Right up there with the LA riots. Hilarious. Pant-wettingly funny.

Crumbs, Caroma, we have such different takes on this that I can't even be sure why you find this funny, which makes me sound spectacularly po-faced. People are looting their own cities. Nobody is playing the role of the police, and the thing of it is that if we play the police, then we're making it look like we've taken over, and that's bad too. But if we don't, then there's nothing to keep people from running riot. Any amusement that I could get out of the symbols of France and Germany getting their come-uppance would be pretty much negated by the fact that the looting of these places is set within a context in which lawlessness and destruction is rife. These people, whose thoroughly unpleasant government we've wiped out, now have to contend with this shit. I really do hope that the best comes from all this. That would be great. Fingers crossed. But, no, I can't find myself moved to laugh at the situation right now.

According to CNN :

"Thieves armed with AK-47 assault rifles are breaking into homes, shops and ministries, walking away with everything from furniture to kerosene, residents say.

"They are terrorizing our neighborhoods. At night, during the day, they steal everything," said Hussein Akil, standing with an angry crowd on one of Basra's main streets.

According to the BBC:

Red Cross [warns] that the Baghdad medical system has virtually collapsed amid the continued violence and fear.

But there are signs that US forces are beginning to step in and restore order after looters turned to raiding people's homes.

Baghdad is still dangerous with gunfire in the streets of the city and continued fighting in the north-eastern suburb known as Saddam City.

The BBC's Paul Wood in Baghdad reports that violence is now crossing the religious divide, with some Shia Muslims fighting gun battles with their Sunni neighbours.

Small numbers of bodies of looters or their victims are now being buried by the roadside.

and

Baghdad :: Caroline Hawley :: 1212GMT

Ordinary people are getting increasingly angry about the continued anarchy here. They say it shouldn't be allowed to happen. It feels like the fall of the regime has left a very dangerous vacuum.

People here really want the Americans and British to step in and fill it. They have begun to do that. They are calling for people to show up for duty - people who could restore the water treatment systems, the electricity and the police.

We're not sure how many have shown up but there is a major catch - the Americans are asking people to volunteer to do this. There is no system to pay them.

* * *

Baghdad :: Paul Wood :: 1128GMT

Ever since the US forces arrived as liberators, Baghdad has slipped deeper into anarchy. At one hospital the BBC interviewed a doctor in a surgical mask and gown and carrying a Kalashnikov.

He said he had had to fight off looters who were coming like rats.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is extremely alarmed at a situation where Baghdad's medical services are in a state of near collapse.

There was also a lengthy gun battle near the capital's main museum this morning. Archaeological treasures from the dawn of civilisation lay broken in pieces.

People hadn't even bothered to steal much of what was there, only to destroy.

t /Humourless!Fay

What FayJay said, only what has been described makes the LA riots sound like a picnic in the park. This is more like the fall of Constantinople.

Edit: I am so very proud to have been associated with these people.

I'm too behind in Natter to post it there. Besides, I feel like I know what they're going to say before they say it. The Unamericans also are sort of group-thinky sometimes, but they're much more thoughtful about it.

And I mean humorous in an ironic way, not ha ha way. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Anyway, the looting's starting to die down. The BBC for some reason really, really seems to be harping on to the near-exclusion of all the other stories. Looting must touch a chord somewhere in the British soul.

Edit: I mean, I love the Beeb and have been following it carefully, its resources are great. But when I read yesterday one of its pool reporters who said that, due to the looting and general messiness, "The people of Baghdad are in greater fear than they have ever known" I just had to shake my head. If they allow such hyperbolic tripe to hit their airwaves and website, I wonder exactly how much I can trust their objectivity.

Yay, us we won a hollow victory. Yay yay for us.

The Unamericans also are sort of group-thinky sometimes, but they're much more thoughtful about it.

So we're more thoughtful about the way we arrive at a sheeplike consensus? That's good to know.

"The people of Baghdad are in greater fear than they have ever known" I just had to shake my head. If they allow such hyperbolic tripe to hit their airwaves and website, I wonder exactly how much I can trust their objectivity.

You think their complete and utter anhialation is going to cheer them all up?

I remember how happy everyone felt after 9/11, we've just taken out their ENTIRE COUNTRY.

Yay for us.

Caroma, you really know how to butter up an audience, don't you?

Caroma, just how many of your in-person acquaintences opposed this war?

OK, OK. I had no idea people would take the story so seriously, I just thought it was a funny example of Iraqis and right-wing radio hosts converging, that's all. Sorry again. I'll leave now.

My mom. Most of the people at work. My pastor and some of the priests at my (very liberal) Catholic church. Almost all of the radio and TV outlets I go to regularly. The people here. Myself until I started to look at a variety of arguments from people like Elie Weisel and Tom Friedman. How about you and the opposite view?

Actually, a great many people in my life have not made their views known to me. There's been sort of a moratorium on discussing it among me and my friends. It's considered quite a gaffe to even bring it up in many circles in NYC, perhaps because of 9/11. And the people who do, on both sides, seem to want to talk only to people who already agree with them.

And Zoe, all I can say if that if we wanted to annihilate the country, you'd be seeing carnage on a scale that could be measured in the millions. Trust me. The measures the Coalition has taken to spare civilains have been incredible. Not foolproof, especially when dealing with an enemy that sees no problem with pushing women and children in front of them as they shoot, but amazingly effective.