Huge force readying crackdown in Baghdad

this is what the "surge" is for.

the "new strategy" is really the same old counterinsurgency methods as before, but used against ethnocidal violence.

in other words, we're trying to stop the civil war.

rotsaruck.

meanwhile, PM al-maliki wants iraqis to stop thinking of themselves as sunni or shi'a and go back to just being iraqis. hmm. nationalism versus religion. why didn't i think of that?