The award to someone who gave up literature for politics decades ago, and whose politics are primitive and hysterically anti-American and pro-dictatorial, is part of the almost complete degradation of the Nobel racket.

-- Christopher Hitchens on Harold Pinter's Nobel prize for literature

There's no escape.
The big pricks are out.
They'll fuck everything in sight.
Watch your back.

The five were placed under surveillance in the capital and the northeast city of Iasi and later deported and banned from returning for the next 15 years, intelligence service spokesman Marius Bercaru said. He would only say the deportations took place this year, and he declined to say where the five students were sent.

"The operation aimed to stop this radical Islamic group in Romania and remove these people from the national territory," he told The Associated Press.

The five suspects were trying to recruit other members in Bucharest and Iasi, Bercaru said.

“We were shocked and angry,” said an employee. “How can Israeli products be allowed and how did they enter this hospital?” he asked.

The Filipino employee who works in the Al-Musbah coffee shop asked: “Why is everybody mad about the cups?” He was told: “Because they are made in Israel!”

According to hospital officials, the matter is being investigated and action will be taken.

Saleh Al-Mazroi, executive director for operations at KKNGH, said the matter had been referred to authorities in Riyadh and was being dealt with.

On the bottom of the paper cup was a website address and a telephone number. When Arab News looked at the website — www.orion-rancal.co.il. — it was found to be in Hebrew though there were a few words of English: “Israeli disposable paper, plastic and foam dinnerware supplier for restaurants.”

Art reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all, art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity. Those who wish to undermine this principle undermine the foundations of our independence and national security. They undermine the foundation of our eternity.

The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is a human message, and it will move forward.

Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.

The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. The postings ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city of more than 200,000 in the area called the Sunni Triangle. The order to leave within 48 hours came in retaliation for alleged expulsions by Shiite militias of Sunnis living in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq.

"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds."

...

Then comes the question: "Why didn't you write about that?"

The answer is simple. Often I am asked to withhold information due to the immediate sensitivty [sic]. And so, I never release the slightest hint. But then somebody in Baghdad--three steps removed from the action here in Mosul-- releases it to CNN and the rest of the world. What is seen on television and in the papers is practically always inaccurate, or is at least poorly framed. But I rarely waste a breath trying to correct the information. It's too late. Life is busy here.

The greatest paradox I have seen in this war results from "proximity delay." The proximity delay for me is caused by being embedded so closely with Duece [sic] Four soldiers that I often see things unfolding before they happen, and then I am in the thick of events as they occur. But then I am asked not to write about events.

Much of the censorship is self-imposed because I will not write anything that jeopardizes US, Iraqi or Coalition forces or civilians. This is not a game of who gets the scoop; I am not per se a journalist. On some missions I've been the first to spot the enemey. On others, I've been so close to the action, my face gets smacked by flying shell casings. I come away with information and details no other writer could possibly have.

I've refused to write about incidents countless times, even when soldiers have asked me to publish the details. My time traveling the world, following scent trails and navigating on snippets of information has taught me that a person with a seasoned imagination can coax a great deal of information from seemingly innocuous tidbits. This enemy is smart and also reads the news.

...

Just why the military considers some information "classified" while other information gets the "go ahead, write it" shrug, is not based on logic, science, or even one of those absurd but iron clad rules that codify so much of the military. Many explanations for the military's requests not to publish certain information, do not hold up well to scrutiny.

For example, our soldiers capture or kill top terror figures in Mosul routinely. Sometimes in stunning operations that display split-second timing. The "higher ups" often say, almost reflexively, that they don't want the enemy to know about these kills or captures.

Sounds reasonable. But whether soldiers sleek through dark allies with silenced weapons, slipping over walls with padded ladders, snatching sleeping terrorists from their beds before they can fully waken; or, whether they engage in a gunfight at a busy intersection and drag terrorists from behind the wheels of their cars--these are not anonymous men. Families notice when daddy's gone missing.

