Dialog International

"Nobody Could Have Known"

Just reading the sensational reports from Amstetten in Austria about the father who kept his own daughter hidden as a sex slave in his cellar, as she gave birth to seven of his children.  I'm always amazed about these stories about children being abused in the proximity of so many "good citizens".  We have the usual reports from neighbors, who interacted with the family on a daily basis:

Wien - Als "freundlich und ganz nett", als "sympathisch und unauffällig" beschreiben die Anwohner in der Ybbsstraße von Amstetten ihren Nachbarn Josef F. (Residents of the Ybbstrasse in Amstetten described their neighbor Josef F. as "friendly and really nice" "there was nothing unusual at all")

And more:
Wie in solchen Fällen üblich sagen die Nachbarn, dass sie sich „das nicht vorstellen konnten“. Die Familie F. war „sehr nett “, Josef F., der bis zu seiner Pensionierung Elektriker war, „hat immer gerne geholfen, wenn es wo Probleme gab“, und er ist „sehr lieb mit Kindern umgegangen“. Dass er zu so einem Verbrechen fähig ist, nein, das will in Amstetten niemand glauben. (As is customary in such cases the neighbors claim "they could never imagine such a thing".  The family was "very nice",  Josef F., a retired electrician, "was always there to help out when there were problems" and was "always very sweet to the children.")

The same things were said about the kidnapper of Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive in a Vienna basement for eight years before she managed to escape.

Is there something pathological about Austrian society that prevents people from intervening in child abuse? Yes, undoubtedly.  But the events unfolding in West Texas show that it can happen here as well, but on a much larger scale (this is Texas, after all):

San ANGELO, Texas (AP) --"More than half the teenage girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.

A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. He didn't specify how many are pregnant."

Nobody could have known.

 

Karma and Bad Times for Deutsche Bank in America

From the Buddhist Encyclopedia: The law of Karma simply deals with the causes of all deeds actively created past and present; and the effects in all present and future experiences; thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy brought to oneself and others.

Does the law of Karma apply also to banks?  If so, then Deutsche Bank is experiencing the effects of its world-class arrogance.

In the US, Deutsche Bank is receiving a great deal of publicity, but not the kind of publicity it was looking for.  Now the bank the largest plaintiff in residential real estate foreclosures in the country, as the mortgage crisis deepens beyond the subprime mortgage market.

No city has suffered more than Cleveland, Ohio. One in ten homes in the city is now vacant, and whole neighbourhoods have been blighted by foreclosed, vandalized and boarded-up homes. Who has ended up holding title to the foreclosed properties?  See the diagram below:

One civic-minded blogger in Cleveland complained that he couldn't find an office for Deutsche Bank in the area:

The most active forecloser and biggest title-holder of foreclosed properties in Cleveland is Deutsche Bank, a German corporation which has no office I can find in Cleveland or even in Ohio, and which does virtually no lending here.

A group of activists in Boston were more successful in finding offices of Deutsche Bank.  The bank has been the most active in the city in foreclosing on homes:

In Boston some of those who have been tossed out of their homes are trying to force the bankers to see them as people and to stop the foreclosures. They gathered in front of Deutsche Bank to air out their grievances.

"Each day we get calls from tenants and owners who are facing evictions from their homes and neighborhoods. The only clear way to stop the crisis is for the Deutsche Bank to stop evicting our neighbors," said Steve Meacham of the group City Life/Vida Urbana said.

Ironically, the building is owned by a hedge-fund client of Deutsche Bank - the Blackstone Group. The  bank is trying to negotiate the sale of $20 billion in bad loans to Blackstone.

To add to Deutsche Bank's woes in America, a couple in California recently filed suit against the bank, claiming it concealed its Nazi past.  This is not what the Public Relations Department in the bank was hoping for:

Regina Lawrence, who is of Jewish descent, and Lamonte Lawrence, the founder of Lawrence Semiconductor, brought causes of action for “rescission and fraud in the concealment” against the bank in 2006, alleging that it deliberately failed to inform them that it had provided financial services to the Nazi regime during the time of the Holocaust in Germany.

