The age of the victim is not known. While the FBI estimated her to be 25, a neighbour said she was 14.

Green had been arrested earlier Monday by FBI agents.

His honourable discharge from the army is not related to the crime, prosecutors said, but was "due to a personality disorder."

An 11-page affidavit filed by the prosecution gave no further details of that.

His case is being handled in the civilian courts because he is no longer on active military duty.

Conspiracy alleged

The affidavit said Green and three fellow soldiers were posted to a traffic checkpoint in the town of Mahmoudiya - south of Baghdad - when they conspired to rape the young woman.

It said they consumed alcohol and put on dark clothing before going to her home. Green and one of the other soldiers sexually assaulted the woman, the affidavit claims.

Then, in a statement from one of the soldiers involved in the rape, the affidavit says Green took the woman and three members of her family to another room where he shot them dead.

Last week, the army confirmed that up to five members of its 502nd Infantry Regiment were being investigated in connection with the incident at Mahmoudiya.

Green is the only one to be formally charged, but officials have not ruled out additional charges. Iraqi and U.S. investigations are continuing.

The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad Fadhil, said Monday that U.S. investigators want permission to exhume one of the bodies.

Green could face the death penalty if convicted.

The military is also investigating a number of other alleged atrocities by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians, including allegations that marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqis near Haditha last November.

The gunmen abducted al-Haris and 19 of his bodyguards with four of their vehicles, the source said.

On Saturday, unknown gunmen kidnapped a female Sunni Arab lawmaker, Taiseer Najah al-Mashhadani, along with seven of her bodyguards while traveling in a Shiite neighborhood in
northeastern Baghdad.

The incident prompted the Sunni Arab bloc in the Iraqi parliament to decide on Sunday not to attend parliament sessions until al-Mashhadani is released.

That'll show Bush that he doesn't get to decide everything. The New York Times opined the victory would "likely force negotiations over presidential power." In a separate editorial, "A Victory for the Rule of Law," the Times wrote the decision "is far more than a narrow ruling on the missue of military courts. It is an important and welcome reaffirmation that even in times of war, the law is what the Constitution, the statute books and the Geneva Conventions say it is -- not what the president wants it to be."

The Washington Post chimed in with, "For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it...Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country."

The Post's David Ignatius writes, "The Hamdan ruling should be a cause for celebration, at home and abroad, because it demonstrates that the self-correcting mechanisms of American democracy remain healthy." Thanks to checks and balances from the courts, Congress and the press, Ignatius believes "this administration's mistakes are being reversed."

And you have to smile at the Post's wonderfully talented Eugene Robinson, whose relief was palatable when he wrote, simply, "Finally. It seemed almost too much to hope for, but the Supreme Court finally called George W. Bush onto the carpet yesterday and asked him the obvious question: What part of 'rule of law' do you not understand?"

Such giddiness -- wishful thinking -- can almost be excused when you consider this is the first time in more than five years Bush has been confronted with a single check or balance. Almost. The media's refusal to delve into the shadows and ferret out the reality behind them is cowardly, dishonorable -- a blot on the Fourth Estate. Anyone who thinks this Straussian pack of jackals whose thirst for power borders on madness will back up and adhere to the rule of law or obey the Geneva Conventions doesn't know Jack about George. Or Alberto. Or Donald.

The Court's ruling offers no relief to the more than 450 prisoners serving life sentences at Guantanamo, nor does it address the hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of those detained without charge in Orwellian Room 101 prisons in other countries. These poor creatures are being held like caged animals in countries infamous for torture without legal consequence. They are of no further use to Bush. They cast no shadow on Congressional or media radar screens.

Guantanamo Bay is but a mere scab on the corrupt boil of secret CIA "rendition" operations. In a revealing Jan. 14, 2005 piece in the UK Guardian, Jonathan Steele writes that one CIA officer told the Washington Post, "The whole idea has ecome a corruption of renditions. It's not rendering to justice. It's kidnapping."

