Today in Iraq

POLITICS IRAQ AND VIETNAM DEJA VU President George W. Bush, March 21, 2006: "We're making progress because we've got a strategy for victory." President Lyndon Johnson, November 17, 1967: "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking... We are making progress." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 19, 2006: "The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case." President Richard Nixon, March 28, 1985: "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now." President George W. Bush, March 19, 2006: "We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq." President Richard Nixon, January 4, 1971: "The end is in sight." Vice President Dick Cheney, March 19, 2006: "And I think we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think the evidence is overwhelming." Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, October 1972: "We believe that peace is at hand.” Gen. George Casey, March 19, 2006: “So, yes we’re making good political progress and yes, we continue to make good progress with the Iraqi security forces.” Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, May 1962: "We are winning the war.” Shiite Ayatollah Ignores Letter From Bush A letter from Bush is Iraq’ supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in the top religious figure’s office, a key al-Sistani aide told the Associated Press on Thursday. The aide — who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani's refusal to make any public statements himself — said the ayatollah had laid the letter aside and did not ask for a translation because of increasing "unhappiness" over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government. The aide said the person who delivered the Bush letter — he would not identify the messenger by name or nationality — said it carried Bush's thanks to al-Sistani for calling for calm among his followers in preventing the outbreak of civil war after a Shiite shrine was bombed late last month. The messenger also was said to have explained that the letter reinforced the American position that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari should not be given a second term. Al-Sistani has not publicly taken sides in the dispute, but rather has called for Shiite unity. Iraq Shi’ite Ayatollah Demands US Fire Envoy A leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric demanded on Friday that the United States sack its ambassador, accusing Zalmay Khalilzad of siding with his fellow Sunni Muslims in the sectarian conflict gripping the country. In a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi said Washington had underestimated the bloody conflict between Shi'ites and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority, which many fear threatens to trigger a civil war. "By this, they are either misled by reports, which lack objectivity and credibility, submitted to the United States by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq ... or they are denying this fact," Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement. (Or, it has been part of the plan all along – how many times do bad things have to happen under this administration before we conclude they are doing it on purpose? – Susan) "It (the United States) should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures." After the imam of Baghdad's Rahman mosque read that line, worshippers chanted "Allahu Akbar" -- God is Greatest. Afghan-born Khalilzad, former envoy to Kabul and the most senior Muslim in the U.S. administration, has been in Iraq for 10 months and is spearheading Washington's increasingly urgent efforts to pressure Iraq's leaders into a unity government. Yacoubi is the spiritual guide for the Fadhila party, one of the smaller but still influential components of the dominant Islamist Alliance bloc. He is not part of the senior clerical council around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf. Nonetheless, Shi'ite politicians said his comments reflected widespread disenchantment among them with the ambassador. Soldiers Flee to Canada to Avoid Iraq Duty Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum. A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow servicemen on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003. Ryan Johnson, 22, from near Fresno in California, was due to be deployed with his unit to Iraq in January last year but crossed the Canadian border in June and is seeking asylum. "I had spoken to many soldiers who had been in Iraq and who told me about innocent civilians being killed and about bombing civilian neighbourhoods," he told the Guardian. "It's been really great since I've been here. Generally, people have been really hospitable and understanding, although there have been a few who have been for the war." He is now unable to return to the US. "I don't have a problem with that. I'm in Canada and that's that." Blair Leaves NZ Saying Focus Should Not Be On Iraq British Prime Minister Tony Blair has ended his 24-hour visit to New Zealand agreeing to closer ties between the two countries and calling for those angry about the invasion of Iraq to focus on other issues instead. During the 24 hours Mr Blair was questioned numerous times about Iraq and his role in the decision to topple Saddam Hussein. Repeatedly Mr Blair said even those who disagreed with the decision should recognise the occupation was now mandated by the United Nations and welcomed by the Iraqi Government. He argued that the whole world would now benefit from a stable, democratic Iraq. (I can only surmise that he is not current on what is happening in Iraq. But, what I want to know is: how dare that little punk tell us what we should or should not focus on? – Susan) Rice Admits “thousands” of Errors in Iraq Rice accepted on Friday the United States had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq