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"Whatever label you stick on it, the New York Times got this much right:
"potentially disturbing turn of events"

What doe we do now? How do we deal with this?

Shoot first, ask questions later?

This may sound kind of flip or glib, but it may come to this:

Question: how do you tell an "innocent" Iraqi civilian, from and "non-innocent" Iraqi civilian?

Answer: the bullet-riddled body or vehicle that does not explode under a fusillade of weapons fire can be afterwards presumed innocent...that is, if no hidden weapons are found upon post-examination.

You have probably heard anothe flip-glib term: "nuke 'em all and let God sort 'em out"

This phrase, though spoken lightly or in frustrated anger sometimes can be very close to the mark.

I now understand some of the Old Testament Biblical battles where God ordered to kill them all (men, women and children) including their livestock and level their city or town leaving nothing but smoldering ruin...and to take nothing away from it. In those cases, no one was innocent and none wer to be saved. In fact, God would sort out the innocents afterwards and not the Israelites.

How do we fight an enemy that is willing to sacrifice themselves to Allah? and not in open battle? We are going to have another Viet Nam here if we don't go all-out and perhaps forego some "playing fair", "playing-by-the-rules" business.

The last point is that clearly these suicide terrorists are more of the pattern of Hizbolah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and those demons from Syria...the same that terrorize Israel almost daily. This doesn't seem to me to be the style of Fedayeen Saddam or Al Qaeda, in the "individual" suicide style. This is only my opinion, but I don't think the Fedayeen are religious, thus don't want to die, they just want to kill. And Al Qaeda are more of the high-explosive speedboats to take out ships, high-jacked airliners to fly into buildings and dirty bombs and WMD types.

I may be wrong...I often am.

I would like to know where in the history of warfare, that a country has been invaded and the invading force has been forced to fight with such restraint. I look at TV pictures of Baghdad every day and the skyline never changes. What are we bombing? The same places over and over? By now, there should be NO traffic or 'business as usual' in the downtown areas, but there is! It's surreal. Warfare is warfare and all is fair. Our future enemies are studying this closely and we are exposing our soft underbelly, which is 'restraint'. This thing is really starting to scare me.

"Question: how do you tell an "innocent" Iraqi civilian, from and "non-innocent" Iraqi civilian?"

Answer: On 9/11/2001 the terms of the war were given: women and children are not safe from deliberate attack; there are no innocents, no civilians, no non-combatants. None. Not one.

Every citizen of a terror-supporting state must be considered a combatant and dealt with as such.

You are welcome.

--Boris