The Peace Corps has released a list (pdf)of colleges providing the most volunteers since its inception in 1961. The college with the most volunteers is the University of California at Berkeley.

Looking at the top tier brings back so many memories of the good old days, when protests ruled and war was out of vogue:

1 University of Wisconsin – Madison 129
2 University of Colorado – Boulder 104
3 University of Washington 98
4 University of California – Berkeley 94
5 University of Texas – Austin 90
6 University of Michigan – Ann Arbor 85

I can't help but wax nostalgic for those good old days. Without the Internet, cell phones, bloggers, text messaging or e-mail, we managed to bring down a war. With all the new age technology at their disposal, why can't the college kids bring it home now?

The ACLU finds even more documents referencing incidents of torture in which soldiers have not been held accountable for the abuse.

One set of documents released today by the ACLU includes multiple accounts of abuse at Al-Azimiyah Palace in Baghdad. In sworn statements, private contractors report having witnessed numerous instances of abuse of male and female detainees, including forced sodomy, electric shocks, cigarette burns and beatings. According to one statement, Al-Azimiyah Palace was the site of at least "about 90 incidents" of abuse.

These newest documents can be viewed here. Also, don't miss this Los Angeles Times article describing this incredible case:

Human Rights Watch has issued a new report on torture in Iraq today. Torture continues. Is anyone surprised?

The 94-page report, The New Iraq? Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody, documents how unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews in Iraq with 90 detainees, 72 of whom alleged having been tortured or ill-treated, particularly under interrogation.

The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “The Iraqi Interim Government is not keeping its promises to honor and respect basic human rights. Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees.”

Here's a description of the torture techniques used:

President Bush is going to ask Congress for another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, bringing the total to $280 billion.

$280 billion...he must think it grows on trees. Where will it come from? The Bush Adminisration badly miscalculated the cost of its war:

Early on, then-presidential economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey placed Iraq costs of $100 billion to $200 billion, only to see his comments derided by administration colleagues.

Where's the money going?

by TChris

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a horrifying story in 2003 -- the story of Jumana Hanna, a victim of cruel and abusive treatment (including electric shocks and rape) while imprisoned under Saddam Hussein's regime. Now, it seems, the story is untrue.

A writer who was helping Hanna develop a book proposal tried to verify her claims, and learned that the evidence just isn't there.

In August of last year, as Ms. Solovitch began to try to verify details about Ms. Hanna's experiences, inconsistencies began to appear. An Iraqi doctor who examined her at the request of American authorities discounted her story of rape and abuse, Ms. Solovitch reported. A National Guardsman who was assigned to investigate Ms. Hanna's claims of a mass grave in the yard of the police academy in Baghdad turned up some cow bones but nothing else. All nine of the men who had been arrested on Ms. Hanna's word had been released for lack of evidence, the Esquire article reported, with some of them being compensated for wrongful imprisonment.

Hanna also claimed that her husband was executed in the prison where she was tortured, but her in-laws say he's still alive.

The Washington Post, duped into reporting Hanna's allegations as fact, is now "trying to determine how Ms. Hanna got refugee status and gained entry into the United States."

Sgt. Kevin Benderman served 8 months in Iraq and refused to return. He says that what he saw there has turned him into a conscientious objector. The Army has filed charges against him. It takes the position that Benderman must return to Iraq while he waits for a decision on his conscientious objector application.

A conscientious objector is legally defined as one who:

Shocking images as a trial of British soldiers begins on charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners. Disgusting acts. Like this:

...a grimacing Iraqi who had been strung up in a cargo net made from thick rope which had been hung from a forklift truck.

[You can view the photos here.] Here's a sample:

Just as shocking is that the allegations only became known because of a camera store that developed the photos for a solder --the prisoners never told:

The abused Iraqis pictured never came forward and the allegations only came to light when another fusilier, Gary Bartlam, 20, took his film to be processed at a shop in his home town of Tamworth. Police were called and the soldier was arrested.

And later convicted. In the trial that began this week,

The New York Times reports that military officials are becoming mroe vocal in their criticism of the war in Iraq, and telling Rumsfeld we need more troops there.

US military officials are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the war in Iraq, telling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that more troops are needed to prevail over the insurgents. Moreover, recruitment is down and more reservists and members of the National Guard are being sent to Baghdad.

The number of deserters is increasing...many are going to Canada and applying for political asylum, as we wrote about here. The Times continues:

An Iraqi-American has pleaded guilty in the Top oil for food scandal.

According to documents filed in the U.S. District Court in New York, Vincent agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy, violating economic sanctions, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and income tax violations. Vincent, who surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday morning in New York, faces a maximum of 28 years in prison. He also agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into corruption in the oil-for-food program.

This is the first person to be charged, but not the last. As a recap, the oil for food program, in operation from 1996 to 2003, allowed Iraq

... to sell oil to buy civilian goods to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

Here's what went wrong:

by TChris

The Archbishop of Mosul was kidnapped in Iraq today.

Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, 66, was believed to be the highest-ranking Catholic prelate to be abducted in Iraq, where the local church has been the target of a bombing campaign which has rattled the tiny Christian minority.

Sgt. Kevin Benderman of Georgia refuses to return to Iraq. He's had enough of viewing bodies stored in mass graves and children's burned limbs. [Via Raw Story.]

Benderman is seeking conscientious objector status. Here's what he saw in Iraq:

He told of bombed out homes and displaced Iraqis living in mud huts and drinking from mud puddles; mass graves in Khanaqin near the Iranian border where dogs fed off bodies of men, women and children.

He recalled his convoy passing a girl, no older than 10, on the roadside clutching a badly injured arm. Benderman said his executive officer refused to help because the troops had limited medical supplies. "Her arm was burned, 3rd-degree burns, just black. And she was standing there with her mother begging for help," Benderman said. "That was an eye opener to seeing how insane it really is."

Is Iraq just the first target in Bush's war? According to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who uncovered the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, the U.S. has been conducting secret missions inside Iran since last summer looking for nuclear and chemical weapons.

One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

The White House denies it, if you call this a denial:

"We obviously have a concern about Iran. The whole world has a concern about Iran," Dan Bartlett, a top aide to President Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition....."No president, at any juncture in history, has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett added.

[Comments now closed, this thread has been hopelessly hijacked off topic. I will finish cleaning up the comments this evening.]