"Baghdad on the Verge of Collapse"

The Times:

As I hung up the phone, I wondered if I would ever see my friend Ali alive again. Ali, The Times translator for the past three years, lives in west Baghdad, an area that is now in meltdown as a bitter civil war rages between Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. It is, quite simply, out of control.

I returned to Baghdad on Monday after a break of several months, during which I too was guilty of glazing over every time I read another story of Iraqi violence. But two nights on the telephone, listening to my lost and frightened Iraqi staff facing death at any moment, persuaded me that Baghdad is now verging on total collapse.

And then there is this, a horrible, fearful situation to live ones life every day:

Ali has a surname that could easily pass for Shia. His brother-in-law has an unmistakably Sunni name. They agreed that if they could determine that the gunmen were Shia, Ali would answer the door. If they were Sunnis, his brother-in-law would go.

Whoever didn't answer the door would hide in the dog kennel on the roof.

Their Plan B was simpler: to dash 50 yards to theirneighborss house home to a dozen brothers. All Iraqi homes are awash with guns for sedefensence in these merciless times. Together they would shoot it out with the gunmen one of a dozen unsung Alamos now being fought nightly on Iraqs blacked-out streets.

Iraq is degenerating into civil war, Hezbollah and Israel are duking it out (with much civilian casualties), there is the possibility of the violence spreading to Syria and Iran, WE still are trying to get the Iranians to stop their nuclear program, and we are are still in rough seas trying to convince the North Koreans to give up their nuke program.

The world seems pretty fucked up nowouldn'tuldnt envy this situation for wise and capable US policy makers, this must be much worse for dunderheads like Bush and Cheney.