This is what is known in the trade as fucking awful. More than 640 dead, 230 injured in Baghdad thanks to mere RUMOURS of possible suicide bombers, following mortar attacks on a crowd of religious pilgrims.

It should by now be obvious that the people launching these attacks have no more claim to be a muslim than I do. Sooner or later it should also become obvious that if you are living in a state of fear and panic, this sort of tragedy becomes, even if not on this horrific scale, inevitable. Lessons to be learned for Sir Ian “terrorists are everywhere and we can’t stop them” Blair, perhaps?

Still, political points should not be made over the bodies of the dead. But I hold out little hope of any western nations offering anything like the kind or quantity of messages of support and condolence to Iraq over this that London received in the wake of our bombings. Hey, it may be twelve times the death toll (as it stands), but they aren’t westerners, so what does it matter, eh?