A sickening vortex

We seem to now be in a desperate whirlpool of violence in which both sides seem unable to stop elements from their side from doing their best to aid the recruitment efforts of the other side. Elements of our military intelligence insist on "softening up" detainees and untrained GIs take trophy pictures. Monsters of the insurgency behead American contractors. We inflame the worst passions of the occupied, leading to atrocities which in turn inflame the worst passions of the Right wingnuts, leading to Fallujahs.

After the initial wave of nausea and despair, this paragraph struck me:

"Mr. Berg's mother told The A.P. that her son had been in Iraq from December to February seeking work rebuilding the country's infrastructure. After a short stay back home, she said, he returned to Iraq in March. He later told them that he had been jailed by Iraqi officials after being stopped at a checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul before he could return home, as planned, on March 30."

Hmmm. Iraqi officials? And Mosul is in Northern Iraq, near Kurdistan but farther, I thought, than most of the insurgency violence.