Reply #16: No, I had missed those. I know CNN has been peddling the whole

[donkeyotay]

ethnic divide pretty hard. I recall a C-SPAN presentation quite awhile ago that had a panel at a think tank (non right wing, imagine that) and they were saying that dividing Iraq up would be a disaster because on a neighborhood/family level, the country is so integrated that prolonged ethnic cleansing would be required to reverse that. Teevee has been promoting the idea of historical hostility, but they don't talk about how families can be Sunni and Shia. There's no "clean" or tidy way to make Iraq separate itself out. I think this is the anniversary of the bombing of the mosque in Samara, and all I can say is we don't know who did it, but with something like 100,000 mercenaries there...well, they could be fighting for anyone, right? To paraphrase a British ambassador, "You can rent a mercenary, but you can never buy one."

Thanks, Emit. I appreciate all the work you're doing.