The unravelling.

The response by the insurgency to the Zarqawi execution and the subsequent unseemly spectacle of pictoral displays and boasting put on by the regime in washington is now clear: the insurgency has escalated the violence and brutality. The deliberate capture torture and execution of our soldiers sends a clear message that the insurgency is not only not defeated, but that it can and will repay our brutality with theirs.

Across Iraq our troops are deployed at similar isolated checkpoints. Every soldier on duty in these vulnerable locations is warily searching for the attack that will consign him to the brutal fate of those three unfortunates. A very bad situation has just gotten worse. Every misunderstanding at those checkpoints is now likely to be very lethal. Haditha, if it was an isolated incident, will cease to be so.

The regime in washington is trapped by its own pigheaded policies. They have no choice but to respond to this latest provocation, and they will respond and the response will be brutal. A bad war with no end in sight is about to drop down another level in the cycle of depravity.

Our opposition party leadership will, as always, choose the safe and timid path here. Afraid to speak up in the wake of this outrage, the leadership will once again lock ranks with the war hawks. We are indeed trapped in Iraq.

:scared: