corrente

Somehow I doubt that, after we've dug in, we'll end up cancelling the assault. After all, that wouldn't look tough. And doubtless Sistani or his son is on the phone to someone in the WhiteWash House, trying for all they can get in exhange for their mediation services (and who can blame them). Hey, maybe we'll sell out the Kurds yet again! Anyhow:

In the south, 2,500 U.S. troops were digging in outside the Shiite holy city of Najaf, preparing for a possible assault against radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. An attack on the city would likely outrage Iraq's Shiite majority, a community that - aside from al-Sadr's militia - has so far shunned anti-U.S. violence.

Iraqi clerics and politicians have launched negotiations with al-Sadr, trying to get him to back down sufficiently to avert a U.S. attack. But al-Sadr appeared to take a tough stance, demanding U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities.
(via AP)

Does anyone else have the feeling (especially after reading Orcinus, below) that we're watching some kind of cheap horror movie?

I mean a really cheap horror movie. The kind where Condi, Rummy, Wolfie, Bush and all the rest of them are wandering round in the woods, and, as night falls, it starts to rain.

And they're wondering whether they should seek shelter—say, in that house with no lights in the windows, over there in the clearing.... Down the path with the, with the—"Say, are those footprints? Then... why the claw marks?" "Oh, come on, Rummy, I'm getting wet. Let's go!"

And the entire audience yells: "No! Don't go in the haunted house!"

But, of course, they do anyway....