Car Bomb

Yet another car bomb (this one actually an SUV packed with artillery shells) went off in Baghdad, killing (at this writing) 35 and wounding at least 138 more. As I'd written earlier (here and here), the attacks (this one directed at an Iraqi army recruitment center) are likely to continue and increase in ferocity before there is any let up.

In a nutshell, things are going to get much worse before they get any better. June 30 will come and go and little will change. Destabilization is the goal here, much more so than simply punishing those who work with the Americans (or who are seen to be working with them, i.e., the Iraqi security forces). And if anyone thinks that once Allawi (CIA agent turned Iraqi PM) assumes "control," that the insurgents will back off, they're sadly mistaken. Even, that is, if Allawi isn't gunned down in the street before then.

The American long term goal is, and has long been, to establish a permanent military presence in the Middle East. Iraq is that place. The June 30 ceremonial handover, and indeed, even elections in January 2005, will do little to effect that goal. The presence of American troops on Iraqi soil will keep the insurgency alive for years.

One poignant, for me, bit in the BBC report linked to above is this:

The health ministry says that 138 people have been injured, many of them seriously. Officials said the death toll was likely to rise.

It is the latest in a succession of attacks in Iraq aimed at the security forces.

"All of the victims who came here are poor people trying to earn a living. They wanted to volunteer to support their families," said Yas Khudair, a member of the Iraqi security forces.

How utterly heartbreaking is the commonality there. The ISF member quoted above could just as easily be speaking of the hundreds of American dead this war has cost us thus far.

Our soldiers, maimed and dying in Bush's criminal war of choice, with the great majority having joined the military for the same reason as the Iraqis. The poor, here and there, each looking for a simple leg up, an opportunity to create a better life for themselves and their families, risking life and limb in such pursuit, the military their only available option. Both groups, blown to pieces on the whim of others.