Deutsche Bank's high-priced attorneys were able to successfully defend it this time, but it is clear that  the bank is facing unprecedented challenges.  So, tough times call for tough measures:  the bank will no longer  reimburse its  bankers for visits to strip clubs and prostitutes.

 

Printing Wikipedia

Just as I signed on as a member of the WikiProject Germany team the German media giant Bertelsmann announced its plan to print a book with most popular German Wikipedia articles:

The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia published by Bertelsmann will contain summaries of the 25,000 most popular articles. It willl go on sale in September for 19.95 euros, or about $32.

Beate Varnhorn, the editor in charge of Bertelsmann’s reference works, told the Times that the book is intended to appeal to “new target groups, including young people.

Hmm, I wonder why Bertelsmann thinks there will be a market for this.  The great value of Wikipedia is the real time updating and editing of articles, as new information develops or surfaces. Also, the hyperlinks to other Wikipedia articles and other Web resources is invaluable.  All of that is lost in a print version. German Wikipedia has the best reputation among all Wikipedia sites in terms of its accuracy.

Paradoxically, this news comes at the same time that the venerable Brockhaus-Verlag has announced that its popular encyclopedia will henceforth be available only in an online format.

Meanwhile the New York TImes has a list of the 15 most popular German Wikipedia articles over the winter.  Not sure what this says about the user demographics, but Penis (# 5) beat out Vagina (#12) by a wide margin. Probably something for WikiProject Germany to investigate.

Rudi Dutschke Commemorated

Forty years ago this month the radical student leader Rudi Dutschke was  shot in the head by a crazed right-wing fanatic.  Many Germans applauded, but the students took to the streets and violent demonstrations erupted.  Today, after a four year campaign by the Tageszeitung, a street in Berlin has been named after Rudi Dutschke.  It happens to cross a street named after Dutschke's nemesis, the late newspaper publisher Axel Springer (Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse has the right-of-way). Many believed it was the hate-filled attacks on Dutschke in Springer's Bild-Zeitung that motivated his would-be assassin.

Rudi Dutschke was certainly a charismatic figure.  You can watch some great footage of him in this ZDF television documentary (1968 - Mythos und Wahrheit) on the student revolt of 1968. On the other hand, what specific ideas and proposals was he advocating?  Here it gets a bit fuzzy, and I have to agree with Lord Dahrendorf's assessment of Dutschke which he articulated in a recent interview in taz (Dahrendorf actually debated Dutschke at a demo in Freiburg in 1968):

Seien wir ehrlich: Er war ein konfuser Kopf, der keine bleibenden Gedanken hinterlassen hat. Worauf man heute zurückblickt, ist die Person: ein anständiger, ehrlicher und vertrauenswürdiger Mann. Aber ich wüsste niemand, der sagen würde: Das war Dutschkes Idee, die müssen wir jetzt verfolgen. Die Diskussion war schlimm damals, er brachte all diese Schlagworte, maoistische Versatzstücke, aber was er eigentlich denkt, war nicht leicht festzustellen. (Let's be honest: he was a very confused guy who didn't leave behind any lasting ideas. Looking back, I found him to be a forthright, honorable and honest person. But no one today says: "That was Dutschke's idea; we need to implement it. " The level of discussion was pretty bad back then. He tossed out all these slogans and Maoist fragments. But it was impossible to tell what he was really thinking.)

But love him or hate him - Dutschke embodied the spirit of 1968 like no other individual, so it is appropriate that a street in Berlin bears his name. 

Do we need a Rudi-Dutschke Street in America? Dutschke was Germany's most vocal critic of America's war in Vietnam. But he married an American, Gretchen Klotz, and had three children with her.  She lives today just outside Boston.

