The New York Times reports, “Participants in a contentious Baghdad security operation this month have told American investigators that during the operation at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues urgently called for a cease-fire. At least one guard apparently also drew a weapon on a fellow guard who did not stop shooting, an American official said.”

Not contented by the Senate’s recent threat to “‘combat, contain and [stop]’ Iran via ‘military instruments,’” nor by the constant attempts of Fox News to promote war with Iran, the Wall Street Journal writes today, the President “has an obligation to do whatever it takes to stop [Iran].”

With shrill rhetoric, the WSJ argues for the declaration of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization and faults Bush for not blocking Mohamed ElBaradei’s nomination as chief the IAEA over John Bolton’s “warnings.” “Now, the U.S. has to live with his pro-Iranian machinations,” the WSJ writes.

The WSJ ought to be reminded: while they were trumpeting the cause for war with Iraq, it was El Baradei who “spoke up against the White House’s campaign of misinformation” and provided “intelligence that shot down White House rationales for going to war.” And it was El Baradei who was right.

The New York Times reports, “Saying it had the right to block ‘controversial or unsavory’ text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.”

Verizon told Naral that it reserves the right to bar any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.”

A Naral spokesman argues, “No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them.”

Last spring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace called homosexuality “immoral,” arguing that “the military should ‘not tolerate’ homosexuality just as it rejects ‘military members who sleep with other military members’ wives.”

Today he reaffirmed his belief that homosexuality is immoral and said that the United States should not “condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God’s law.” Pace added:

“I would be very willing and able and supportive” to changes to the policy “to continue to allow the homosexual community to contribute to the nation without condoning what I believe to be activity — whether it to be heterosexual or homosexual — that in my upbringing is not right.”

ThinkProgress has video.

“‘This is a big mess that I don’t think anyone has their hands around yet,’ said another U.S. military official. ‘It’s not necessarily a bad thing these guys are being held accountable. Iraqis hate them, the troops don’t particularly care for them, and they tend to have a know-it-all attitude, which means they rarely listen to anyone — even the folks that patrol the ground on a daily basis.’ …

‘They are immature shooters and have very quick trigger fingers. Their tendency is shoot first and ask questions later,’ said an Army lieutenant colonel serving in Iraq. Referring to the Sept. 16 shootings, the officer added, ‘None of us believe they were engaged, but we are all carrying their black eyes.’”

UPDATE: A new report “finds that Blackwater and other private security firms in Iraq are detrimental to U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.” TPMuckracker has more.

“The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against Adelphi University, alleging the university pays its full-time female professors less than male professors of similar status doing the same work. … the situation at Adelphi showed a “pattern” of pay disparity among several departments where he said ‘similarly situated males seem to regularly receive more money than the females.’”

“Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq, staging at least 10 attacks in 48 hours.”

Arianna Huffington calls Alan Greenspan on his recent attempts to save face with the publication of his memoir, The Age of Turbulence:

Greenspan’s book is another in the growing pile penned by folks who lent their integrity to buttress the Bush presidency but who now, in horrified hindsight, want it back. Now that it’s clear what an unsound strategy investing in George Bush turned out to be, Greenspan wants us to know he was skeptical all along. …

Greenspan says he was disappointed, but, then, what could he really do? He knew the policies were bad, but he was just the Chairman of the Fed. Who would ever pay attention to lil ol’ Alan Greenspan? He also wants us to know that he advised Bush against the GOP’s “out-of-control” spending and that he thinks the Republicans “deserved to lose.” Well, thanks, but that and two bucks will get you a British pound.

The Times of London reports, “Armed riot police reportedly moved into central Rangoon today in an escalation of tensions in Burma’s largest city where Buddhist monks have been leading mass demonstrations against the military Government.”

“The protests began with prayers and peaceful marches carried out by a few hundred Buddhist monks demanding an end to human rights violations, it has spiralled into a mass movement, dubbed the Saffron Revolution, calling for the end of the brutal military regime.”

For the first time in history, my faith’s most important figure is championing science over dogma. Pope Benedict “is expected to use his first address to the United Nations to deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a “moral” cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.”

The Pope’s commitment is the environment is apparently real, The Independent reports that Vatican City recently became “the first fully carbon-neutral state in the world.”