Journalist and author Christian Parenti is over in Iraq and reports back to The Nation on the state of mind and heart of our troops. How are they doing? They are Stretched Thin, Lied to & Mistreated:

Trapped in the polluted heat, poorly supplied and cut off from regular news, the GIs are fighting a guerrilla war that they neither wanted, expected nor trained for. On the urban battlefields of central Iraq, "shock and awe" and all the other "new way of war" buzzwords are drowned out by the din of diesel-powered generators, Islamic prayer calls and the occasional pop of small-arms fire.

I know that probably sounds sick," says [Sergeant] Sellers, "but humor is the only way you can deal with this sh*t." And just below the humor is volcanic rage. These guys are proud to be soldiers and don't want to come across as whiners, but they are furious about what they've been through. They hate having their lives disrupted and put at risk. They hate the military for its stupidity, its feckless lieutenants and blowhard brass living comfortably in Saddam's palaces. They hate Iraqis--or, as they say, "hajis"--for trying to kill them. They hate the country for its dust, heat and sewage-clogged streets. They hate having killed people. Some even hate the politics of the war. And because most of them are, ultimately, just regular well-intentioned guys, one senses the distinct fear that someday a few may hate themselves for what they have been forced to do here.

Added to such injury is insult: The military treats these soldiers like unwanted stepchildren. This unit's rifles are retooled hand-me-downs from Vietnam. They have inadequate radio gear, so they buy their own unencrypted Motorola walkie-talkies. The same goes for flashlights, knives and some components for night-vision sights.....

There's lots more. Parenti is also the author of a new book, The Soft Cage, which is the first book to trace the history of surveillance in the U.S., "from the slave pass to the Social Security number all the way to the many forms of computerized monitoring now shaping the post-9/11 world." We were sent an unsolicited review copy a few weeks ago and recommend it.

The Soft Cage

by Christian Parenti