Najaf Battles Leave Many in Risky No-Man's-Land

[UpInArms]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5993696

excerpt:

A body lies in the street, covered in a dirty blanket, but it would be too risky to remove it and Ghalib knows it.

"A sniper killed him yesterday at two o'clock. He was crossing the street. I don't think he was a militant fighter, just an ordinary Iraqi," Ghalib, 24, an unemployed vegetable trader, told Reuters.

<snip>

"There is an American tank down that street and troops who shoot at anything that moves, like that man laying dead," said his neighbor, Hani Hassan, 40, a father of two.

<snip>

The men complained that in some ways Iraq has not changed for the Shi'ite majority since the fall of Saddam.

<snip>

After spending hours in the dark with no electricity and water, residents of the Old City have few diversions except for picking up huge pieces of deadly shrapnel.

...more...

I wonder why it is so hard for me to have sympathy for the hurricane state of Florida?