th Maintenance Company)
Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35, of Amarillo, Texas. (507th Maintenance Company)
Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Tuba City, Ariz. (507th Maintenance Company)
Pvt. Brandon U. Sloan, 19, of Cleveland, Ohio. (507th Maintenance Company)
Sgt. Donald R. Walters, 33, of Kansas City, Mo. (507th Maintenance Company)

The 507th Maintenance Company was attacked by Iraqi forces on March 23. One solider, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, was rescued earlier this week from an Iraqi hospital. (More profiles on the members of the 507th can be found here.)

Staff Sgt. Nino D. Livaudais, 23, Utah. (3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment)
Spc. Ryan P. Long, 21, Seaford, Del. (A Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment)
Capt. Russell B. Rippetoe, 27, Colorado. (A Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment)

Three Army Rangers were killed in an April 3 car bombing northwest of Baghdad.

Spc. Donald S. Oaks Jr., 20, Erie, Pa. (C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 13th Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System))
Sgt. 1st Class Randall S. Rehn, 36, Longmont, Colo. (C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 13th Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System)
Sgt. Todd J. Robbins, 33, Pentwater, Mich. (C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 13th Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System))

Spc. Oaks and Sgts. Rehn and Robbins were killed in an April 3 fratricide incident in southern Iraq, when an F-15E Strike Eagle mistakenly bombed their position.

Master Sgt. George A. Fernandez, 36, El Paso, TX. (Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Operations Command)

Master Sgt. Fernandez was shot April 2, in northern Iraq.

Capt. Aaron J. Contreras, 31, Sherwood, Ore. (Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA)-169, Marine Aircraft Group-39)
Sgt. Brian D. McGinnis, 23, of St. George, Del. (Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA)-169, Marine Aircraft Group-39)
Sgt. Michael V. Lalush, 23, of Troutville, Va. (Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA)-169, Marine Aircraft Group-39)

Captain Contreras and Sgts. McGinnis and Lalush were killed on March 30 in a helicopter crash in southern Iraq.

Staff Sgt. James W. Cawley, 41, Roy, Utah. (F Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division)

Sgt. Cawley was killed on March 29 by Iraqi forces.

Sgt. Jacob L. Butler, 24, Wellsville, Kan. (Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment)

On April 1, Sgt. Butler's vehicle was destroyed by an Iraqi RPG.

Spc. Brandon J. Rowe, 20, Roscoe, Ill. (C Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault))

Specialist Rowe was killed by Iraqi artillery in Ayyub on March 31.

Cpl. Robert M. Rodriguez, 21, Queens, N.Y. (1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division)

Cpl. Rodriguez was killed on March 27 when his tank overturned during combat operations.

Lance Cpl. Patrick R. Nixon, 21, Nashville, Tenn. (1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade)

Lance Cpl. Nixon was killled on or around March 23 in the outskirts of An Nasiriyah.

Staff Sgt. Donald C. May, Jr., 31, Richmond, Va. (1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division)
Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O'Day, 20, Sonoma, Calif. (1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division)
Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez-Flores, 21, Los Angeles, Calif. (1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division)

Three Marines were killed on March 25 during a convoy protection mission near the Euphates River.

More information on the soldiers who have died in combat can be found here.

 
"It's like Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka:" The FBI has detained an Oregon software developer and held him in solitary confinement without charges, Wired magazine and the New York Times report. The programmer, Maher "Mike" Hawash, is a Palestinian who gained American citizenship fifteen years ago, and has been a career employee of (now contractor for) chipmaker Intel Corporation. Hawash is being held as a material witness, which has been frequently used since 9/11 by federal law enforcement agencies as a way to hold suspects for indefinite periods without charges.

Although the FBI's interest in Hawash is unknown, he did make a $10,000 donation in 2000 to the Illinois-based Global Relief Foundation, an organization linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistan-backed terror groups operating in Kashmir. Hawash also holds a degree from the University of Texas, Arlington; several terror investigations have led back to the Central Arlington Mosque, where numerous jihadi were recruited for the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. The GRF has also been linked to the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, considered a front for terror operations by American and European officials.