but defended the overall strategy of removing Saddam Hussein. Local Muslims and anti-war activists told Rice to "Go Home" when British counterpart Jack Straw earlier led her on a tour of his home town of Blackburn in the industrial northwest, an area which rarely plays host to overseas politicians. "Yes, I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them," she said in answer to a question over whether lessons had been learned since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. "I believe strongly that it was the right strategic decision, that Saddam had been a threat to the international community long enough," she added. COMMENTARY OPINION: May God Rest Our Souls! Every Baghdad neighbourhood must have a wall or a corner for black banners announcing recent deaths in the area so that people who recognize the names can attend the funerals and express their condolences to the bereaved families, if there were any family members left. On the other hand, white banners indicate that the victim was killed by the Americans. Throughout the past three years, the number of banners was mounting. Calligraphy and coffin-making have become booming industries. I once read an interview with a coffin-maker, who said that his workshop was in full swing that he had to hire a large number of skillful carpenters to keep up with the increasing demand on his products. Families started to refer to reasons for death, about which nobody gave a damn ten or fifteen years ago, when most people died of cancer thanks to the depleted uranium the US Administration have wholeheartedly bestowed upon us. Not surprisingly, the majority of banners these days read "Due to a Cowardly Accident". When there's no mention of any causes, people tend to raise their eyebrows and say, "oh! Natural causes, that's weird!", "he or she must be old!" OPINION: ‘If You Start Looking At Them As Humans, Then How Are You Gonna Kill Them?’ They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor." A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq. The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the US military. OPINION: Bombing Civilians Is Not Only Immoral, It’s Ineffective No one knows how many civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The most careful assessment, by the website Iraq Body Count, estimates at least 36,000. The true figure could be three times higher. The uncertainty is explained by General Tommy Franks' now-notorious remark, "We don't do body counts." Three interesting facts nevertheless help shape a sense of the possibilities. One is that the US forces insist that they use precision techniques to minimise "collateral damage". The second is that the coalition recently and controversially admitted using phosphorus weapons in its attack on Falluja. The third is that one of the US marine air wings operating in Iraq announced in a press release in November 2005 that since the invasion began it had dropped more than half a million tons of explosives on Iraq. The felt inconsistency between the first fact and the other two reminds one that ever since the deliberate mass bombing of civilians in the second world war, and as a direct response to it, the international community has outlawed the practice. It has been hypothesised that if allied bombing had been relentlessly focused on fuel and transport in Nazi-controlled Europe, the war would have been shorter by two years. To their credit, the Americans understood this and in Europe did not join the RAF in indiscriminate area bombing, but concentrated on these crucial assets. As a result they share with the Russian army the largest single credit for victory over nazism. But when the US got within bombing range of Japan it adopted the RAF tactic with a vengeance, and in less than a year killed as many Japanese civilians as were killed in Germany in the entire war. OPINION: Cheney's dysfunction Sunday morning (March 19), I listened to Bob Schieffer's interview with Dick Cheney on CBS's "Face the Nation." My diagnosis of Cheney's comments: The VP has "Iraqtile dysfunction." Bill Burnett, Greensboro, NC OPINION: Truth in Short Supply Truth in Iraq is in short supply. The raid on a Shiite mosque complex by Iraqi security forces and US special forces illustrates this. According to the Iraqi authorities, the operation against a terror cell of Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army left 22 dead. The Americans said there had been 16 fatalities. A large hoard of weapons was seized and a kidnapped and tortured government employee was freed. Both denied the mosque itself had been entered, insisting the raid had focused on a nearby building. Worshippers claimed this was untrue. Video footage taken afterward appears to show bloodstains and bullet holes in the mosque itself. A fireman called to the site said he saw a US soldier leaving the mosque. The same day US forces said they raided an Interior Ministry building and arrested 41 staff guarding a secret prison and seized 17 Sudanese nationals held there. Government sources claimed only ten policemen had been detained and then released when it was realized that the Sudanese were being legitimately held. The Americans have yet to respond and there is no word on the fate of the Sudanese nor what precisely they were doing in Iraq. Even if there is not yet a civil war in Iraq, this is a looking-glass conflict in which nothing is ever quite what it seems and rarely what those involved claim it to be. The only things that seem apparent from these actions is that the US military, increasingly concerned at the growth of Shiite militias and their influence within the Iraqi police and armed forces, are belatedly trying to clip their wings. OPINION: War Hawks Show Callous Disregard for Working Class Troops Ah, but they volunteered, you say. Yes, they did. All the more