"Accidents"

The Guardian UK reports that an Al-Arabiya employee was shot dead at a US checkpoint in Iraq.

Al-Arabiya employees said another colleague was wounded when another car sped past a US checkpoint in central Baghdad. They said troops fired on both cars, Reuters reported. A US military spokeswoman said she had no immediate information on the incident.

"I stopped in front of the checkpoint and then I saw another car coming fast towards it and I thought it was going to explode," said Ahmed Abdul Amiya, the driver of the Al-Arabiya car. "I tried to race away ... and then the Americans started firing at random. They hit the first car and then they started shooting at our car."

So--if you try to get away from a potential car bomb, you run the risk of getting shot. This kind of chaos will do nothing at all in the battle to win hearts and minds. And, if we DON'T win that battle, forget about ever declaring victory in this war.