YOU’VE ALMOST CERTAINLY SEEN THIS ALREADY, BUT IF NOT: Healing Iraq: “A coup d’etat is taking place in Iraq a the moment. Al-Shu’la, Al-Hurria, Thawra (Sadr city), and Kadhimiya (all Shi’ite neighbourhoods in Baghdad) have been declared liberated from occupation. Looting has already started at some places downtown, a friend of mine just returned from Sadun street and he says Al-Mahdi militiamen are breaking stores and clinics open and also at Tahrir square just across the river from the Green Zone. News from other cities in the south indicate that Sadr followers (tens of thousands of them) have taken over IP stations and governorate buildings in Kufa, Nassiriya, Ammara, Kut, and Basrah. Al-Jazeera says that policemen in these cities have sided with the Shia insurgents, which doesn’t come as a surprise to me since a large portion of the police forces in these areas were recruited from Shi’ite militias and we have talked about that ages ago. And it looks like this move has been planned a long time ago.

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Raed Jarrar (“People wonder all the time, why do Iraqis have this image about the magical solutions of Americans? Why don’t they move and change things by themselves? Because this is what the American media promised them! I mean… I fought against that for months and tried to tell everyone that ‘it is YOUR responsibility to rebuild your country’, most of those people are wrong… I know… but I can see why they are acting in this way. …If that was the case, why didn’t you leave Iraqis solve their problems alone from the beginning? Who asked you to start the fire and go?”) and Sun of Iraq (“I’m writing these words while I heard explosions sound which shaking the place”) are also blogging.