Evidence from the Haditha incident strongly favors the account that U.S. forces shot and killed unarmed civilians. Of note is the fact that death certificates show that all of the victims were killed by gunshot wounds and not by shrapnel from a roadside bomb as originally reported. Also, the Marines have already paid out $38,000 to the families of 15 of the victims. 

As the New York Times reports:

The relatives of each victim were paid a total of $2,500, the maximum allowed under Marine rules, along with $250 payments for two children who were wounded. Major Hyatt said he also compensated the families for damage to two houses.

Though the military has a regulated process of victim compensation, the disbursements are not normally made available, and following the “we don’t do body counts” philosophy, it is often difficult to determine who has received what. The Dayton Daily News and New York Newsday both published interesting pieces last year that delved into the details of victim compensation, painting a grim picture of the process. 

If the military believes that their victim compensation policy is working, then improving transparency would certainly be a good step toward raising their credibility in the area, even if it does highlight some uncomfortable truths about the number of civilian casualties that the United States continues to inflict.  In Haditha, such information may have hastened the awareness that something had gone wrong.

As mentioned in the morning brief, the New York Times reports that an investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis by U.S. Marines last November is expected to find that soldiers deliberately shot and killed unarmed civilians. Time first reported in March that local accounts of the incident differed from what was initially reported by the military, prompting the initial inquiry. In the first report, Iraqi casualties were attributed to an IED; upon further questioning, from a firefight with marines; and now, it’s likely that many of those killed were unarmed and not provoking soldiers.

If the men are guilty of the crime, then they should be punished for their actions. Marines, like all soldiers, are chosen and trained for their ability to function under the uncertainty of war and still choose correctly when it comes to the life and death decisions of the use of force. This, notwithstanding the fact that they are at constant risk of attack, unable to speak the language, dealing with a heavily armed population that makes distinguishing combatants and non-combatants difficult, and often, like Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, whose death from an IED that afternoon may have prompted the incident, only 20 years old. There is a reason why the United States boasts of having the best trained military in the world; professional soldiers are expected to navigate these situations without incident.

BBC reports that Britain has launched a nationwide knife amnesty. For the next month or so, anyone burdened with an extra carving knife can relinquish it to the police with no questions asked or charges pressed. In the States, where handguns present a more obvious target for weapons eradication (223 million firearms in private hands, according to the ATF) a knife amnesty would be laughable—what’s next, ban the lead pipe? But last time the Brits tried this strategy in Scotland, murders fell by 26% the following year. Bayonets, cutlasses, and sabers will also be accepted.

The New York Times has resumed a service entitled “Day to Day in Iraq” ($) in which three Iraqis and one Iraqi-American record their thoughts on the current situation and reflect on the past.  It’s well-written, and, as intended, provides details of daily life that add clarity to the familiar headlines of violence and sectarianism.  Unfortunately, it’s hidden away in Times Select, so for those without subscriptions here are a few snippets:

I met my cousin, Omar, at a regular relative meeting Friday. After the salutations, he said, “Did you see my new college ID?”
…
He slipped me a printed paper in which he had switched his name from Omar to Ammar, which in Arabic characters are as similar as “floor” and “flour.” A nice choice as well, since Ammar is name that could be either Shiites or Sunnis. Making fake sectarian-safe ID’s like this became common practice amongst Iraqis recently after death squads were found to have killed more that a dozen men with the name Omar on their ID’s, and then threw them in a trash dump.
- Konfused Kid, also has a personal blog here.

and this one here:

On the eastern side things are a lot different. It is not exactly normal, because normal never existed in Iraq. Right now, normal in Iraq includes hearing explosions, and it also includes having fuel and electricity problems, but they are manageable to some extent. However, we Iraqis consider that to be normal, because believe it or not, people can live with those conditions — for a while.
…
 What most people don’t know, is that it is not happening everywhere in Iraq. Some cities are better than others. Northern Iraq is a safe place to live in, with no terrorism or “freedom fighting” there. The same applies for areas the same city.

I guess when you have never lived in peace your whole life, just a bit will make a huge difference.
- Hassan Kharrufa, also has a personal blog here.

Iraqi blogs proliferated after the U.S.-led invasion, and there are a number of excellent choices—my favorites include Iraq the Model and Healing Iraq--but “Day to Day in Iraq” is a welcome addition.

Yesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he has given his approval to the production of a film by Oliver Stone documenting the events of the 2002 coup that briefly deposed him from power. 