Steele says, "The administration sees the US not just as a self-appointed global policeman, but also as the world's prison warder. It is thinking of building jails in foreign countries, mainly ones with grim human rights records, to which it can secretly transfer detainees (unconvicted by any court) for the rest of their lives -- a kind of global gulag beyond the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or any other independent observers or lawyers." Since then, with The Decider's enthusiastic approval, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and the CIA have done exactly that.

So, what was the Supreme Court really up to in its shadowy 5-3 decision that did not challenge Bush's policy of indefinitely detaining enemy combatants -- the worst of the worst -- forever, if need be, without access to due process? It was simply telling him it was time for him to cover his ass by forcing Congress to make tribunals legal and then he could continue to do whatever the hell he wants. It provided a distraction from the torture, murder and suicides that have become hallmarks of the Guantanamo Bay gulag and of the United States itself. It placated the media, and calmed things down for the upcoming elections. Democracy is alive and well. Why change horses in the middle of the stream in a time of war?

When news of the ruling broke, a tight-lipped Decider stared woodenly into the cameras, saying only that he would look at the findings of the court "very seriously," while working with the Congress to continue the tribunals. Bush watchers, however, know that behind the shadow of this concession lies the stubborn insistence that he is the Commander-in-Chief; a war president who is not just above, but outside the law. Bush is prone to brag that he is the most powerful man in the world and, as such, will accept no limits on his power. Back off? Cut and run? Not likely.

The "Military Order" Bush issued two months after 9-11 concerning detention of non-citizens and their trials, if any, by military tribunals in his war on terror remains in effect. In that order, Bush flatly states that any non-citizen whom he determines from time to time in writing caused -- or even "aims" to cause -- adverse effects on the US will be detained and will "not be privileged to seek any remedy" in any court of the United States or any court of any foreign nation or any international tribunal.

The Congress was dragged reluctantly from the shadows to perform a nonpartisan role foreign to them, that of oversight. The Republicans chose instead to attack the "traitors" on the Supreme Court and the cowardly "cut and run" Democrats who are on the side of the terrorists.

Kansas Senator Pat Roberts,Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and 9-11 Commission cover-up chief, was angry and shouted indignantly at CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "The Supreme Court gave the protection of the Geneva Conventions to people who don't qualify -- the Supreme Court made a pact with Al Qaeda -- it ursurped presidential authority!"

The Democrats scrambled to assert their total alligience, not to the US Constitution and the rule of law, but to The Decider, and promised to give him everything he wants to continue his perpetual war against enemy combatant plotters and planners and killers.

And so it goes. We are oblivious to the reality of impending martial law, strict media censorship, and the vanishing power of any government entity over The Decider and his minions. We are blissfully unaware that we have been transplanted into another realm -- a dark place from which there is no escape -- and nothing to do but sit here and watch the hideous shadows on the wall.

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net. © 2006 Sheila Samples

On Wednesday, senior EU envoy Javier Solana will urge top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to commit his country immediately to suspending enrichment and starting negotiations, the diplomats said.

They also said Russia and China were closer than ever to supporting the West on U.N. Security Council action - including sanctions - if Tehran refuses the package of incentives meant to wean it off enrichment.

"We are looking forward to hear from Iran ... the official response," said Cristina Gallach, Solana's spokeswoman.

A European official outlined more realistic expectations, saying Larijani would likely come back with questions - and perhaps a counterproposal.

If so, the diplomats said, Solana plans to tell him Iran must accept the terms of the package by July 12, when foreign ministers of the five permanent Security Council nations and Germany consult in Paris.

"If Iran has not answered positively by this date, the ministers will likely adopt a decision to resume negotiations on the Security Council resolution," said one of the diplomats, who, like the European official, demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the game plan on Iran.

The European official said Russia and China were contemplating sending high-level officials to Wednesday's meeting in a symbolic show of unity with the West.

Work on a U.N. Security Council resolution was suspended May 3 to allow the six powers to draw up a plan of perks if Iran agrees to a long-term moratorium on enrichment - or punishments that include the threat of selective U.N. sanctions if it doesn't. Solana last month presented the rewards to Larijani but made no mention of the punishments, so as not to rile Tehran.

