A NO MAN'S LAND OF BARBARISM AND BUTCHERY

Hurricane Katrina has swept news of the war in Iraq from the headlines, but the insurgents haven't taken a break from their acts of slaughter and mayhem.

Wednesday marked one of the bloodiest days in the two and a half-year-old war, as insurgents killed at least 151 people in more than a dozen attacks. And once again today, at least 30 people - many of them police officers - were killed in a series of attacks.

This type of carnage in the U.S. would be historical and would occupy front pages for weeks. But atrocities like these have become typical in Iraq. Things have gotten so bad that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani asked the world for help in defeating terrorists in a speech Thursday at the United Nations in New York.

"Iraq's war on terror requires diverse international help, not only for the sake of Iraq, but also for the sake of the whole world," he said.

The U.S. military seems helpless to stop the insurgents, and the White House admitted last month that it cannot defeat the insurgency, but only hopes to quell it.

The atmosphere of lawlessness is so pervasive in Iraq, that the murder rate among ordinary citizens, not insurgents, has skyrocketed. Death squads ride around Baghdad killing indiscriminately in an effort top spark sectarian hatred. Bagdad, a city of 5 million people, saw 880 murders in July alone. Most victims were shot to death while others were beheaded. These killings do not include those that resulted from the numerous terrorist attacks, such as car bombs and suicide bombs, that occur on a daily basis. In comparison, New york City, a metropolis of more than 8 million people had a total of 571 homicides in all of last year.

Iraq has become a no man's land of barbarism and butchery. It is now an apocalyptic landscape of atrocities and organized chaos. People in a civilized society likely can't conceive of an environment with such a staggering level of murder and mayhem. But harrowing days of epic violence have become commonplace in Iraq. And for its citizens, sadly, such is life these days.

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