Ina Seidel and Gertrud Kolmar: a German "Friendship"

A few days ago I wrote about the the lyric poet Gertrud Kolmar (pictured on the right above) who was virtually unknown in her short life, and even today does not receive the recognition she deserves for her powerful poems. But she did have some influential fans early in her writing career.  One was the bestselling author Ina Seidel, who achieved celebrity status in Germany with the publication of her novel Das Wunschkind (The Wanted Child) in 1930.  Ina Seidel became acquainted with Gertrud in Berlin and wanted to use her considerable influence to promote her poetry.  Together with Elisabeth Langgässer she published an anthology of poetry by women - Herz zum Hafen. Frauengedichte der Gegenwart - which included four key poems by Gertrud Kolmar and brought her to the attention of the broad reading public.  Unfortunately Herz zum Hafen was released in 1933, just after the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin. Ina Seidel threw her lot in with Hitler, and broke off all contact with Kolmar (as well as with the half-Jewish Langgässer).  Gertrud Kolmar was devastated by the turn of events and the attitude of her erstwhile "friend".  She complained bitterly to her friend Karl Josef Keller, who recalled in his recollections of Gertrud Kolmar:

"G.K.beklagte sich auch bei mir über den plötzlichen Gesinnungswechsel ihrer 'arischen' Bekannten, die zuvor für ihre Arbeiten eingetreten waren. In diesem Zusammenhang nannte sie u.a. eine der bekanntesten deutschen Schriftstellerinnen, die m.E.in Berlin wohnhaft war."
(Gertrud Kolmar complained to me about the sudden change of heart of her "Aryan" friends who had championed her work.  In this connection she mentioned a very famous German woman author who was living in Berlin (Ina Seidel)).

Seidel became the most popular woman author in the Third Reich.  In her works she depicted the Nazi ideal of the feminine: the stoic mother of the German front soldier.  But she also wrote ecstatic poems and hymns to fuel the Nazi Führerkult .  Here is a piece she wrote for Hitler's birthday in 1939:

In Gold und Scharlach, feierlich mit Schweigen, 
ziehn die Standarten vor dem Führer auf. 
Wer will das Haupt nicht überwältigt neigen?
Wer hebt den Blick nicht voll Vertrauen auf?
Ist dieser Dom, erbaut aus klarem Feuer, 
nicht mehr als eine Burg aus Stahl und Stein,
und muß er nicht ein Heiligtum, uns teuer,
ewigen Deutschtums neues Sinnbild sein?

(In gold and scarlet, with a solemn silence,
they raise the flags before the Führer.
Who could not - overwhelmed - bow his head?
Who could refuse to lift his eyes, filled with trust?
  Is this cathedral, built from pure fire,
  Not more than a castle made of steel and stone,
  And is this not a sanctuary we hold dear -
  The new symbol of eternal German blood?)

A short time after this celebration, Ina Seidel's friend Gertrud Kolmar was sent to work as a slave laborer in a Nazi munitions plant.  Two years later she and the other Jewish workers were rounded up at the plant and sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  There is no record that Ina Seidel ever inquired about her friend or tried to intervene on her behalf.

After the war, Seidel's fame only grew.  Streets, Gymnasiums, elementary schools were named after her in West Germany.  Many bear her name  still today.  And, in recognition of the new postwar order, Ina Seidel reminisced often about her "Jewish friend, Gertrud Kolmar"  up until her death in 1974.

Pope Benedict XVI's Terrible Prayer

So far Pope Benedict's trip to the United States has gone rather well.  His meeting with the Boston victims of the sexual abuse scandal was unexpected and no doubt helped to restore the Church's standing with American Catholics.  Der Spiegel even seemed to detect some veiled criticisms of President Bush in his remarks at the White House. They quote Benedict:

"Die Kirche ist überzeugt,… , dass Demokratie nur blühen kann, wenn die politischen Führer sich von der Wahrheit leiten lassen und ihre Weisheit auf moralische Grundsätze aufbauen." Die verlogene Begründung des Irak-Kriegs - Vizepräsident Dick Cheney und Außenministerin Condoleezza Rice sitzen unter den Ehrengästen in der ersten Reihe - kann damit nicht gemeint sein. ("The Church is convinced that Democracy can only blossom when the political leaders are guided by the truth and base their wisdom on moral principles."  He could not have been referring to the dishonest reasons for starting the Iraq War.  Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza RIce were among the guests of honor in the front row.)