Stone, no stranger to the political film, has taken on such controversial figures as Fidel Castro, Yasir Arafat, and Richard Nixon and intense political events as JFK’s assassination and the World Trade Center attacks (upcoming).

In the past Stone has also produced chilling accounts of the corrupting effects of power, including Wall Street and Scarface (screenplay), but given Stone’s political leanings and sympathetic stance toward leftist politicos (as well as Chavez's conditional stamp of approval), viewers are likely to see narrative that glorifies Chavismo and discredits his opponents. The real question is whether the film will be more Viva Zapata! or telenovela.

UPDATE: Stone says Chavez is full of bull and that he has no such plans for a movie.

I'd like to return to Fred Pearce’s book When the Rivers Run Dry, reviewed here last month, for another excellent and counterintuitive insight.

Hydroelectric energy is generally thought to be low on greenhouse gas emissions, but Pearce argues that hydro-supporters are missing a critical piece of the puzzle: rotting vegetation. Drifting vegetation gets caught in dam reservoirs and produces massive amounts of methane when it rots. The World Commission on Dams warned:

Green house gases bubble up from every one of the reservoirs in the world where measurements have been made… There is no justification for claiming that hydroelectricity does not contribute significantly to global warming.

How significant? Check this out:

French Guiana has a small population and its industrial emissions are miniscule. But a new dam built in the jungle … produces three times as much greenhouse gas as an equivalent coal-burning power station. As a result, French Guiana’s real per capita emissions of greenhouse gases are three times those of France and even greater than those of the United States.”

Michael Scheuer offers his take on the Goss CIA (bogged down), the Hayden nomination (bad choice), and Iraq ("finished") in our exclusive interview this week.

Not all of the conversation made it into the Seven Questions. So here's a nugget. It's been said before but is worth repeating. We're often told that terrorists want to kill us because they hate our freedoms. It may be more instructive to view it the other way around. In Scheuer's words:

Very few people on this earth, Muslim or any other religion or ethnic group or linguistic group will die because I have a draft beer after work or we produce X-rated movies or we have women in the workplace. What they die for is the perception that our policies are attacking their faith and their brotherhood.

As the government continues to shape policy aimed at dismantling al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, it’s important to remember that few people attack without first constructing some narrative of victimization, real or perceived. Whether Western countries can do anything to discredit these ideas is a different question, but one worth keeping in mind.

At yesterdays’ FP event, Sen. Richard Lugar and Tom Friedman both mentioned several ways in which the US government can embrace alternative energy sources, not only for their impact on oil dependency, but also for their potential marketability in the years ahead. “Since everyone’s going to want these products, someone’s going to invent them, and it might as well be Americans,” the argument goes. 

One good step in that direction is the passage by the House this week of a bill designating the “H-Prize.” Similar to the Ansari X Prize, given last year to the developer of the first privately funded rocket program to send a man into space, the H-Prize will provide cash rewards for advances in hydrogen vehicle technology. At $4 million, the grand prize may be a drop in the bucket, but it will still provide incentives for smaller developers and venture capitalists to push forward new technology. The X-prize was won by a small start-up backed by Paul Allen, who may not have been as willing to invest or compete if there wasn’t the prospect of massive publicity at the end of the line. Both Washington and the Big-3 auto makers have been criticized for being slow to capitalize on alternative-fueled cars. Broadening the field to encourage innovation may be the best strategy for pushing forward alternative-fuel technology. 

[hat tip: MarginalRevolution]

The Financial Times reports on a new online encyclopedia in China modeled after Wikipedia, which was blocked last year for being politically subversive. Baike, a.k.a. Baidupedia, (content in Chinese) offers the same model of volunteer participation, but all submissions must clear a censor to be posted. A points system rewards those who successfully navigate the filters.  Issuing points is a clever way to conflate accuracy with political correctness, but Wikipedia advocates are predictably skeptical of Baidu’s chances for success. They complain that Baidupedia still lists only a portion of the entries that Wikipedia used to have, and that old Wikipedia articles are appearing on Baidupedia without attribution and stamped with a Baidu copyright. 

In some ways, Chinese censorship of the internet is serving the same role now as protectionist tariffs have in the past, to defend domestic industries from foreign competition.  As economists like to point out, protection for “infant industries” often results in inferior products (thanks Wikipedia), and Baidu may be a case in point. Much has been written about how Chinese censorship restricts freedom and openness, admirable ends in themselves. But if it also limits competition, then it will result in poorer products and hurt domestic consumers economically as well.

