Add to the despair, this from The Economist of 12 Aug 2006:
Quote:
Mayhem in the south too
The noise of a mortar round, like an incoming train, startles a bunch of contractors and aid workers waiting for their helicopter flight out of the British diplomatic compound in Basra, sending them and your correspondent scrambling for cover. This - and the array of other projectiles that have whizzed over the riverside palace complex in the past few nights - is presumed to be the Mahdi Army's revenge for the arrest of their local commander by British soldiers a few days before.
It is very different from two years ago, when British diplomats would happily cool down on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, since walled off by the concrete barriers that are ubiquitous across Iraq. The Shia-populated southern provinces used to be relatively safe. Not now. The violence in Basra, the south's capital, still pales by comparison with many other parts of Iraq, especially the Sunni areas to the west of Baghdad and the sectarian tinderbox of Iraq's capital. Even at its worst, in mid-summer, the bloodshed in Basra, caused largely by Islamist Shia militias feuding among themselves, claimed about 20 lives a week, according to the police, and now probably accounts for half that figure
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Instability and violence is only increasing everywhere - even in Basara. Even in the US, logical thought is being replaced by interpretation based upon feelings and facts generated from propaganda. Deja Vue Vietnam where we met the enemy and he is us.