reason to honor their commitment by making sure they aren't cannon fodder in a dubious cause. They took to heart the common platitudes and easy slogans about duty and honor and service while many who are wealthier did not. Soldiers shouldn't be ill-used simply because they believed in their country and its leaders. And they have been ill-used. They were sent to fight on a false pretext -- that Saddam was linked to Sept. 11 -- by civilian leaders who refused to plan for anything but quick and certain victory. Of course, combat veterans were rare among the armchair hawks in Congress and the White House who rallied the nation for war. Vice President Dick Cheney has said he had "other priorities" during the war in Vietnam. And President Bush ... well, that story is well-known. Even if you credit him with conscientiousness and brilliance as a National Guard pilot, he never left the United States. Their callousness about other people's children aside, it's not just Cheney and Bush whom I hold responsible for the deaths of more than 2,300 hundred Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. It's also men like Sen. John Kerry and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vietnam veterans who had seen young men die in combat. They knew better than to take the nation to war on the wings of a lie. That they did was not only unjust; it was immoral. OPINION: Iraqi Blogger Thursday, March 23rd, 2006Good morning…….The situation in Iraq is very dangerous currently; there are street fights in Baghdad and other cities, the connections are cut-off, the occupation forces closed the Internet Cafés in the hot towns, like Sammara'a, Al-Qaim, and Al-Ramadi, cutting off their communications with the Iraqi and international cities, meaning- even someone living in Iraq wouldn't know what is happening there…I try to call by Mobile phone, and written messages, some of them get through, and a lot don't…I called my sister in Jordan, and she says the boarders with Iraq are also closed, and every connection with the people there by Internet was cut off…. Our people there are besieged; by an occupation force which commits crimes against civilians and children, by mercenaries who kill, kidnap, and ravage, corrupting the country, by criminal militias who perform eliminations and sectarian revenges, while people are hiding in their houses, aiming to protect their children and families from violence and killings. The Iraqis say: Someone out there is destroying our country, and we are hiding in our houses, without any power or might, without being able to do anything? We cannot defend our country?A friend of mine there told me yesterday, by Phone message: Each of us is holding his shroud by his hands, awaiting death…Her words struck me, leaving me stunned and sad all day, and all night, imagining their life, feeling panic, awaiting death each second….People are in grave pain and sadness, saying that these are the worst days since Baghdad fell, these are the most dangerous stages, and the darkest for us… Story about the same blogger as above: Iraqi Woman Tours U.S. to Tell True Story of Iraq War Faiza Al-Araji, a middle-class Iraqi woman, was able to pay her innocent son’s way out of jail last summer. That’s when she understood that she had to leave. With her husband and three sons, she went to Jordan, leaving behind the chaos and misery of the country of her birth. “I was lucky. I had money to pay for the release of my son,” Al-Araji said, speaking to a small home gathering in Berkeley on Wednesday evening. Al-Araji’s talk was part of a tour by six Iraqi women organized by San Francisco-based Global Exchange to promote a better understanding of the effects of war on the Iraqi people. It took place in a house owned by Becky and Mike O’Malley, also owners of the Daily Planet. She will speak at three large public events in Oakland, Palo Alto and Santa Cruz this weekend. “I have come here to talk about the truth. It’s been three years of pain and suffering,” Al-Araji said. “I hope we can open people’s eyes.” An engineer since 1976—taught in part by women professors, she said proudly—the family’s exit follows on the heels of countless Iraqi professionals who have fled. Al-Araji and her husband, who still own a water treatment company in Iraq, have the means to live in Jordan, where life is very expensive. A Summary of Remarks By George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the Third Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq: Our strategy for peace there Is really working well. It's just that all the killing Can make it hard to tell. Iraq Unbreakable Three years have passed and the world continues diving into ever obscurantist times. On 15 February 2003, collective humanity felt it so deeply that it used every available tool to get organised against power, taking to streets simultaneously across the planet to oppose this terrifying war. Three years have passed and as we sensed pre-emptively, it's a massacre; a bloodshed of unspeakable brutality. Three years have passed and Iraq has been destroyed as a state and as a nation. Its natural resources have been plundered, its civilisational and cultural heritage looted, its religious heritage desecrated, its people raped, tortured, drilled, murdered and even melted. Cynicism nowadays refuses the call for an immediate and complete withdrawal of occupation forces for fear of civil war. Since the very first day of this occupation we have witnessed the development of a two-sided power system. One side is the occupation and its stooges; the second is the Iraqi people and its various forms of resistance. Even if some part of the population might have been inclined to welcome an occupier, temporarily, the methods used by the occupation, along with its ultimate end, are contrary to the interest of the Iraqi people, therefore challenged and