Just as the "Quartet" (the United Nations, Israel, U.S., E.U., and Russia) negotiated a resumption of aid to the Palestinians, the Associated Press reports that an Israeli gasoline supplier has cut off shipments to the Palestinian territories after a failure to receive payments. As the only source of fuel for the territories, not only does this disable transportation, it will also affect hospitals and other government services. After Hamas took power, the Palestinians lost funding from most Western donors and the United States has successfully pressured many Arab nations to block funds as well. The Israeli government has also frozen tax transfers owed to the Palestinian government.

Today marks Slavery Remembrance Day in France. Created this year, the holiday is the first of its kind in Europe and is viewed by many as another important step in France’s current dialogue with its African residents. Chirac announced the new holiday in January shortly after the weeks long rioting across the country by North African residents of the banlieues produced images like this one.

Those riots have spawned a few important legislative changes, including the overturning of a controversial law mandating that French colonial history be given a positive spin when taught in public schools.  

To my mind these are just small efforts of what should be a larger initiative to reassess the French unicultural model of citizenship. Unlike many commentators, I don’t believe that the republican model of integration has failed, but I do think it requires some serious retooling to make it work in the contemporary context. Still, these small steps are good ones, and hopefully they will help create an environment where reforms can be made thoughtfully instead of reactively.

As our own James Forsyth predicted last week, Germany is quickly stepping into the leadership role in the ongoing Iran fracas. Angela Merkel is now in Washington to discuss the issue with Bush, following a trip to Russia last week, where she leaned on a reluctant Vladimir Putin to take a stronger stand against Iran’s nuclear proliferation.  Merkel has argued for economic sanctions only if continued diplomatic pressure and further political action fails.  More moderate than the U.S. demands, this position offers a better prospect of garnering support from China and Russia, whose veto power in the Security Council have made them the deal breakers.

Germany has a lot of leverage in this process. Since Merkel took office, Germany has made strengthening ties with the U.S. a priority, and it has earned the trust of the current administration on the issue of Iran.  As a part of the EU-3 pressure against Iran nuclear proliferation and a strong opponent of the Iraq war, Germany has credibility as a firm negotiator on Iran without being tainted by too close an association with the United States. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it enjoys some of the closest economic ties with Iran, and support for punitive measures lets Iran know that economics won’t trump security concerns.  As the BBC reports:

Germany is one of Iran's most important trading partners, and a clear word from Berlin suggesting that economic sanctions are on the agenda would be a strong signal to Tehran.

The Iranians are getting the message too. The German daily, Der Spiegel noted that positive statements on Merkel’s role as negotiator are trickling out of Tehran:

The head of the foreign relations committee in the Iranian parliament on Tuesday even suggested that Germany take on the role as intermediary between Iran and the international community.

Look for a possible public statement on the issue Thursday evening, when she makes a speech at the 100th anniversary of the American-Jewish Committee.

In the latest attempt to bridge the divided sides of the immigration debate, President Bush has expressed his strong disapproval of the Spanish language version of the national anthem entitled “Nuestro Himno”:

I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.

With the song being marketed to radio stations as a show of solidarity for pro-immigrant protesters and with its promise of wide airplay in the marches to be held on Monday, this statement expresses more than simply an opinion on historical tradition or aesthetic purity.  But for a song with uncertain roots in the British pubs, the ship has long since sailed. 

A cursory glance at the hundreds of recorded versions of the Star Spangled Banner clearly reveals that patriotism rarely requires good taste or strict adherence to tradition. The entire national mythology of the melting pot (or mixed salad) is being able to draw on unique cultural influences to uphold American values. I’m not sure if any of these can match the raw power of Jimmy Hendrix at Woodstock, but the hands-down winner for feel-good sentimentality is found on the album Patriotic Slack Key & Steel, a true masterpiece.

Until I have a chance to hear the “Nuestro Himno” the jury’s still out, but if the nation has managed to live through Dave Coulier, then I think its soul is probably safe.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s video debut marks a turning point in his role as the manager of the Iraqi al-Qaeda franchise. Since announcing that he had joined forces with an umbrella organization of insurgents named the Mujahideen Shura (consultative council), analysts had speculated that he had bowed to external pressure and relinquished his role as al-Qaeda spokesman for Iraq. But with this video, released under the Shura logo, he has firmly asserted control over the coalition.

