Bad Omens and Irony

Today's Salon leads with a piece by Jen Banbury that doesn't bode well for our folks in Iraq.

Last week, before followers of Muqtada al-Sadr began actively fighting coalition forces, before four Americans working for a private security company were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, I left -- or perhaps I should say fled -- Iraq. In the week or so preceding my departure, I felt the country undergo an essential, albeit subtle, shift. The anger previously focused on soldiers and members of the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed to morph, almost daily, into an indiscriminate ire toward Westerners in general. Almost overnight, I stopped feeling safe.

[...]

But even before the current crisis, something may have happened to ordinary Iraqis that cannot be reversed. When I sensed the country's mood change before I left Iraq, I wasn't hanging out with Saddam loyalists or members of al-Sadr's militia. I was in Baghdad talking to average people.

It's a powerful and depressing article and I don't have much to add to it, except I thought it worth pointing out one of the odder details she mentions. Apparently, one of the largest "private military corporations" operating in Baghdad has the unfortunate name of Custer Battles. That's right, Custer Battles. As with last week's founding of a Baghdad chapter of the Optimists Club, you just couldn't make this stuff up.