blunted by an ever- increasing number. OPINION: Not A Country Anymore Think about contractors in Iraq, and what's the first thing that comes to mind? Halliburton, raking in billions and overcharging taxpayers by billing the government for stuff it never delivered, and then getting bonuses for almost all its questionable charges? The Lincoln Group, paying Iraqi journalists to plant "good news" stories in the press? The Pentagon's private army of outsourced "security specialists," like Blackwater and Custer Battles, the mercenaries whose greed and shameful tactics make the CIA look like choirboys? You'd be right. And wrong. Wrong because what you probably don't know is that these miscreants are not the only contractors there. There is also a not-nearly-large-enough cadre of contractors who don't make millions. Most of them work for USAID - the much-maligned US Agency for International Development. They are both Americans and Iraqis - Shia, Sunni, Kurd. And they work side by side every day, in an environment of chaos, fear and violence, risking their lives trying to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. That they make any progress at all in that kind of environment is truly remarkable. But they do make progress. And that may be the only piece of legitimate "good news" coming out of what can now only be described as "not a country anymore." I get a near-free pass today, because the rest of this column has been written by one of those unsung heroes - a dear friend who heads a sizable economic development team. But I cop out with sadness. Here's the email he sent me this morning (slightly edited to protect identities): "I just now talked to my security manager in Baghdad, and am left speechless. He describes a complete breakdown of law and order. We reviewed our staff list to determine each individual's circumstances. One guy, Ahmed, has his brothers stay with him at night. They take turns sleeping in case someone attempts to break into his home. Abdullah is the same. He and his father alternate sleeping at night, three hours on and three hours off. Walid and his family live in Sadr City where violence has once again brought tragedy to large numbers of families. "On and on, one by one, we discussed all of our people. All are scared. None of these friends is specifically targeted, so there is nothing for us to do except hope that they do not become victims of random and senseless violence. The most common words are death, kidnapping, injury and danger. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a country any more. It is hell. "I am beyond angry, and only feel a deep sadness. The optimism we felt in 2003 and early 2004 has been replaced by despair and wretchedness - there is no longer even a thread of hope to hang onto. How to Lose the ‘War on Terror’ We have been accused of "giving legitimacy to terrorist organizations", of "suffering from the Stockholm syndrome", of being "naive and soft", of treading on ground where only "more realistic, experienced and trained diplomats" have a right to go, and of being "apologists for violence". The US administration has insisted that we make it clear that our program does not have its approval or even tacit endorsement. We repeatedly sought a meeting with US officials to brief them on our work, but were told that such a meeting "would be seen as a confirmation that you are acting on our behalf as some kind of back channel - which you are not". The message to us was repeated several times by a number of officials: "The United States is not talking with terrorists, we will not talk to terrorists and we do not endorse or in any way support those who do." We have agreed that we would make it clear: we do not represent anyone but ourselves. This has been plain to all our interlocutors from the outset. But we adamantly reject the view that our willingness to engage in "an exercise in mutual listening" with Islamist organizations gives them legitimacy. They already have legitimacy. The Muslim Brotherhood (the most recognizable as well as the oldest pan-Islamic party in the region) is the most widely respected Islamist organization in the Middle East and the second-largest party in the Egyptian legislature, Jamaat e-Islami is the most powerful and respected elected opposition to the Pervez Musharraf government in Pakistan, Hezbollah forms the second-largest bloc in the Lebanese parliament, and Hamas is now the majority party in the Palestinian Authority. In southern Lebanon and in the West Bank and Gaza, the largest proportion of constituent services - in health care, child care, education and employment - is conducted under the auspices of Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively. The question of legitimacy is important because for democracies, legitimacy is not conferred, but earned at the ballot box. Hamas and Hezbollah would welcome a dialogue with the West not because it would confer "legitimacy" - they already have that - but because such a dialogue would acknowledge the differences between Islamist movements that represent actual constituencies from those (such as al-Qaeda and its allied movements) that represent no one. The West's insistence that opening a political dialogue [with organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah] be preceded by and conditioned on disarmament is simply unrealistic: it suggests that we believe that "our" violence is benevolent while "theirs" is unreasoning and random - that a 19-year-old rifle-toting American in Fallujah is somehow less dangerous than a 19-year-old Shi'ite in southern Lebanon. In fact, political agreements have rarely been preceded by disarmament. United Nations demands for the disarmament of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in 1978 unraveled a conflict-ending political agreement (a situation put right when the rebels were allowed