Blast

One hundred twenty five people are dead--thus far--following a car bomb detonation in Hilla (approximately 60 miles south of Baghdad). Most of the victims were police recruits.

The United States has a moral, if not legal, obligation to maintain order in territory occupied by the United States military. Car bombs that kill over a hundred people are a pretty clear indication that order isn't being maintained. It also suggests that the election didn't matter one bit to the insurgency--and that whoever the new "government" turns out to be will have a hell of a crisis once they assume "power" (and, let's face it--the REAL government will be whoever is in charge of the fortress embassy the US will try to construct in Baghdad).

The United States and the puppet government we will control are faced with a most difficult problem in Iraq. The only POSSIBLE way to defeat the insurgency--the only POSSIBLE way--will be to embark on a very Saddam-like program of mass killing...but even that is a long shot, no pun intended, due to the fact that our forces on the ground don't have the intelligence and security apparatus the Butcher of Baghdad possessed. It is the absence of this apparatus that leads to things like the car bombing today--which was massive, the biggest car bomb detonated by the insurgents to date. A decently run occupation would catch something like this. A poorly run occupation will hide behind walls and do nothing.

I think the evidence makes it pretty clear what kind of occupation we've got.