Yesterday saw massacres carried out by the United States and Israel in the occupied lands of Iraq and Palestine. In Iraq, a US helicopter fired on a wedding party killing over 40 people, including women and children. In Rafah, Israel fired on protesters killing 10 and wounding 50. While the US Military claims that it attacked an insurgent base, the photos of the carnage from the attack would seem to support the claim that the casualties were a wedding party of men, women and children. Israel's killings are part of an ongoing offensive in Gaza that has killed 46 people over the last three days.

In an interesting turn of events, it appears that Iraqi golden boy Ahmed Chalabi has fallen from favor with the Bush administration. U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided the home of America's one-time ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday.

Also, yesterday was the first of the trials of the US soldiers implicated in the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq. As more photos come to light, the media coverage of the scandal and the soldier trials will continue as well. While the mainstream press focus on the "few bad apples", it is almost certain that they will not provide any systemic analysis of how class, racism and sexism within the US Military made the abuses at Abu Ghraib a predictable outcome of the US occupation.