Roaring Twenties in Iraq

It’s beginning to look like those old gangster movies in Baghdad with Moktada al-Sadr playing Little Caesar.

Instead of selling bootleg booze, his machine gun-toting henchmen are distributing food, medicine and fuel to the locals while collecting protection money, about $4 a monthly, from residents.

Gang killings are routine, with Sunni bodies piled up at neighborhood boundaries to discourage incursions by rival outfits.

With the U.S.-backed central government as impotent as our 1920s Feds were to enforce Prohibition, outlaws are fighting it out while terrorizing the population.

Our gangster nightmare ended with the repeal of Prohibition when lawmakers realized they were engaged in a futile enterprise. Maybe Bush and Cheney should stop watching “High Noon” and study those Edward G. Robinson flicks.