While Iran argues it has a right to the technology under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to generate power, there is increasing international concern that it wants to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels for use in the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Iranian officials have said they would not respond to the six-power offer before mid-August, a gambit described by one of the diplomats as an attempt to stall beyond the July 15-17 summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Russia.

Before the summit, the United States and its allies on the Security Council - all G-8 members - "can apply pressure on Russia" to stand with the West on Iran, but that lever will be weakened after the St. Petersburg meeting, one diplomat said.

Possible U.N.-mandated sanctions include a visa ban on government officials, freezing assets, blocking financial transactions by government figures and those involved in the country's nuclear program, an arms embargo and a blockade on the shipping of refined oil products to Iran. Rewards include providing Iran with nuclear expertise and hardware, including reactors.

Breaking with a more than 2-decade-old ban on high-level diplomatic contact with Tehran, the United States said in late May that it was ready to join in such talks.

But the Americans, along with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - the six nations that endorsed the package - insist that Iran suspend its nascent enrichment activities before talks begin.

Tehran repeatedly has rejected that demand since the six powers agreed on the package in Vienna on June 1.

"Today at 12:20 pm there was an explosion behind the ministry of justice in a wheelbarrow in which four people were wounded and two vehicles were damaged," interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.

"We don't know who exactly did the attack. This is the work of enemies of innocent people of
Afghanistan."

The blast happened close to the justice ministry and near the ministry of finance, national bank, five-star Kabul Serena hotel and a crowded bazaar.

It was also about 100 metres (yards) from the palace used by President Hamid Karzai, who is visiting Japan.

The NATO-led security force in Kabul confirmed the explosion but said it was not clear if it was caused by a bomb or gas. Three people were wounded, Flight Lieutenant Euan Downie said.

Kabul police criminal investigation director Ali Shah Paktiawal told AFP at the scene that it was not known where the man pushing the explosives-laden wheelbarrow was going.

"Nobody has been killed," he said, adding one of the wounded may have been the man pushing the cart.

"I heard a loud explosion," said taxi driver Mohammad Rasoul who was close to the explosion. "The windows of my car got shattered. My tyres got punctured.

"When I got out of my car, I saw one person with his legs chopped off who was lying by the side of the road," he told AFP.

A teenager selling lemon juice at the side of the road also said a man had lost his legs. "The person close to the wheelbarrow was seriously wounded. His legs were cut off," he said, refusing to give his name.

The earlier blast was close to a police bus in the Qarte-Naw suburb in the east of the city. "Only one policeman was slightly injured and taken to the hospital," the ministry of interior said.

Such bomb blasts are rare in the capital although they are occur regularly in other parts of insurgency-hit Afghanistan.

They are usually blamed on militants from the extremist Taliban movement that was removed from power in late 2001 and has been trying to regain power through an increasingly efficient insurgency.

Around 600 people have been killed since about mid-May in a dramatic spike in violence. Most have been militants killed by Afghan and foreign security forces, who are conducting one of their biggest operations in Afghanistan.

Initial news of the unit's closure was reported on National Public Radio Monday.

The Times quotes a CIA spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, as saying bin Laden's capture remains a high priority.

Intelligence officials say the unit closure reflects a view that al-Qaida is not as hierarchical as it once was, and that terrorists may be carrying out attacks independent of bin Laden.

The Times reports that the disbanded unit, known as Alec Station, operated for a decade just outside Washington, and was staffed by 24 people.

At any rate, none of these claims about an unchangeable and warlike human nature invalidate the crucial point that, theoretically at least, it is not impossible for human beings to abolish war and eventually achieve permanent peace. Whether humanity will be sufficiently rational to end the recourse to war before a nuclear holocaust puts an end to civilization (or indeed to humanity itself) is another question.

