This Will End Well

One of Casey's hallmarks in Korea was spotting and reporting on "crackdowns."  He was quite the expert, and could slap up commentary on a crackdown before the government even got it off the ground.  

So it is with no end of glee that I found this before he did.  

What the helicopters and commentary mean, though, is that once again the US is taking an active hand in playing Whack-A-Mahdi, and that did not play out so well last time.  It's only been the Mahdi Army's willingness to maintain a truce that has allowed the US to pretend that The Surge™ was working.  If the Mahdi Army decides that the gloves are back off again, well, the US occupation sits at the end of a very long and vulnerable logistics line, and trucks driving through the Shi'ite portion of the country will find it more than a little bit harder to deliver the supplies needed to keep the occupation going.