While many newspapers and blogs reported on the 21 merchants ambushed and murdered the day after Sen. McCain's stroll through Baghdad's Shorja market, they all used the same source, the Times of London.

So I was a little surprised to read Pepe Escobar's off the cuff (off the keffiah?) and unattributed reference to the ambush in Part 1 of his new series, Baghdad Up Close and Personal.

We are unembedded, non-Hummer convoy-transported, non-Kevlar protected, and not surrounded by 100 soldiers and circled overhead by three Black Hawks and two Apaches, like US presidential candidate John MacCain in his recent visit ("Hello, habibi!") to Shorja market (the next day 21 merchants and workers at the market were ambushed and murdered).

Has anyone else seen this story reported from any source other than the Times of London?

The article is well worth reading, anyway. It gives you the flavor of Baghdad when it is not the backdrop for a Presidential wannabe photo-op.

But even by 5pm the streets are already deserted. Cultural life is non-existent. The artisans in the souk al-Rashid are gone. The booksellers on al-Mutanabi are gone. The windows in countless buildings remain smashed. The al-Rashid telephone exchange, or the Ministry of Finance, or the Ministry of Planning by the Green Zone, remain post-modern cement deconstructions, Swiss cheese-style.

Until recently, a gruesome ritual was being performed in Yarmouk - the showing off of the cadavers of the day at noon, or guerrillas telling families to look for their relatives as if they were in Bala, a well-known second-hand market ("you look inside the bags, and you can match an arm with another, or a leg with a foot").

McCain didn't mention visiting the Bala style market. Blood apparently ruins a good backdrop...and $5.00 Persian rugs.