This brings us to another relevant fact about socially and nationally organized violence, namely that the nature and scope of warfare has radically changed over the millennia. For example, the (now grotesque) practice of cannibalism (eating of one's enemies' flesh) has been almost completely overcome. However, the nuclear incineration of tens of thousands of human beings became part of twentieth century war history when President Harry Truman authorized the atomic bombing of the population of Nagasaki and of Hiroshima. Further "progress" in nuclear armaments - the horrendous and instantaneous killing, the lingering deaths and maiming of millions of human beings, probably tens of millions - evokes a terrifying possibility for future wars. Most ominous of all, the ever growing nuclear capacity of the military is now part of the weapons arsenal of many of the most powerful nation states. The government of the United States, the mightiest military power in world history, has declared its unwillingness to give up the first-strike option and is projecting a new era of weapons in space.

The daily war news from Iraq, of death and maiming of thousands of U.S. troops and of a far greater number of Iraqi civilians, and the destruction of cities are heartrending illustrations of the advanced technology of modern warfare.

Still, in spite of the ever growing inhumanity of war, people the world over tend to take the fighting of future wars for granted. All too many accept their governments' recourse to war as "normal", as a legitimate tool of a nation's foreign policy. (Karl von Klausewitz famously put it "War is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means".)

The recurrent use of war as state policy helps build its legitimacy. Since the end of World War II, the United States alone has been involved in more than a dozen wars, a fact that provides a powerful reinforcement for the view that war-making is a normal state of affairs. "We are a country at war," intone the leaders, lending weight and a sense of inevitability to their unparalleled expansion of governmental power and secrecy, restrictions on civil liberties, and cutbacks in basic services.

Another way to win acceptance of recourse to war as being in the interest of the nation and morally justified, and indeed absolutely necessary, is for governments to subject their peoples to intense war propaganda. Ever more sophisticated psychological warfare, an integral part of modern war, is directed not only at the enemy but at the home front as well. It is an especially important propaganda device whenever a government is on the military offensive against another nation.

Although in the first World War (1914-1918), the government of Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany was not alone in bringing the people to a nationalist fever-pitch when war was declared, its Prussian militarist tradition made it a European exemplar. The allied governments of Russia, France, England, and eventually the United States and other nations accomplished much the same. Thus, President Woodrow Wilson promoted war fever with the slogan "To make the world safe for democracy". (Often government leaders are taken in by their own propaganda.)

While governments find it useful, even imperative, to use patriotic appeals to intensify war propaganda, they at the same time assure their people of their passionate commitment to peace. This is easier to do when a government is responding to an attack on the homeland, as when Japan attacked the U.S. navy at Pearl Harbor and the nation united behind President Franklin Roosevelt's call to arms. Still, whatever the actual reasons for going to war, governments routinely portray their wars as defensive. And in 1949, the U..S. War Department was renamed the Department of Defense.

The war in Iraq provides a textbook illustration of how a government can engineer popular acceptance of waging war. The Bush administration succeeded (at first) in persuading a majority of Americans that the invasion of Iraq was necessary in order to prevent the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein from attacking the U.S. homeland with weapons of mass destruction. The President also claimed that this allegedly defensive war was part of the war on terrorism. In fact, however there was hostility between Osama bin Laden and Hussein, and no evidence of Al Qaeda having a stronghold in Iraq, at least not before the war. Of course, the U.S. public was kept in the dark regarding the true state of affairs. Then, as now, there is official silence about how the U.S. government for years strongly supported Saddam Hussein (especially during his Iraq war against Iran) in spite of the dictator's well-known violence against his own people.

If we are concerned about the role of war in history, and more importantly, with its significance for humanity's future, all of us need to think long and hard about it. We need to learn about and discuss its many aspects: the causes, the atrocities and the mass suffering it brings, the huge costs of war and preparation for war, the various forms and examples of war propaganda, terrorism and its background, the laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions and their violations, the issue of just or necessary wars, and especially the cause of peace, and humankind's prospects for some day abolishing war altogether. Most of all we need to join in common actions in behalf of peace and social justice, here and abroad.

Poughkeepsie resident Dr. John J. Neumaier was president of SUNY New Paltz from 1968-72 and of Moorhead (Minn.) State University from 1958-68. He is philosophy professor emeritus of Empire State College, New York City. His column appears in the first Sunday Freeman of each month."