But Benedict will have other wounds to heal on the rest of his stay when he visits a synagogue on Friday and meets with Jewish leaders in Washington DC and New York City.  With just two Latin sentences in his Good Friday prayer Benedict has dealt an enormous setback to Church relations with Jews:

Oremus et pro Iudaeis: Ut Deus et Dominus noster illuminet corda eorum, ut agnoscant Iesum Christum salvatorem omnium hominum. (Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate.) Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui vis ut omnes homines salvi fiant et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius, ut plenitudine gentium in Ecclesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

(Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fulness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.)

Now I have nothing against any religion asserting its own primacy and ownership of the truth.  And anyone who is in possession of the Truth obviously wants to share the Good News with others and convince them of the superiority of their viewpoint.  Conversions and proselytizing are a necessary feature of any religious organization that doesn't wish extinction. But it is incomprehensible to me that Benedict would single out the Jews for conversion - especially in a Good Friday prayer when for centuries Catholics blamed all Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. Why not extend the prayer of conversion to all non-Catholics - including Protestants, Muslims, Atheists, etc?

Can there be any question as to why Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, chooses to sever all ties and discontinue dialogue with the Vatican and the Catholic Church?

"As long as Pope Benedict does not return to the previous wording, I assume that there will not be any further dialogue [such as we had] in the past," said Knobloch.

The best book about the shameful history of the Catholic Church's relationship with the Jews through the centuries is James Carroll's Constantine's Sword: The Chuch and the Jews  - a History. Carroll is a former Catholic priest, and his account is intensely personal even as he examines a legacy that goes back to the early church and the crusades. 

"There is no apology for Holy Week preaching that prompted pogroms until Holy Week liturgies, sermons, and readings have been purged of the anti-Jewish slanders that sent the mobs rushing out of church.... Forgiveness for the sin of anti-Semitism presumes a promise to dismantle all that makes it possible." (James Carroll - Constantine's Sword)

UPDATE: James Carroll on Benedict and the Holocaust.

China is Funding Bush's Iraq War

Der Tagesspiegel has a lengthy excerpt from a new book to be released next week: Der globale Countdown by Harald Schuman and Christiane Grefe.  The book is about the risks inherent in the globalized economy  - risks that are all too apparent in the worldwide crisis spawned by the US real estate meltdown.  The excerpt here, however, is an excellent discussion of how the Bush administration has dramatically raised the stakes - and increased the likelihood of a global meltdown - with its reckless fiscal policy.  Among other things, the Bush administration has relied exclusively on China to fund its disastrous Iraq War. America's trade deficit with China increases the Chinese US dollar reserves by about $1 million per minute - which roughly equals the cost burden of Bush's wars:

De facto finanziert auf diesem Weg ausgerechnet der US-Rivale China Amerikas militärische Abenteuer mit milliardenschweren Billigkrediten für die Bush-Regierung. Die aufgewandten Summen stimmen erstaunlich überein. Die Kriege in Irak und Afghanistan kosteten von 2003 bis Ende 2006 rund 400 Milliarden Dollar amerikanischer Steuergelder. Etwa im gleichen Zeitraum erwarben die Mitarbeiter der Devisenverwaltung am Pekinger Platz der Luftfahrt amerikanische Staatsanleihen und staatliche garantierte Pfandbriefe im Wert von 464 Milliarden Dollar.

(It is ironic that in this way China - America's great rival - is financing America's military adventures with $$billions of cheap loans to the Bush administration. Astonishingly,  expenditures nearly match each other. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the US taxpayers from 2003 to 2006 about $400 billion. Over the same period the staff at the State Foreign Exchange Center on Fucheng Road in Beijing acquired US Treasury Bonds in the amount of $464 billion.)

The Bush administration's fiscal policy is leading inexorably to a prolonged period of hyperinflation and the replacement of the US$  by the Euro as a reserve currency.  The final consequence will be a run on America.

(Inter)National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month - the one time of year when Americans are encouraged to read poetry. So the blogs are filled with poems by Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, and many other favorites.  The celebration is not just limited to American poets, but so far German poets have been left out of the festivities.

