Ugh

I want to know how stories like this show that Iraq is "sliding towards civil war" and not already in one.

On Sunday, masked Shiite gunmen roamed Baghdad’s Jihad neighborhood, dragging Sunnis from their cars, picking them out on the street and killing them in a brazen series of attacks. Police said 41 people were killed, although there were conflicting figures that put the death toll at more than 50 and as low as nine.

Sunni leaders expressed outrage over the killings, and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, appealed for calm, warning that the nation stood “in front of a dangerous precipice.”

Not "in front" of a precipice, but over it, through it, and headlong into the valley below. The top aide to President Talabani has acknowledged this.

Juan Cole calls it "the worst wave of of faith-based violence ever perpetrated by [Iraq's] sectarian militias in one day." But of course the militia that some call the Iraqi Interior Ministry has been raping and pillaging the country for some time. And they've been doing it in a particualrly sectarian way. So this is just the latest battle in an ONGOING CIVIL WAR. I don't understand why it's so hard for the media to just print that. Clearly that's what's happening.

Grim joke of the day: if you live in the "Jihad district" of a city, isn't violence going to come to you at one point or another?

I will add, to satisfy the beliefs of how bloggers blog, according to the US Air Force, that I can't believe this happened.