Oh yeah, Iraq.

Still going to hell in a handbasket.

Not that I've blogged about it much. In case you guys haven't noticed, I seem to be on a one-panda mission to make up for the supposed deficit of blogging from the Liberal blogisphere on the Israeli/Lebanon crisis. There are reasons for this -- first of all, I think it's a positive thing when bloggers get stuck on one topic (as long as it's not taken to ridiculous extremes). No individual blog claims to give its reader everything they need to know. I think the quality of my postings improve when I follow one story fairly closely than when I try to hit all the issues all the time. Secondly, Lebanon is a rapidly developing story while Iraq is festering along an all-too-predictable trajectory. The paths taken and not taken in those initial days and weeks can potentially have repecussions years down the line and all over the region. Thirdly, Lebanon was a bright spot, dammit. In a region full of basket-cases, it had somehow shucked off dire crisis to gain a precarious foothold on normality and hope. Iraq fell from one circle of hell to another; Lebanon was working on crawling her way out when somebody stepped on her fingers.

Yep, the Iraqis have it way worse than the Lebanese. And the Refugees in Dafur have it way worse than the Iraqis. It's good to remind ourselves of that fact, even if we don't always ration our attention according to the magnitude of their sufferings.