13 February 2007

Charybdis in the desert

One year ago yesterday bombers attacked the mosque in Askariya, a Shi'a shrine, in an act that marked what could be considered the beginning of what is inarguably a civil war in Iraq. Yesterday, almost immediately after a fifteen minute silence at midday to mark the anniversary, bombers struck again killing at least eighty people. This morning there was more of the same and at least another fifteen dead. In the past year a minimum of 33,000 Iraqis have died violently as a result of the conflict. That is comparable to 75,000 in the UK or 370,000 in the US.

If this is not the face of civil war I don't want to know what one looks like. The carnage goes on. No one in Iraq, Britain or the US is safer.

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