Maybe AK is Right

See AK's posts about the chances for Iraqi cohesion here and our debates about the militias here. From the NY Times.

The loudest sounds emanating from musicians' row these days come from explosions.

Ahmed Ali walked through a shop that sold musical instruments before it was gutted by a bombing a week earlier, the latest in a series of mysterious attacks in this narrow alley in the last half-year, he said. The men here, just a block from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, sell instruments by day and perform at weddings in the evening.

This music store in Basra was bombed, and the owners suspect that the crime was committed by extremists who consider music to be un-Islamic.

"They say it's forbidden by Islam," Mr. Ali, 18, said as he went back to his own shop, its shelves stocked with drums. "We're afraid of everything. I'm afraid of it all. I'm afraid even when I'm talking to you."