Dispatch From the Religion of Peace

Practitioners of the R.O.P. are outdoing themselves.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Militants broke into two schools in a mainly Shiite district of Baghdad and "slaughtered" two teachers in front of their pupils, the Iraqi government said Wednesday.

Don't you love the way Reuters puts "slaughtered" in scare quotes? As if that's what the Iraqis call it, but Reuters isn't so sure that's the appropriate word.

Update: Here's MSNBC's report on the incident. You can decide for yourself whether "slaughter" works for you:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Separate groups of gunmen entered two primary schools in Baghdad on Wednesday and beheaded two teachers in front of their students, the Ministry of State for National Security said.

“Two terrorist groups beheaded two teachers in front of their students in the Amna and Shaheed Hamdi primary schools in Shaab district in Baghdad,” a ministry statement said.

With a firm grasp of the obvious, we are treated to this bit of high-end analysis:

A ministry official said he believed the attacks were aimed at “intimidating pupils and disrupting learning.”

Yeah, having headless teachers does tend to disrupt learning.