NO WONDER EVEN PAUL KRUGMAN HAS GIVEN UP ON AL QAEDA:

Baghdad book market active again (Kuwait Times, January 05, 2008

Dusty books lie on flattened cardboard boxes on a sidewalk buried in litter and building debris. Their vendors hunch their shoulders and sip hot black tea to fend off the cold. What matters is that they're here. The revival of the Mutanabi Street book market is a microcosm of today's Baghdad.

The titles on display reflect a live-and-let-live mentality shared by Sunni and Shiite vendors. The wreckage, the deserted buildings and devastated Shahbandar coffee house are the scars from years of violence. The ambitious facelift now under way on Mutanabi Street attests to a hope for better things now that violence in Baghdad is noticeably down.