Meanwhile in the War on Terror

From Juan Cole on the latest Black Hawks down:

Eyewitnesses near Mosul say that they saw a low-flying Black Hawk helicopter take ground fire and turn ablaze before trying to gain altitude and crashing into another Black Hawk above it. The collision killed 17 US troops, injured 5, and left one missing. Over 400 US troops have now died in the Iraq war and its aftermath from all causes.

What will be the retaliation for that, I wonder. More buildings razed? More civilians targeted? What?

From Baghdad Burning comes an Iraqi citizen's account of the activity over there:

These last few days have been tense- gunshots, helicopters, and explosions....

The kids reacted differently- the older one, ran to sit beside her mother, as far away from the living-room window as possible. ...The younger one was silent and stoic. You can hardly tell she's scared except that if you sit particularly close, you can hear her grinding her little teeth, which is what she does when she's frightened. It drives my cousin crazy because the kid loses herself in a sort of trance when she does that and it's all we can do to keep her mind off of whatever she's brooding about. At one point she asked, "Is it war again?" No, it isn't war, dear… the helicopters, tanks, missiles, rattling windows and explosions aren't war- they are 'protection': they are Operation Iron Hammer, not to be confused with war.

...The 14th of July Bridge was closed again. The 14th of July Bridge is also known as the "Mu'alaq Bridge", or the suspended bridge. It's the bridge I described in one of my earlier posts. The bridge was closed to civilians during the war (after the 9th of April, I think) and was re-opened about two weeks ago. I haven't been on the bridge since late March. I dread having to cross it again because it was the scene of many horrible deaths- many civilian cars were burned on that bridge. A friend of ours lost his wife and dog on that bridge when a tank fired at his SUV in April. It was 5 days before he was allowed to remove her corpse from the burnt vehicle and give her a proper burial.

I heard about the new 'acceleration to transfer power' to the GC. I'm not sure how it's going to work. Chalabi gave his speech in English today with Talbani on his right and Pachachi peering over his shoulder on the left. I read Juan Cole's blog and he describes a report given by ABC , which didn't sound like the speech. From the speech, I gathered that by June, the GC would nominate and elect a 'sovereign government'. But, again, who elected the GC? Someone asked Talabani, I think, whether the same GC members would actually be in the 'elected' government, the answer was "Yes, if our parties still want us as their representatives". I'll have to look into it more. I'm still not sure what this means. There's still some confusion here as to how this whole new government will be chosen by June...

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.