Bowser, to put it bluntly, you have no idea what's going on over there, and frankly, it's too damn much work to keep educating somebody who gets every bit of their information from MSNBC, and doesn't even bother to analyze that effectively.

Do you know who these "officials" in Iraq were? Who runs the police force, hospitals (and almost everything else) in Sadr City? (Hint: They don't call it "Sadr City" because they make circuit boards there). Are RPGs and buried bombs normal civilian equipment? Does our side use civilians as cover? While you instinctively dismiss any U.S. statements on the incident, why do you take the word of anonymous bystanders as gospel?

I'll make the point again, and maybe it will sink in:

We are fighting a war in which individual civilian casualties get their own news stories.

To anyone with a historical perspective, this would say a lot. That the U.S. media, still fighting for an American defeat, spends page after page waving the bloody shirts around, is another issue. Try to remember the last time photos of the victims of an al Qaeda bombing ended up on the wires.

Oh, you might want to check the tally on "hearts and minds" in Iraq lately, and see who's coming out ahead.