If we aren't keeping it secret from the enemy--and we can't keep it secret from them--who do we protect by keeping quiet? These are not illegal operations. These are examples of the effectiveness of our forces. In Mosul alone there are daily events where the Coalition gets things right, that I never write about.

The "proximity delay" seems to be bi-directional. The higher-ups also seem to have a disconnect with what the media eventually does with Coalition successes. I kept silent for days on the Zarqawi-letter dispatch, ready to post what was probably the single most important piece of insider information to drop into our hands in quite some time. I requested clearance several times per day, each time being asked to hold back. I complied.

But then, without even giving the leaders at Deuce Four a head's up, a typically entralling military press release went out to major, mainstream, media outlets. We all learned of it on CNN. The Zarqawi-letter story was almost unrecognizable. Because, in the hands of a network that hasn't had a body in the field in Mosul long enough to get their bearings, the best the media could do is paraphrase the military press release. So what should have been a front page banner headline story ended up buried on page 6.

Even CNN couldn't grasp the importance of the letter. They ended up giving more coverage to the impending E-Bay auction of Jennifer Anniston's old love letters than to the missive in which the top Al Queda [sic] leader in Mosul writes to the second most wanted man in the world, and describes in amazing detail the weaknesses and impending collapse of the terrorist network in Mosul and surrounds. Only then, did the military ask if wanted to write about the letter.

As a result, more than 30 Baghdad children, aged between six and 15, are dead. The suicide bombing marked a new level of depravity even in a city used to daily carnage. But it will change nothing.

More than 80 Iraqis have been killed in at least 11 suicide attacks since London had its first taste of suicide bombings a week ago.

In the first half of this year more than 1000 Iraqis have died in about 130 suicide attacks. It has been a sustained terror assault that has steadily grown in intensity and has no precedent in Israel, Beirut or elsewhere.

Indeed, the bombings have become so constant and so commonplace that only those with exceptionally high death tolls are now reported in the international media.

As Londoners begin adjusting to the fact that suicide bombers have finally reached Britain, ordinary Baghdadis have long ago accepted them as a fact of life.

They avoid police stations and government buildings whenever possible. They keep their wives and children at home as much as they can. They watch out for weighed-down vehicles, or cars driven by single men, and know that the morning and evening rush hours are the most dangerous periods of the day.

Many will say the shahada, a prayer Muslims say in preparation for death, before leaving for work.

The bombings have also transformed the face of Baghdad. The city is riven by high concrete blast walls. Its roads are punctuated by checkpoints. Hotels, government buildings and other possible targets are ringed with barriers and razor wire.

But it seems no number of security sweeps or anti-insurgent operations can stem the carnage. The supply of young suicide bombers, mostly from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen or North Africa, seems inexhaustible.

Ali Hussein, a 29-year-old Iraqi from Nasariyah now living in Baghdad, said his father had begged him to return home. He refused.

"There are 6million people in Baghdad and I'm ready to take the same risk as any other Iraqi," he said.

"I could be killed at any moment like any other Iraqi, but I'll not leave and I'll live my life. The more I hear of the bombings and killings, the more I want to live here, I don't want to be one of the people who leaves. I want to stick it out and I'll not be scared off by these animals."

He added: "Sometimes at night I cry and ask myself, 'What crime did we Iraqis commit that they kill our people, our women and children in the street?"'

No number of bombs can dull the grief of the newly bereaved. That, at least, the people of Baghdad share with those who lost husbands, wives or children in last week's London bombs.

After this latest slaughter of the innocent in the impoverished district of al-Jedidah, the dead or dying children were rushed to hospital, leaving a street strewn with pools of blood, body parts, sandals and mangled bicycles.

Abu Hamed, whose 12-year-old son, Mohammed, was among the victims, said: "I was at home. I heard the explosion. I rushed outside to find my son. I found only his bicycle." He eventually found his son's body at the morgue.

Hana Ali failed to find her 11-year-old son at the hospital. Back at the blast scene, she found his head in the rubble.