AMERICA, WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?

Naomi Klein answers a U.S. embassy chief's challenge to her assertion that in Iraq, the US eliminates those who dare to count the dead:

"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.

Mr Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.

Being out of touch for a few days and then trying to catch up on the news has brought me to a new stage of despair.