Little Tet

NPR has the story on the Sadr Militia taking over Amarah. Reading, reading, reading. The militia comes to town, terrorizes everyone, there's a gunfight, they force people inside, they take over for 8 hours.

The meaty parts include the British Army on standby if help is requested. Militia dead = 15. Iraqi police dead = 10. Militia guys go home after 8 hours.

Bottom line for NPR

Since the beginning of this year, the U.S. military has said reining in sectarian militias was crucial to restoring security and calm to Iraq. Ten months later, the militias only seem to have become even more powerful.

Bottom line for Terri:

Good for the Iraqis! Problem arisen. Problem resolved. No US/UK interference.

In this story from the Chicago Tribune you wouldn't have even known that the militia ended up out of town.

I had to get to this story from China to get any positive news out of this incident.

The British military spokesman in Basra, headquarters for Britain's 7,200 soldiers in Iraq, sought to play down the seriousness of Friday's fighting, noting that 600 Iraqi soldiers were able to force Mahdi Army fighters off the streets, arrange a truce and return quiet to the city by Friday afternoon. Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters ranged between 200 and 800.

"It's like when you take the training wheels off a bike. There are some wobbles. This was a pretty big wobble, but it's still moving in the right direction," said spokesman Maj. Charlie Burbridge.

"They (Iraqi security forces) have applied a solution and at the moment it's holding," he said. "At the moment, it's tense but calm."

Exactly! It's a GOOD thing. The Iraqi police were tested and lost. Well, yeah. I sincerely think that if 800 militia guys from the mtns west of here came to Longmont, the Longmont police would call in the army! The police are there to maintain the peace amongst a population. The army exists to protect civilians from attacks. Here is a perfect example of things working well in Iraq but our media just can't see it.

The Washington Post has their view too. The takeover ended when Sadr told his guys to leave. It's not until the end of the article to you even find out the Iraqi army was there. And of course to them this conflict left 25 people dead, 10 of whom were Iraqi police. Not 15 of whom were militiamen.

Sheesh.