Traffic Control in Baghdad

A moving passage from Thursday's NYT:

General Mraweh is passionate about traffic control. He is particularly irked by the driving behavior by the employees of security companies like Blackwater, who sometimes throw water bottles at people walking down the street or shoot their guns in the air to clear the road, he said.

But primarily, General Mraweh sees his job as a way to piece together his shattered country.

'If everyone says there are killings, there are massacres, then I will stay powerless at home and this will disable the country,” he said. “But if the grocer goes to work, the merchant goes to work, I go to work, even you go to work, there will be no more killing, and the criminal will be afraid and he will go back to his den like a mouse.'

As for Blackwater, one is likely in Kuwait to hear 'absolute cowboys' at the mention of their name.