on a more serious note: what are we going to do if (when?) violence like what we saw yesterday in falluja spreads?

mob violence against supposedly magnanimous americans has been a turning point before. after the massacre in mogadishu in 1993, americans were so dead set against intervention that we effectively abetted the rwanda genocide the following year. of course, this is a different time and an entirely different issue, and arguments about intervention have been so twisted around as to be virtually unrecognizable.

for this i blame (shocker!) the bush administration. it must be hard -- really hard -- to keep track of the shifting justifications for this particular intervention, but it's nothing so simple as "attempt to catch warlord at cost of american lives" or "allow continued genocide at savings of american lives." the question is whether images as stark as those coming from falluja yesterday will have folks here at home asking the tough questions.

[leaving the office: to be continued.]