"Ummm... Are you sure that's a good idea?" His smile was ear to ear. His finger hit the trigger, and he kickstarted a chorus, as other guns followed. Those holding the guns began dancing. The flashes set beautifully against the dimming sky, and the smoke rose majestically. The dancing went on.
It was a wedding party in Fallujah, so I wondered what the pilots overhead or the pilotless "predator" drone operators were thinking. The Americans have bombed a few wedding parties, and I couldn't help but wonder if this one was next. The street was filled with male well-wishers of prime fighting age (15 to dead), so it was conceivable that the Americans might "accidentally" bomb the wedding party, much as they "accidentally" bombed one close to Ramadi not long ago.
"Don't worry. It's fine." The sound of the predator overhead made me feel that the statement was dubious at best, but what can you do? I ate, I shook hands with the groom, I drank water, I got wild diahrrea, I squatted over some outhouse toilet for half an hour, I was forced to eat more, drank more water, back to the outhouse for 20 more minutes, and then I went to yet another safehouse for the night. I tried to sleep to the background noise of a full-fledged battle, more F16s and those omnipresent, omniscient predator drones.
tarek