The center cannot hold: Is Iraq spinning out of control? It sure is getting weirder. According to new reports, now the US military is going Abu Ghraib on American citizens. A group of US civilian security guards were detained, beaten, stripped, and "threatened with snarling dog," the Guardian reports. "They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names," said one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard.

Meanwhile, a senior military official admits that not all Iraqis fighting the US are Baathists or Al-Qaeda terrorists, as the Bush administration likes to characterize the "insurgents." "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]," said Major General Joseph Taluto.