Amidst the wall-to-wall coverage of the discovery of the missing UW-Madison coed this afternoon, there was little mention of the attack on U.S. contractors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. According to the Washington Post, recovering the mens' bodies for their families may be tough.

Crowds carried the bodies of two victims to the nearby Euphrates River and hung the corpses from one of two bridges that span the waterway. Hours later, the bodies were cut down, tossed onto a pile of tires and set afire.

The bodies were then dragged behind a donkey cart to Fallujah's municipal building and dumped there, only to be tied to the bumper of a car and dragged away to an unknown location.

Also according to the post, the town's residents had been warned ahead of time not to be in the area because an attack was planned on the Americans. It is unclear if anyone bothered to warn the Americans of the impending attack.

I was ticked off earlier when I heard what had been done to these Americans who were helping to guard a food convoy.

When I read the Post article I was infuriated.

Fallujah has long been a focal point for the Baathist insurgency with the privileged Sunni muslims angered at their diminished influence now that Saddam is out of power.

It's tempting to just evacuate the entire town and carpetbomb it into a very nice parking lot. Some would say that that would just feed their anger. I'm not sure that they can be made any more angry -- but a horrific display of American firepower would certainly make them afraid.

I'm not sure what the answer is, other than to make it very unpleasant to be opposed to the United States.

Suggestions are welcome.