As long as I'm already depressed

From AP.

A thunderous car bomb shattered a five-story hotel housing foreigners in central Baghdad on Wednesday night, killing 27 people and leaving a jagged, 20-foot-wide crater just days before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

Flames and heavy smoke burst skyward from the Mount Lebanon Hotel, torching nearby homes, offices and shops along with palm and eucalyptus trees. Rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble and searched for other victims of the attack, which wounded 41 people. ...

The blast ignited at least eight cars, one of which was hurled into a store. Some vehicles were little more than mangled piles of metal. The explosion blew bricks, air conditioners, furniture, wires and other debris hundreds of yards from the hotel. ...

Across the street from the Mount Lebanon Hotel, the one-story house of a Christian family of seven was virtually destroyed. The bodies of a man and a woman were pulled from the debris.

A two-story annex belonging to the Baghdad Hospital was in flames, with one side sheared off. A separate two-story complex of offices and shops was also badly damaged.

The bomb was estimated by the US military as containing 1,000 pounds of explosives in a mix of plastic explosives and artillery shells. In the hours following the blast, some officials named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a chief suspect. That is a real possibility, but Zarqawi is becoming Iraq's version of al-Qaeda: Every attack, it seems, is somehow "linked" to him by the authorities.

The hotel was a so-called "soft" target, not as heavily protected as some other places. But why was it targeted? Interesting, although the place catered to foreigners,

some residents in the area said they believed guests left the hotel a week ago after its management received threats.

I wonder if the bombers knew that. And if they did, would it have mattered.