Cursor's Media Patrol - 11/29/05

With 700 Sunni men said to have "disappeared" recently, and reports of "Iraqi authorities ... torturing and abusing prisoners in jails across the country," a Los Angeles Times investigation quotes a U.S. military officer as saying: "The Mahdi army's got the Iraqi police and Badr's got the commandos. Everybody's got their own death squads."

The Guardian reports on an article by Martin van Creveld, "one of the world's foremost military historians," who argues that "Bush deserves to be impeached" for "launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them."

In an interview, van Creveld recommended that after impeachment, Bush officials "spend their time in prison reading Clausewitz and Sun Tzu." Plus: "Atrocity fatigue" and the "crime of the century."

Reporting on Center for Public Integrity research, which found that 'Cheney sidesteps travel disclosure rules,' the Washington Post notes that "Cheney has given 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at academic institutions since 2001 -- apparently all at taxpayers' expense."

'Villains Honoring Villains' Reviewing recent "incremental steps" at national parks, Bill Berkowitz asks, "Is total privatization coming down the pike?" Berkowitz also looked at how Rep. Richard Pombo 'steers public lands to private hands.'