Their bows cannot be broken soon enough

The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.

But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.

Psalms 37:12-15
NIV

Wednesday was a bad day in Iraq.

Baghdad ambush

Insurgents mounted a major ambush in Baghdad, killing up to 10 people and kidnapping one and possibly two African engineers in a second coordinated attack in the capital in as many days.

Roadside Bomb Kills Two Americans in Iraq

A roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying a U.S. security team near the southern city of Basra on Wednesday, killing two American civilians and seriously wounding a third, the U.S. Embassy said.

Violence against Iraqis

And a group of gunmen attacked a police station in Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, a spokesman for the Babil provincial police force said. Two officers were killed and four were wounded in the ensuing firefight, police Capt. Muthanna Ahmed said. The police captured three of the gunmen, Ahmed said, adding that one was a foreigner.

More than half of the day's death toll came from the less dramatic but nearly daily discovery of Iraqis who have been bound and shot in the head, then left in deserted areas to be found by police.

Baghdad police found seven people, believed to be Shiites, who had been executed in the Wahdah neighborhood, said Nuaimi, the Interior Ministry spokesman. He said he believed that the victims had been kidnapped from the same area a few days earlier.

In the town of Nibaei in northern Iraq, police found the bodies of 25 others, a police spokesman there said. A witness who had escaped the massacre told police that armed men had set up checkpoints and scanned the identity cards of passersby with the goal of killing police officers and other government employees, said Lt. Raed Mahdi Khazraji of the Salahuddin provincial police force.

It is folly to believe that those who murder civilians, those who murder children, and those who drag people from their cars and shoot them by the road, can ever be dissuaded from their violence through talk, and tender words.

And so, on these days our spirits often flag, for it seems like holding back this violence is like holding back the sea.

But let's remind ourselves of the good, of the progress that is undeniably there. The enemy's barbaric acts ought to renew the fire in our belly.

Like the Psalmist, we may not always understand the Good Lord's ways, and wonder why these evil people are loose among the innocent.

Violence is a plague worldwide. Numerous conflicts throughout Africa, the terrorism in Iraq, the terrorists in Syria and among the Palestinians, killers in the Caucasus, Iran's growing menace, the Islamic extremists in Bangladesh, more violence in Sri Lanka, the Maoists in Nepal, rebels in Columbia, militants plotting throughout Europe, and on and on.

It is the burden of those who stand for good to stand in the way of those who would do evil. Perserverance is required of us. There is only darkness if we fail.

There will be better days.