AN ALTERNATE EXPLANATION

Police experts have suggested "contagious shooting" may have played a role in a deadly New York incident when five officers fired 50 rounds at a man.

The experts said the phenomenon, which is characterized by gunfire spreading among officers who suspect they are being threatened, may have come into play in the shooting of Sean Bell outside a strip club, The New York Times reported Monday....

--UPI

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WASHINGTON (API) -- A senior administration official insisted today that the situation in Iraq was not a "civil war," and suggested an alternate explanation for the increasing bloodshed.

"It's 'contagious terrorism,'" said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Iraqis see violence and react by impulsively planting their own IEDs, or by spontaneously kidnapping other Iraqis, torturing them with power tools, beheading them, and leaving their bodies in ditches.

"It's simple human nature," the official went on to say. "You see bloodshed all around you, and naturally your first impulse is to set up a checkpoint, drag people out of their cars, and execute them in cold blood. Or to blow up other people's houses of worship. Or to set off mortar rounds in their neighborhoods.

"Isn't that obvious?"