Dated, but indicative of life amongst warring factions (Iraq version):
Every time he drove, he feared this moment. Now, it was too late.
Ahmed, 30, was a Sunni Muslim. And he was in Shaab, a volatile, Shiite Muslim-dominated neighborhood …
So Ahmed set in motion a ritual that many Sunnis across a divided Baghdad now practice. He pushed in a cassette tape with Shiite religious songs and turned up the volume. He wrapped a piece of green cloth that he brought from the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites, around his gearshift.
And he hung a small picture of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered Shiite saint, from his rearview mirror.
To the world outside, he was now a Shiite.
… and the Los Angeles version:
It was an emotional farewell to a stand-out high school football star killed in broad daylight when he had no answer to the dreaded question: “What gang are you from?”
Sgt. Anita Shaw returned from her second tour in Iraq to bury her 17-year-old son, Jamiel, who was never involved in a gang.
Even in gang-hardened L.A., Jamiel’s death is shocking - and it is just one in a string of recent shootings of innocent children, reports Sandra Hughes.
Thirteen-year-old Anthony Escobar was shot and killed picking lemons for dinner. “I tried to pick him up, and I was just yelling for help,” his uncle, John Aguilar, said.
Six-year-old Lavareay Elzy is in critical condition - shot in the head while riding in his family’s SUV. And five kids were wounded in a gang shootout at a bus stop.
88,000 potential insurgents and less than 10,000 troops (LAPD alone) to combat them. What “surge” action is possible domestically, if at all? Will people stand for “clear-and-hold” in their own neighborhoods? Will they stand for - or clamor for - Blackwater to do it for them? Cops prepared for London disco-style attacks (only, you know, successful)? Mitigating circumstances that might avoid turning parts of LA into parts of Baghdad circa 2005?
