Since last time

* Amidst mounting pressure from multiple sides, including Arab neighbors, Syria has announced a two-stage pullback of its forces from Lebanon, but left vague precisely when and how this will be accomplished.

* Commenting on the cries of vindication following recent developments in the Mid East, Robert Parry writes, "For a government that wraps its actions in moral absolutes about good versus evil, while deriding liberal relativism, the Bush administration may rank as the most committed in modern American history to an ends-justify-the-means ethos."

* Who's responsible for the recent sprouts of democracy in the Arab Middle East? George Bush? Deploying similar logic, Timothy Garton Ash points the finger to Osama Bin Laden.

* The AP reports on growing anger at insurgent attacks within Iraq. "'The real resistance should only target the occupiers, and no normal person should consider dozens of dead people to be some kind of collateral damage while you are trying to kill somebody else,' cleric Ahmed Abdul-Ghafur told worshippers Friday at Um al-Qura, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad. 'Everybody should speak out against such inhumane acts.'" Plus: Ari Berman on "The Real Story of the Insurgency."

* "I just want to stay alive and go home with all my body parts." Such is the sentiment among American troops in Iraq as the milestone of 1,500 deaths is passed, according to Rory Carroll of the Guardian.

* The Independent reports on the release of Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist who was subsequently fired on by US soldiers, killing an Italian secret service agent in the process. Also check out an incomplete list of earlier "mistaken shootings in Iraq."

* With European-led negotiations with Iran set to kick off soon, VOA reports that the "U.S. government says it is Iran's responsibility to prove to the world that it doesn't have nuclear weapons capabilities" and Reuters relays that the Bush administration is "ready to give European allies only until June to cajole Tehran before Washington seeks U.N. sanctions." June, eh? Hmm. That time frame sounds familiar.

* The NY Times finally picks up on the Army's recruiting short-fall. In related news, an internal DoD study has found part of the reason for the dip is because the recruitment of blacks has fallen 41% over the last four years.

* Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris' new article in the Washington Monthly, "The Case for the Draft," frames the issue of conscription in terms of maintaining America's superpower status. David Peterson says the issue is better understood within the context of restraining and rolling back a "Super Predator State."

* "The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away," reports the New Scientist. The device is allegedly meant for use against "rioters," which we can safely assume means any sort of protester. Critics are also worried that the technology -- which was initially developed to help control and limit pain, not inflict it -- will be used for torture.

* A new report from the International Crisis Group, a think tank based in Brussels, charts the diversity of Islamism, which "has a number of very different streams, only a few of them violent and only a small minority justifying a confrontational response."

* China doesn't like it when the US scolds its human rights record. So it releases its own report on the US, which makes for some particularly fun reading this year with all of those easy targets, ie. Gitmo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, etc. Plus, the torture document dumps continue.

* It's good to know that the Treasury Department is being transformed into the Bush administration's "war room" propaganda office on social security. With such a cowed and incompetent press, these people don't have to worry about subtlety, apparently.

* FAIR asks: Did a meeting between New York Times executive editor Bill Keller and Karl Rove kill the Bush bulge story?