This is not progress

Dear god:

The explosion on Saturday morning, in the sprawling Sadr City district, ignited dozens of cars around the marketplace and sent a thick column of smoke above the skyline of eastern Baghdad, framing minarets in the foreground.

Ambulances raced through streets littered with smashed apple crates and wrecked stalls to carry wailing victims to nearby hospitals. As firefighters struggled to hose down the flames, Shiite militiamen tried to coax angry mobs of onlookers to leave, fearing that another bomb would go off. A tarpaulin covered the body of a donkey in a pool of blood. Children threw rocks at American and Iraqi soldiers who drove up in Humvees. One American soldier pointed an assault rifle with a grenade launcher at the children to scare them off. Men and boys screamed slurs about the Americans and the new Iraqi government.