Tuesday, April 1, 2003

• Thousands of Students Protest Outside the U.S. Supreme Court Calling to Preserve Affirmative Action

  
  

  Thousands of students from across the country are in Washington today where the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases.

• Democrats Accuse House Republicans of Slashing $15 Billion in Veterans Benefits in Favor of Tax Cuts for the Rich. We Will Have a Debate On the New Budget

  
  

  The vote got little attention. The date was March 20, the invasion of Iraq had just begun. So you might have missed what happened that day in Congress.

• Fragging Returns to the Frontlines: A U.S. Army Sgt. Kills Two Fellow Soldiers in Grenade Attack in First Such Attack Since Vietnam

  
  

  Fragging. It is a term that has seldom been heard in a generation. It means "To wound or kill a fellow soldier by throwing a grenade or similar explosive at the victim"

• US Troops Shoot and Kill at Least 7 Iraqis Including Women and Children: We Go to Baghdad for a Report From Unembedded Journalist May Ying Welsh

  
  

  US troops shot and killed at least 7 Iraqi civilians yesterday, including women and young children, at an intersection near Karbala.

• Rumsfeld Ignored Advice On Top Pentagon Generals On Iraq: Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Seymour Hersh On the War, Richard Perle’s Resignation, Gen. Barry Mccaffrey & More

  
  

  This from the New York Times today: "Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army commanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it. Raw nerves were obvious as officers compared Rumsfeld to Robert McNamara, an architect of the Vietnam War who failed to grasp the political and military realities of Vietnam. One colonel, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, was among the officers criticizing decisions to limit initial deployments of troops to the region. "He wanted to fight this war on the cheap," the colonel said. "He got what he wanted."

• "Don’t Mess with My Soldiers. Don’t Mess with Them Because They Are Trained Like Dogs to Kill. And They Will Kill You If You Try Again": U.S. Military Detains and Beats Foreign Journalists in Iraq. We

  
  

  The international press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres has accused US and British coalition forces in Iraq of displaying "contempt" for journalists covering the conflict who are not embedded with troops.