"sending a message"

this might be the 4th or 5th time I've heard this in the past week or so. In his latest column, Larry Johnson discusses what we're dealing with in Iraq... and references the mass/execution-style killings which have almost become commonplace....

What is now painfully clear is that the Shia are making great strides in consolidating their power in Iraq. The violence in most of Iraq will probably abate over the next year but at a cost of ethnic cleansing in which Shia and Sunni will cluster in areas that they each control. The Sunni have few viable options and will continue to hit Shia neighbors and "Iraqi Government" targets with terrorist attacks. The Shia, with expert guidance from Iran, will embark on a campaign of strategic assassinations. We are not likely to see the equivalent of a Gettysburg or Antietam. But, make no mistake, there will be significant bloodletting. Most of it will not be carried out in a spectacular fashion that television can easily broadcast. The murders, as we have seen in the last year, will be carried out in groups of 10 or 20 people at a time. People will disappear in the night and turn up in mass graves or stacked at a street corner in order to send a message to the rest of the community.

but make sure not to say the words "Civil War", even if it's an appropriate description. That particular phrase is as off-limits as "quagmire" or any analogy involving the words "Viet Nam".