to keep their weapons), and Northern Ireland's "Good Friday Agreement" allowed the IRA to keep its weapons until a political process (leading to "decommissioning") reflecting their concerns was put in place. The West often views Islamic violence as random and unreasoning, but Hamas and Hezbollah believe that violence can shift practical political considerations to create a psychology in which armed groups can use the tool of de-escalation as a way of forwarding a political process. That is to say, absent a political agreement, Hamas and Hezbollah will not voluntarily abandon what they view as their only defense against the overwhelming weight of Israeli military power. Disarmament (or "demilitarization") is possible: it worked in Northern Ireland and South Africa. When coupled with substantive political talks, the unification of armed elements into a single security or military force - demilitarization - provides the best hope for increased stability and security in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. As a part of our program with Hamas and Hezbollah, we invited John Lord Alderdice to Beirut to brief the groups on how demilitarization might work in their societies. Lord Alderdice helped to negotiate the "Good Friday Agreements" in Northern Ireland that "decommissioned" the IRA and allowed, among other things, for Catholic policing of Catholic neighborhoods and the recomposition of a more representative Ulster Constabulary. Hezbollah leaders have acknowledged that they would be willing to undertake a process of demilitarization that would allow Shi'ite officers to hold more senior level officer positions in the Lebanese army, while Hamas leaders have openly talked of creating a national army - thereby acknowledging the importance of the "one commander, one security service, one gun" solution promoted by the Bush administration. Demilitarization is not a panacea, it does not work always and in every case, but it holds out greater hope for long-term stability and security than conditioning peace on requirements that cannot be met. CASUALTY REPORTS (or, ‘WAR IS DEATH’ REPORTS) Local Story: Lemay Women Killed in Iraq. Local Story: Engineering college dean killed in Baghdad. Local Story: U.S. solider had shot and killed Fadhil’s 81-year-old uncle, Saadi Al-Tahi, as he drove through an intersection in Mosul, Iraq. Local Story: Principal fondly recalls fallen GI. Local Story: Tom Fox commemorated in Baghdad. Local Story: Local serviceman from Shafter dies in Iraq. Local Story: Residents say US Marines killed 15 members of two innocent families. Local Story: Two soldiers with 101st Airborne killed in Iraq. Local Story: Family remembers son killed in Iraq. Local Story: Local soldier killed in Iraq. Local Story: Kentucky guardsman killed in Iraq to be buried in Bowling Green. Local Story: Two Fort Lewis soldiers killed in Iraq. Local Story: Indianapolis soldier killed in Baghdad. Local Story: Fort Hood soldier dies of non-combat injuries in Iraq. Local Story: Two Army Rangers are killed in Iraq. Local Story: Memorial service held for Marine. (Hawaii) Local Story: Kentucky National Guardsman dies in Iraq. Local Story: Soldier from Aberdeen dies in Iraq. Local Story: White House, Tennessee soldier killed in Iraq. Local Story: 200 gather to mourn fallen soldier. Local Story: Green Beret killed in Iraq. Local Story: Allan Enwiya, fatally shot during Jill Carroll’s capture, is one of 26 media assistants killed since the war began. Local Story: Indiana county soldier killed in Iraq. (Pennsylvania) Local Story: Four Iraqis hanged from lampposts in Baghdad. Iraq violence turns inward. Local Story: Romanian soldier dies in Kuwait hospital from suicide attempt in Iraq. Local Story: Schoolboy dies in bomb blast. Local Story: Prince George’s police officer killed in Iraq. Local Story: Iraqi woman, child killed in Iraq violence. Local Story: Native Hoosier killed in Iraq. Local Story: Iraq detainee beaten to death by fellow inmate. Local Story: Soldier from Bethlehem killed in Iraq. Local Story: (same individual as above story) PA soldier dies in Iraq, autopsy pending. Local Story: Remembering Professor Salah Jmor of uncommon grace, dignity and style. “On the day he turned 49, he arrived in Baghdad for a family visit. One day later on the 28th of June 2005 he was killed by the invading American troops in Baghdad.” Local Story: Oxford Hills honor fallen soldier. (Maine) Local Story: Funeral for fallen Kentucky soldier. Local Story: Iraqi girl tells how seven members of her family were killed. PEACE ACTION: No More Victims was founded in September 2002. We work to find medical sponsorships for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. We believe one of the most effective means of combating militarism is to focus on direct relief to its victims. We are committed to developing information and strategies that empower local communities to engage in direct aid and advocacy. QUOTE OF THE DAY: The Dixie Chicks talk back….and say they are “Not Ready to Make Nice” (Click link to hear the song.) “I know you said Can’t you just get over it It turned my whole world around And I kind of like it I made my bed and I sleep like a baby With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’ It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger And how in the world can the words that I said Send somebody so over the edge That they’d write me a letter Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing Or my life will be over I’m not ready to make nice I’m not ready to back down I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round It’s too late to make it right I probably wouldn’t if I could ‘Cause I’m mad as hell Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should” I want to personally thank the Dixie Chicks for speaking up when it counted – before the war. -Susan