It's morning somewhere

10. "Guess what?! They caught Zarqawi!!!" (This will only work on Iraqis who actually think he exists.)

...A few days ago, we were watching one of several ceremonies they held after naming the new prime minister. Talbani stood in front of various politicians in a large room in the Green Zone and said, rather brazenly, that Iraq would not stand any ‘tadakhul’ or meddling by neighboring countries because Iraq was a ‘sovereign country free of foreign influence’. The cousin almost fainted from laughter and E. was wiping his eyes and gasping for air… as Talbani pompously made his statement- all big belly and grins- smiling back at him was a group of American army commanders or generals and to his left was Khalilzad, patting him fondly on the arm and gazing at him like a father looking at his first-born!

So while Iraqis are dying by the hundreds, with corpses turning up everywhere (last week they found a dead man in the open area in front of my cousins daughters school), the Iraqi puppets are taking their time trying to decide who gets to do the most stealing and in which ministry. Embezzlement, after all, is not to be taken lightly- one must give it the proper amount of thought and debate- even if the country is coming unhinged...

...Investigators are still piecing together what happened on a November morning in Haditha, a Sunni stronghold northwest of Baghdad. But they have some troubling details: 24 civilians died in a hail of gunfire, including 11 women and children, a government official familiar with the investigation tells NPR.

The initial reports said a roadside bomb blew up one Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians. The investigation has now turned that story upside down, revealing a much more disturbing chain of events, says the official, who asked not to be identified...