The Mujahideen Shura first gained recognition for its role in the kidnapping of the Australian contractor Douglas Wood in May of last year. Though it claims to be a grand coalition of disparate insurgent groups, terrorism analyst Mahan Abedin reports that most of the council’s member organizations are small Salafi groups that have not had a major impact in the region. Zarqawi’s network is probably bigger than all of the other groups combined, and his joining the coalition does not mean that he has ceded any authority.

In fact, this video probably indicates that he will continue his leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq despite the rebranding. Its appearance is a direct rebuke to Ayman al-Zawahiri after his attempt to replace Zarqawi with someone carrying more local legitimacy. This internal struggle could be a sign that the al-Qaeda network is weakening, but it is certainly a demonstration once again of how difficult it is to dismantle a terrorist network that has no strict hierarchy of authority.

A poll this week by the L.A. Times found that 60% of Americans believe that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, regardless of what the United States does to try and stop them. More than half of those surveyed do not trust President Bush to make the right decision on whether to go to war with Iran, a fact that probably contributes to the overall level of pessimism about the country’s control over the situation. 

Of course, in an issue with this much uncertainty, the way a question is asked may provide its own answer. A similar poll by Fox News in March showed only 42% believe Iran will get nuclear weapons.

The L.A. Times question groups the diplomatic and the military options together and balances them against the failure to stop Iran. In contrast, Fox News presents these as three independent options.

L.A. Times: 

"Overall, taking into consideration everything you have heard or read about the situation with Iran, do you think Iran will be stopped from getting nuclear weapons through diplomatic solutions, or only through military action, or do you think Iran will eventually get nuclear weapons?"

Fox News:

"Now thinking about Iran: Which one of the following do you think is the most likely outcome for the situation with Iran trying to obtain nuclear weapons? (1) Iran will be stopped from getting nuclear weapons through diplomatic solutions. (2) Iran will be stopped from getting nuclear weapons through military action. (3) Iran will eventually get nuclear weapons."

According to the WaPo today, the State Dept. appears to have won a battle with the DoD over the use of military personnel to protect Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Iraq. PRTs are small teams of mixed civilian and military personal working outside the central area of command. In Afghanistan, PRTs have been one of the more effective ways to create interagency cooperation and to extend government control into the countryside. In Iraq, the PRT strategy has been slow to develop.

A recent report published in Parameters, a journal out of the Army War College, examined the role of PRT’s in Afghanistan, touting their potential in stabilization and reconstruction projects and calling for more to be put in place. It also detailed a number of areas in which a stronger military leadership would help to clarify missions and accomplish greater results. This is an operational approach that the military should be embracing, not denigrating.

So why has the Pentagon been so reluctant to get drawn into the project in Iraq?

Iran’s announcement that it had succeeded in enriching uranium should have come as no surprise, considering that this is exactly what they said they would do when they broke the IAEA seals on its centrifuges in January.  Still, there is increasing talk that the country is crossing a “red line.”

The real question is not whether they can complete the fuel process on a minimal scale but whether they can really press ahead with the 3,000 centrifuges they have planned to be operational by 2006, something that would enable them to produce enough enriched uranium to actually power something meaningful, like a power plant--or a bomb. Does Tuesday’s announcement give any indication of whether Iran is making significant progress in that regard? The answer is, not really. In fact, there’s a good chance that the statement had nothing to do with passing a technical milestone and everything to do with political timing. My guess is that the announcement is more brinkmanship, designed to push the Security Council to act before it is of a unified position. As of now, China and Russia are not ready to approve more than a mild response.

Despite public statements after the Abu Ghraib scandal indicating that the United States would reduce the Iraqi prison population, the Brookings Iraq Index released this week shows it has more than doubled since June 2004 (pdf report, see p. 17). There are now around 15,000 Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. and Allied forces, in addition to those held by the local authorities. Compare that to the estimated size of the insurgency, between 15,000 and 20,000, and that gives an indication of how wide the net has been cast.

Apple finds itself on the wrong end of the law once again, this time for alleged copyright violations. Apple Corps, the Beatles record company, is challenging the right for Apple Computers to use their logo when selling music products. The two companies had been eying each other since signing a 1991 settlement, and with iTunes’ popularity, the new suit was simply a matter of time.

Apple Computers is already under the gun in France, where authorities are poised to mandate that iTunes be compatible with non-Apple players, effectively removing it from the market.

Is this an indication of a new European backlash to another American technology giant, à la Microsoft, or is it simply business as usual?