This will be a quick post tonight, since I'm under the weather.

But here's the Required Reading for today:

1. A few days ago, I talked about the ethnic cleansing occuring in New Orleans, after results from the city's first post-Katrina election showed a significant drop in the African-American vote.  (Read my entry here: http://progressiveminds.bloghi.com/2006/05/10/ethnic-cleansing-in-new-orleans.html). 

Well, it seems like I was on to something (although I wish I was wrong in this case).  The Washington Post is carrying an article today, about the changing face of New Orleans.  The Post article confirms what some of us have already suspected: that race and wealth are dictating which neighborhoods in NOLA are being reborn and rebuilt, and which neighborhoods (i.e. the Ninth Ward) are being relegated to the history books.

We've committed our troops overseas to help fight ethnic cleansing before, and now it's happening right in our own backyard.

A City's Changing Face

Wealth, Race Guiding Which New Orleanians Stay, and Which Never Return

2.  Wow---this certainly will do a lot to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Not!  The Pentagon has investigated the deaths of civilian Iraqis last November, and Rep. John Murtha says the probe will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." 

According to one Iraqi girl, Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents.  She said: "The Americans came into the room where my father was praying, and shot him."   Rep. Murtha says her story is true, and millitary officials have confirmed it. 

It's wonderful to see our American values at work, isn't it?    I've asked this question before, but I think it bears repeating.  How is it that we ended up murdering the very people we said we wanted to liberate from Sadaam's brutal dictatorship?

Lawmaker: Marines killed Iraqis ‘in cold blood’

Navy conducting war crimes probe into November violence in Haditha