So my contribution to National Poetry Month is a poem by Gertrud Kolmar.  Gertrud Kolmar is practically unknown in America. In fact, there is no English Wikipedia entry for her (yet -  it is on my to-do list). She led a rather solitary life in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s and avoided the tumultuous Weimar literary scene.  But even so she found some grateful readers for her poetry - including her cousin, Walter Benjamin.  Gertrud Kolmar was Jewish, but, for some reason she and her father did not flee Germany in 1938 with the rest of her family. Instead, they were moved into a Judenhaus in Berlin, and then Gertrud was forced into slave labor in a munitions plant.  She was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943.  She left behind about 100 poems of striking beauty and intensity.  Her poems about animals display the precision of a Marianne Moore, but also have the visionary power of Emily Dickinson (with whom she shares a birthday - December 10).  In the postwar epoch, Kolmar has been narrowly categorized as a Jewish poet, or worse - a Jewish poetess.  In fact, she is one of the greatest lyric poets and deserves the widest exposure.

I made an attempt to translate one of Gertrud Kolmar's poems - Die Dichterin - but could not match the  translation by  Henry A. Smith.  So the translation is Smith's:

Die Dichterin

Du hältst mich in den Händen ganz und gar.
Mein Herz wie eines kleinen Vogels schlägt
In deiner Faust. Der du dies liest, gib acht;
Denn sieh, du blätterst einen Menschen um.
Doch ist es dir aus Pappe nur gemacht,

Aus Druckpapier und Leim, so bleibt es stumm
Und trifft dich nicht mit seinem großen Blick,
Der aus den schwarzen Zeichen suchend schaut,
Und ist ein Ding und hat sein Dinggeschick.

Und ward verschleiert doch gleich einer Braut,
Und ward geschmückt, daß du es lieben magst,
Und bittet schüchtern, daß du deinen Sinn
Aus Gleichmut und Gewöhnung einmal jagst,

Und bebt und weiß und flüstert vor sich hin:
"Dies wird nicht sein." Und nickt dir lächelnd zu.
Wer sollte hoffen, wenn nicht eine Frau?
Ihr ganzes Treiben ist ein einzig: "Du..."

Mit schwarzen Blumen, mit gemalter Brau,
Mit Silberketten, Seiden, blaubesternt.
Sie wußte manches Schönere als Kind
Und hat das schöne andre Wort verlernt. -

Der Mann ist soviel klüger, als wir sind.
In seinen Reden unterhält er sich
Mit Tod und Frühling, Eisenwerk und Zeit;
Ich sage:"Du..." und immer:"Du und ich."

Und dieses Buch ist eines Mädchens Kleid,
Das reich und rot sein mag und ärmlich fahl,
Und immer unter liebem Finger nur
Zerknittern dulden will, Befleckung, Mal.

So steh ich, weisend, was mir widerfuhr;
Denn harte Lauge hat es wohl gebleicht,
Doch keine hat es gänzlich ausgespült.
So ruf ich dich. Mein Ruf ist dünn und leicht.
Du hörst, was spricht.

Vernimmst du auch, was fühlt?

 

The Woman Poet

You hold me now completely in your hands.

My heart beats like a frightened little bird's
Against your palm. Take heed! You do not think
A person lives within the page you thumb.
To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink,

Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb,
And cannot touch you (though the gaze be great
That seeks you from the printed marks inside),
And is an object with an object's fate.

And yet it has been veiled like a bride,
Adorned with gems, made ready to be loved,
Who asks you bashfully to change your mind,
To wake yourself, and feel, and to be moved.

But still she trembles, whispering to the wind:
"This shall not be." And smiles as if she knew.
Yet she must hope. A woman always tries,
Her very life is but a single "You . . ."

With her black flowers and her painted eyes,
With silver chains and silks of spangled blue.
She knew more beauty when a child and free,
But now forgets the better words she knew.

A man is so much cleverer than we,
Conversing with himself of truth and lie,
Of death and spring and iron-work and time.
But I say "you" and always "you and I."

This book is but a girl's dress in rhyme,
Which can be rich and red, or poor and pale,
Which may be wrinkled, but with gentle hands,
And only may be torn by loving nails.

So then, to tell my story, here I stand.
The dress's tint, though bleached in bitter lye,
Has not all washed away. It still is real.
I call then with a thin, ethereal cry.

You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?

