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While Bush tries to badger Brown and the Brits to stay in Iraq – and Maliki hops from neighbor to neighbor spinning the SOFA agreement complete with flipflop speeches that say negotiations are at a deadend one moment, then saying there will be a successful agreement the next, our buddies at the Washington Post have discovered the joys of being a colonial power.

The Maliki Green Zone “government” is starting to get the message that the Status of Forces Agreement the US is pushing is not likely to win them friends at home. As disclosed this week, permanent bases are very much a part of the agreement - under the guise of turning over the bases to Iraq "that U.S. troops would reside on as tenants." Even the Saudis are pissed at this blatant move to establish a permanent colony in Iraq.

We’ve heard them called deadenders and AQI, insurgents and terrorists, but most of us have no idea who they really are. The Iraqi resistance in the American media are mostly just “the bad guys.” Bingham and Connors' film Meeting Resistance introduces us to the real story.

Reviewing the news from Iraq on the mainstream sources the past two days, variations of one headline repeats over and over – let's use the WaPo AP version for our text: Deaths in Iraq plunge, but will it last? Of course, when they say “Deaths” they really mean American deaths …let's look a little deeper.

As we’ve noted before, members of Congress have recently decided that it would be a great thing ™ to make Iraqis pay for their reconstruction or as Rahm Emanuel stated "They have got to have some skin in the game." Not surprising, this is not going over well in Iraq.

Along with the Air Surge we have been reporting for months – a Surge that caused more civilian casualties this week when “at least eight civilians, including a child, were killed by U.S. chopper fire near Baiji city” we learned of a Child Detainee surge this week. And while we excuse continued random killings of Iraqi and Afghan civilians by US forces, those children do not even receive a hearing.

Several years ago my son called me one day to say I had to read an article that he found really frightening and important. More recently, Digby called the same article "one of the most chilling I've ever read..." Now Jeff Sharlet, author of that article, Jesus plus nothing, has published an in depth study of the Fellowship, The Family, and it is an important guidebook to the role of The Fellowship at the core of our government.

Lost amidst the already minimal coverage of the House Iraq funding bill defeat (though the vote to force Iraqis to pay for reconstruction passed) was the appearance on the Hill of a number of Iraq veterans. Telling Congress of their experiences and actions in Iraq - including their personal tales of abuse of Iraqi detaineed, these veterans called for an immediate withdrawal and one soldier announced his refusal to fight in Iraq.

While reports so far today point to a ceasefire in Sadr City, Saturday night brought no relief to the residents as US forces continued a heavy bombardment of this community of over 2 million people. Meanwhile Maliki and US forces launch a "massive" attack on Mosul and Congress prepares to pass another supplemental.

As our representatives in congress are preparing to approve more funding for the occupation of Iraq, the people of Sadr City are being warned to leave their homes in the face of even larger attacks. Congress - instead of putting a stop to the horror - asks the Iraqis to pay for it.