 
"Battle stations for the press:" Neoconservative author and columnist Michael Kelly was killed in Iraq in a non-hostile accident, the first "embedded" journalist to die in the Iraq conflict. Kelly, who held editorial positions at the Atlantic Monthly and the National Journal, covered the explusion of Iraq from Kuwait, and joined the current program in part to compensate for the failures of journalism during that conflict, which he called "spotty and shallow" with "[m]uch ... lost to history."

Kelly, 46, is survived by his wife and two young sons.

 
Doing the numbers: Hey, we're statistically insignificant! From the latest Pew Center report on the war and the use of the Internet:

Our first soundings on the subject show that blogs are gaining a following among a small number of Internet users, but they are not yet a source of news and commentary for the majority of Internet users. Some 4% of online Americans report going to blogs for information and opinions. The overall number of blog users is so small that it is not possible to draw statistically meaningful conclusions about who uses blogs. The early data suggest that the most active Internet users, especially those with broadband connections are the most likely to have found blogs they like. In addition, blogs seem to be catching on with younger Internet users – those under age 30 – at a greater pace than with older Internet users.

The margin of error at a 95% confidence level in the study is (+-)4% for questions using the "online Americans" subsample. Thus, statistically, it's possible that no one at all reads blogs! (The percentage of total Americans who read blogs, using the Pew Center's numbers, is then ~1.6%, mas o menos.)

 
Wasting away again: The island paradise of the radical left "pressed forward with its harshest crackdown on dissent in years," following the mass arrest and detention of journalists, human rights workers, and pro-democracy dissidents who had visited with US Interests Section Chief James Cason.

In related news, the State Department recently released its human rights report on Cuba, noting amongst other occurences instances of torture, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, censorship, and denial of democratic process.

 
All right, gang, you better put on a show: Over the weekend, my anti-war friends warned me that the Iraqi street was already rising up against Americans, chanting protestations of love for Saddam Hussein.

Good advice for folks on both sides of this war: don't believe everything you hear.

When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq ... men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam."

I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food.

His answer shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

He said: "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else."

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq.

The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein.

(Via World Wide Rant.)

 
"Five seconds:" That's how much time unidentified vehicles have to stop at American checkpoints before being forcibly stopped, a grim officer told the New York Times after four American soldiers were killed by a car bomb. The day afterwards, a man, named as an Egyptian radical by the Arab press, injured thirteen soldiers by ramming his car into a line waiting in front of a PX in Kuwait.

Earlier today, the tragic denouement: seven women and children were shot by Coalition troops after they failed to stop at a checkpoint near Najaf. Coalition soldiers waved them to stop and fired warning shots, "[B]ut," a military statement said, "the vehicle kept moving toward the checkpoint. Finally, as a last resort, the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle."

Thirteen women and children were in the car, of whom seven were killed and two were wounded.

The day's tragic events will no doubt occasion a great deal of soul-searching amongst the soldiers involved and their commanders -- and rightfully so, as with any tragedy. But a few days ago, this car, like many others, would have passed unheeded into the military camp; the new rules were set out only after Saturday's car bombing, in which four soldiers stepped forward to help a man who claimed he needed aid, and died for their concern.

A useful comparison is Mogadishu, where many soldiers, confronted with an enemy that hid in crowds and fired from homes, placed themselves in great danger and took care to save the lives of those people who held no weapons. It is the simple truth to say that men died that day because they placed the lives of civilians over their own. Even if you disagree, no matter how vehemently, with the invasion of Iraq, it remains that the men and women of America's military are a rare and valuable thing: warriors who hold life sacrosanct.