- Gertrud Kolmar (translated by Henry A. Smith)

Murat Kurnaz on US Public Radio

National Public Radio's call-in program Talk of the Nation had an interview with Murat Kurnaz about his new book Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo. Kurnaz was interviewed by telephone from a studio in Bremen, since he is not permitted to travel to the country that tortured him and held him captive for five years without charges. You can listen to the interview and read an excerpt from his book here.

Kurnaz did a reasonably good job in the interview, although at times he had difficulty with English.  Most of the callers were respectful, and some even apologized for the actions of their government.  But of course there were others who had a different perspective.  One caller stated he "didn't believe one word"  of Murat and his book.  The whole story was fabricated to slam the United States and its struggle against "Islamofascism".  Actually, the caller seemed to imply that Kurnaz was never really at Guantanamo at all!

You can read similar comments on the Talk of the Nation Blog. One commenter - Donna Largent - also rejects Kurnaz's story, and condemns NPR for being a mouthpiece of anti-American propaganda:

We are fighting a heinous war and the enemy is bloodthirsty and does all kinds of gross things like beheading with dull blades. Why is it that almost every time I turn my radio to your shows, you are knocking our wonderful country? If we are so bad, why don't you all at our indicting public radio organization find other places to live? I am tired of hearing you constantly slam the United States.

This is the typical response of the Authoritarian Right in the US when it is confronted with inconvenient facts: attack the patriotism of the messenger and insist that it is nothing but a conspiracy of lies.

UPDATE: In the radio interview and in his book Kurnaz mentions that he personally witnessed the deaths of detainees.  For this he is accused of lying, for the US does not kill prisoners - even if they are only "enemy combatants" and not subject to the protections of the Geneva Conventions (according to the Bush administration).  I would refer those doubters to this autopsy report by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner (pdf)  about an "Iraqi Detainee who died while in US custody" (as written in the report itself).  This detainee - as per the report - was hung by his wrists (like Kurnaz), gagged, and then brutally beaten.  All of his ribs were fractured.

An unfortunate aberration by a few bad apples? There are 108 of such autopsy reports - that we know of so far...

An Uncomfortable Silence

Tageszeitung correspondent Bernd Pickert makes a good point in his column Das grosse Schweigen (The great silence).  During the Patreaus hearings this week on Capitol Hill no one brought up the issue of how multiple deployments in the US military were leading to a extreme psychological stress, which, in turn, is played out in how Iraqi civilians are treated (or rather mistreated):

"Dabei würde es sich lohnen, einmal einen Blick auf die Erfahrungen jener insgesamt mehr als 500.000 Soldaten zu werfen, die im Irak stationiert waren - nach fünf Jahren sind sie inzwischen ja recht ausführlich dokumentiert. Was sie über ein systematisch menschenverachtendes Verhalten der Soldaten gegen die Zivilbevölkerung in diesem Krieg ohne Fronten berichten, kann eigentlich nur zu einer Schlussfolgerung führen: die Iraker so bald wie möglich von dieser Besatzung zu befreien." (It would be worthwhile to have  a look at the experiences of the 500,000 or so soldiers who have been stationed in Iraq so far. These have not been sufficiently documented even after five years of war. What they say about the systematically brutal behavior of these soldiers towards the civilian population in this endless war without fronts can only lead to one conclusion: the Iraqis need to be freed of this occupation as soon as possible.)

Read my translation of Pickert's entire piece over at Watching America.

Last month the US military dropped all charges against one of the marines involved in the Haditha Massacre, when 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians - mostly women and children - were killed. The story was barely noticed in the press as President Bush celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War.  And earlier in March dozens of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan testified at the Winter Soldier event in Silver Springs, Maryland.  The event was ignored by the mainstream media outlets in the US, as noted by the Web site FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting):

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, it is particularly important that the media reverse this silence, and include the voices of the vets who are speaking out about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in national news coverage.

Videos of the testimonies can be found here.  The German press did cover the event, and it was also picked up by bloggers.

Let's face it: we don't consider Iraqi lives as valuable as Americans.  We keep detailed records of every US casualty in Iraq, but no one knows or cares how many Iraqis have been killed or injured as a result of the US-led invasion and occupation.  General Tommy Franks: "We Don't Do Body Counts".