Anticipation...

Editors's mouths are watering worldwide at the prospect of writing about the US's 2000th fatality in Iraq. They can't even bear to wait until it actually happens. So already we're seeing articles like this one, which tells us "Iraq Insurgency Shows No Signs of Slowdown".

Oh, really? How about these reports?

• the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and the start of Saddam Hussein's trial four days later passed without major bloodshed and destruction
• [Iraqi and US officials] also are upbeat about the growing efficiency and number — 200,000 at present — of Iraq's security forces, although some U.S. commanders say the Iraqis need 18 months to two years before they can fight the insurgency unaided.
• Recent operations in western Iraq, especially in towns along the Euphrates River close to the Syrian border, are said to have been effective in disrupting the insurgents' supply lines and reducing the number of car bombs.
• Stepped-up security has forced insurgents in recent weeks to largely abandon using car bombs and resort to indirect fire, such as lobbing mortar shells from afar, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said.
• Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said troops captured more than 300 foreign fighters and killed 100 members of al-Qaida in Iraq the past six months. Other successes include the detention of 600 insurgents in the two weeks before the referendum, said Maj. Gen. William G. Webster, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad.

All those bullets are found further down in the very same article. You have to wonder just what it would take to make this reporter and his editors happy.

But experts contend the fighting could soon begin to take dramatic turns, more heavily influenced by outside events and possibly bringing new factions into the fight.

For example, they say, if Washington and London continue to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, Iraq's Shiite neighbor could be tempted to encourage radical Iraqi Shiite factions to stage attacks on U.S. and British forces.

Oh yeah, like they aren't already. It's absurd to think that Iran wouldn't seek influence within Iraq, and the easiest way is through the Shiites.

The article closes by repeating a point mentioned repeatedly earlier in the body:

"As long as there are Americans in Iraq, Islamists will want to go and fight them," said Dia'a Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on Muslim militant groups

OK, except he's too specific. As long as there are *Americans*, Islamists will want to go and fight them. The only answer is to kill the bastards. And I'd rather do it in Iraq with our servicemen and women than in the US with cops and lawyers.