Good Morning Viet Nam Iraq!

FUBAR: adj. acronym: F***ed Up Beyond All Repair. Military slang; likely originated during the Korean or Viet Nam conflicts.

On the ride to work this morning, there was a brief discussion on the situation in Iraq on Morning Edition. I didn't catch who the speaker was, but he offered two scenarios for the future of Iraq: The first - and the best we could hope for - was continued violence and unrest for the foreseeable future. The second - and worst - was that the violence would spiral completely out of control into civil war. This Middle East expert didn't offer any sunnier prospects. He obviously hasn't drunk the neocon Kool-Aid yet.

Then there's this from the Wall Street Journal, this morning:

Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and one Briton in the Iraqi capital, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The three were seized from their house in Baghdad's al-Mansour neighborhood at dawn Thursday, said ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman. He didn't give their identities or say who they worked for. Col. Abdel-Rahman had earlier said the three were all British nationals.

[snip]

Separately, a car bomb exploded Wednesday in a town south of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring 10, said Col. Abdel-Rahman. The car was targeting a National Guard checkpoint in Suwayrah, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Col. Abdel-Rahman said. One national guardsman was among the dead, he said. No further details were available.

[snip]

Also Wednesday, three beheaded bodies were found on a road north of Baghdad, authorities said.

No... no quagmire here, move along, nothing to see. Look, over there, Jessica Simpson is playing Daisy Duke!

UPDATE: More on the first story in today's NYT.