WikiLeaks struck again and released almost 400,000 secret US army field reports from Iraq. It’s grim stuff. Marc Ambinder has a synopsis —

The big reveal from the hundreds of thousands of documents posted on Wikileaks today is probably going to be the incredibly awful reports ofOr systematized detainee abuse by Iraqi soldiers and security forces right under the noses of the American-led coalition, which appears to have had virtually no incentive to put a stop to them.

Don’t blame the troops for this. Orders from somewhere — Washington, I suspect — were that only allegations of detainee abuse by coalition forces were to be investigated. Allegations against Iraqi police and secrity forces were to be noted, and no more.

So they were noted — detainees were beaten, raped, tortured, and murdered. U.S. troops knew this was going on but were not allowed to act.

The logs also note that 66,000 civilians died because of the war. Note that these are all deaths, not deaths directly from U.S. military action. Most of these civilians were victims of roadside bombs or sectarian violence.

Ambinder also says “The documents suggest that the U.S. spent an inordinate amount of time fighting Hezbollah and Iranian proxies and got distracted from fighting Shiite militias and Al Qaeda before the Surge.”

Meanwhile, former President George W. Bush thinks the biggest failure of his administration was not privatizing Social Security. Unreal.

The New York Times has published another article on where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is getting its money, and what the donors get in return.

On the other blog, I have a couple of posts up on the ol’ separation of church and state issue — “In Support of Separation of Church and State” and “Separation (of Church and State) Anxiety.”

Update: Justice Thomas’s former girlfriend says she believes Anita Hill. Ginny should’ve let sleeping (horn)dogs lie.