Civil war, civil insanity

When I checked the BBC's web site this morning, it said 100 Iraqis had been kidnapped from a Baghdad education center headed by a Sunni. That number declined during the day, and by evening the last 40 were freed by police action. But the question remains: How could a convoy of 20 vehicles carrying men in stolen uniforms get by all the roadblocks at 10 o'clock in the morning in a city that is patrolled by over 60,000 (this is NOT a typo) U.S. troops? While the education ministry is headed by a Sunni, the interior ministry (which oversees the police) is headed by a Shiite. The national police force is known to be thoroughly infiltrated by militiamen.

While today's mass kidnapping dominated the news, the fact is that there are 30 to 40 kidnappings every day. Many are carried out to obtain ransom money. But many are just the prologue to murder, often after the worst kind of torture. Bodies bearing signs of torture are regulary fished out of the Tigris river which flows through Baghdad. It is insanity.

And still there are big mouths in Washington who continue to insist that Iraq is not in civil war. That in itself has to be a sign of home-grown insanity.