I don't write much about Iraq because it pains me far too much. I demonstrated against the war before it started because the whole plan was clearly hatched up by total lunatics and every scenario I tried out in my head ended up in too much blood flowing for no great results. And once the invasion started it was already too late for all practical purposes. To make a difference by writing about it, I mean, including a difference for the wingnuts. If they had followed my advice they'd be a lot better off today.
There is nothing I'd like better than to be proved wrong about Iraq, for the sake of all the innocent Iraqis, but this is very unlikely:
Sunni-led insurgents killed at least five people in a crowded vegetable market on Friday, the Muslim day of worship, police said. New information also emerged about coordinated suicide and mortar attacks the day before in another mostly Shiite city that left nearly 100 people dead.
Elsewhere, in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi police convoy was ambushed late Thursday, killing four policemen and wounding one, said police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim.
The new surge of violence before an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's constitution has killed at least 190 people, including 13 U.S. service members, in the past five days.
The insurgents have vowed to wreck the referendum, whose passage is crucial to prospects for starting a withdrawal of American troops.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the country's most feared insurgent group, has declared ``all-out war'' on the Shiite majority that dominates Iraq's government, and moderate Sunni Arab leaders have urged their community to reject the constitution, saying it will fragment Iraq and leave them weak compared to Shiites and Kurds.
And soon we may see the most awful of the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib. See why I don't want to write about it all?