reality-based educator

Getting worse and worse as sectarian killings far outstrip insurgent attacks:

BAGHDAD, Nov. 22 — More Iraqi civilians were killed in October than in any month since the American invasion in 2003, a report released by the United Nations today said, a rise that underscored the growing cost of Iraq’s deepening civil war.

According to the report, 3,709 Iraqis were killed in October, up slightly from the previous all-time high in July, and an increase of about 11 percent from the number in September.

The figures, which include totals from the Baghdad morgue as well as hospitals and morgues across the country, have become a central barometer of the war here and a gauge of the progress of the American military as it tries to bring stability to this exhausted country.

A dangerous trend surfaced: Sixty-five percent of all killings in Baghdad were executions, the signature technique of militias, who kidnap, kill and throw away corpses at a rate that now outstrips the slaughter inflicted by suicide bombers.

Does anyone really think the 20,000 additional troops sent to Iraq for a brief "surge" of force is really going to put a stop to the carnage?

Hell, even John McCain admitted to Robert Reich in the This Week greenroom that his call for more troops for the Iraq war is nothing but bullshit p.r.

And yet, the Decider, perhaps the last person on earth who still thinks "victory" is achievable, is seriously considering sending 20,000 more - just enough to make the lives of many military men and women and their families miserable but not enough to actually alter the deteriorating security.

Ludicrous. And yet, it looks like that's just what's going to happen.