The blame is rightfully laid at the feet of the terrorists who, under the color of no flag and cloaked in the anonymity of innocents, seek only death and destruction. As long as they hide amongst those who should be saved, the blood is theirs alone.

 
Never home are the heroes: A Mexican citizen whose family moved to America so he could fulfill his dream of being a Marine; a Filipino-American remembered as "a model soldier;" a man who, a decade older than most recruits, left his career to do something for his country: these are the faces of the men and women fighting abroad.

Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Menusa, 33, of San Jose, Calif. (1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division)
Lance Cpl. Jesus A. Suarez Del Solar, 20, of Escondido, Calif. (1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division)

Sgt. Menusa and Lance Cpl. Del Solar were killed on March 27 by Republican Guard forces in An Nasiriyah.

Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, 24, of Wagoner, Okla. (2nd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion, Marine Air Control Group-28, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing)
Lance Cpl. Michael J. Williams, 31, of Yuma, Ariz. (1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade)

Lance Cpls. Blair and Williams were slain while fighting outside An Nasiriyah on March 23 and 24.

Pfc. Michael Russell Creighton Weldon, 20, of Conyers, Ga. (2-7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division)
Spc. Michael Edward Curtin, 23, of South Plains, N.J. (2-7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division)
Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincon, 19, of Conyers, Ga. (2-7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division)
Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, of Highland, N.Y. (2-7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division)

On Saturday, March 29, an individual posing as a cab driver detonated a car bomb at a Coalition checkpoint near Najaf, killing four soldiers.

 
The importance of beans and bullets: In a press briefing given earlier this morning, Gen. Tommy Franks, asked whether he had been ordered to start the war without the in-theatre forces he desired, carefully stepped around the toes of his Commander-in-Chief. The military plan, he said, was to "flow the amount of force and then stop it if necessary," but he didn't specifically comment on whether he agreed with the timing of that flow.

Later, questioned about the problems caused by Turkey's refusal to grant wartime basing rights to the United States, Franks decried media "hand-wringing" about the fact that the 4th Infantry Division was left outside the theatre when the war began: "the fact of the matter is, it was very important to have that force precisely where it was until the day it moved." Translation: "We needed those forces there in case Turkey let us move through their territory, and when it was clear that the civilians fouled that up, we changed the plan accordingly."

Back in Washington, military and civilian forces are busy conducting their own guerilla war to lay blame for any combat or logistical problems encountered, with one officer saying that the civilian leadership "manipulated [the troop deployment plan] to support their priorities," and, in return, a "senior defense official" characterized the military plan as "really awful." (All this, remember, is happening even as Coalition forces continue to advance,

In the meantime, the military is adjusting to the changed circumstances: a slower advance, the need to capture secondary objectives such as Najaf, the problem of protecting a long and fragile supply line that will eventually stretch up the Baghdad. "Transportation is the Achilles' heel of this operation right now," an Army general in Iraq told the Washington Post, noting that sufficient rolling stock won't be delivered until late spring.

A slow advance to Baghdad won't change the fact that an American defeat is inconceivable, but it does introduce new variables and exacerbate existing ones: problems of civilian health and survivability, the radicalization of the local population, refugees moving out into the region, Turkey and the Kurds jousting in the north, possible military moves by Iran, political pressure from the rest of the world, and a slow diminishment of the myth of American invincibility, which has in many ways kept the peace for the past decade.

 
"A million Mogadishus:" The tenured twits are busy these days, but Columbia anthropology professor Nicholas De Genova has found a way to distance himself from the crowd by praising the death of American troops and advocating domestic action against the military.

De Genova, in remarks later characterized as "idiotic" by the organizer of the teach-in being addressed, said that, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military ... I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

Protected speech, or distinguishable from Watts v. U.S.? We report; you decide.

(Via Sgt. Stryker, who insightfully notes that De Genova "would be well-advised to consider what ["a million Mogadishus"] really means: approximately 150,000,000 Iraqi casualties.")