Today in Iraq

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, December 30, 2006 Photo: U.S. Army soldiers from 2nd Batallion, 17th Field Artillary Regiment patrol in a street in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) December became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in two years after the U.S. military reported six more combat deaths, leaving the tally just two short of the emotive 3,000 mark. Three U.S. marines died on Thursday from wounds suffered in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province. One soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad and another soldier was killed in Anbar on Friday, the military said on Saturday. Another statement announced the death of a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb in southwest Baghdad on Friday. The latest deaths take the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the invasion of March 2003 to 2,998, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number who died in December is now 109, three more than the previous high this year in October, and the highest since November 2004 when 137 U.S. servicemen and women died. OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: A series of three coordinated car bombs exploded in a district in Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 25. The three cars exploded in rapid succession some 10 hours after the pre-dawn execution of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Two car bombs went off in succession on Saturday in the Shiite Hurriya city in Baghdad, killing and wounding scores of people, eyewitnesses said. "A car bomb went off today at 3:30 pm (Baghdad local time) near a popular market in al-Hurriya I, northwest of Baghdad, killing and wounding an unidentified number of casualties," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Another eyewitness said "a second car bomb was detonated, few minutes apart, near a market in al-Hurriya II, and that scores of shoppers were killed or wounded." It was not possible to immediately contact police sources to report the death toll. The blasts came only hours after the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged. Yet another car bombing, this time outside the Al-Iskan children's hospital north of Baghdad, killed at least two people and wounded eight.

A car bomb killed two people and wounded eight in Baghdad's western Mansour neighbourhood. A car bomb in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Saidiya wounded two policemen. Fallujah: The Iraqi police said on Saturday angry gunmen attacked and burnt out a police station and a court building in Garma district near Falluja. The gunmen later fled the scene after they burnt out the buildings of the police station and court with no reports of casualties, the source added. "U.S. forces rushed and cordoned off the area and raided some houses nearby," the source said. The source said "the gunmen were in cars that carried portraits of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein." A U.S. base in Falluja came under mortar attacks while explosive devices went off near two U.S. patrols in separate incidents in central Falluja, according to a security source on Friday. Tal Afar: A suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body killed five people and wounded six in the northern city of Tal Afar. Kufa: Police in Kufa, near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, said 36 people were killed and 58 wounded by the car bomb at a market packed with shoppers ahead of the week-long Eid al-Adha holiday. They said a mob killed a man they accused of planting the bomb in the town about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad. Mahmudiya: Police said the bodies of four people who had been tortured and shot dead were found in Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad. Touz Khormato: Four Iraqi army soldiers were killed and a fifth was wounded in an armed attack on an army checkpoint in Touz Khormato town, Salah Eddin province, on Friday. Shatra: Eyewitness reported an exchange of gunfire between Mahdi Army elements and tribesmen in the town of Shatra, north of Nasriyah, according to Nasriyah News Net. The police closed all roads leading to the town and banned vehicles from entering following the clashes, which broke out because a member of the tribe was being held by Mahdi militiamen at the Martyr Sadr's Bureau. Similar clashes erupted in Hayy, south of Kut. >> NEWS Saddam dead at dawn: Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn in Baghdad today, with the former Iraqi dictator refusing to wear a hood and yelling "God is great" as he stood on the gallows.

Citizens in the Shi'ite district of Abu Dshir, south of Baghdad, distributed sweets and chanted religious slogans in celebration of the news of Saddam's execution, but many voiced their doubts. "I doubt that he was really executed because they were supposed to broadcast the whole procedure for the people," said Walaa' Nusayif, 35, "I think that whatever images of his execution they broadcast will be doctored." Meanwhile in Karbala, citizens fired celebratory gunfire while the police declared an emergency in fear of violence breaking out. "I didn't sleep at all," said Mohammed Abdul Hussein, a civil servant, "I had a sense that he would be executed at dawn, so I kept the electric generator on all night until we saw the news on satellite channels." Police officials in Karbla stated that the increased security measures were a precaution against any retaliatory or terrorist attacks against citizens. Despite the celebratory environment, many citizens showed indifference. "Will the execution of Saddam return the smile to the faces of Iraqis who are suffering from fear and terrorism?" asked Um Hussein, "I doubt it because things will only get worse. Abu Ali, a retired state employee, said politicians decided Saddam's execution because they were searching for some gains in Iraq. "Saddam's execution means nothing to me because it will not bring back security to me," he said. Celebrations were also reported in the southern Iraqi cities of Najaf, Kut, Amara, Nasiriya and Basrah. There were protests and parades with demonstrators carrying posters of Saddam in the Sunni towns of Tikrit, Baiji, Ramadi and Garma. Police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets of Tikrit, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air, and calling for vengeance. Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 people took to the streets protesting the execution of Saddam. A couple hundred people also protested the execution just outside the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and more than 2,000 people demonstrated in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where Saddam was captured by U.S. troops hiding in an underground bunker. Saddam Hussein's Baath Party exhorted Iraqis to "strike without mercy" at the U.S. occupiers and Shi'ite Iran to avenge the execution of Iraq's former president but warned them not to be drawn into a civil war. "Today is your great day. Strike without mercy at the joint enemy in Iraq -- America and Iran," the party said in a statement posted on an Iraqi Web site on Saturday. "Forget your organisational structures and take the stand of honour you deserve which is to take revenge for Saddam Hussein," said the statement, posted on the www.albasrah.net. (...) The pan-Arab Baath Party, which ruled Iraq for more than three decades until Saddam's fall but is now banned, warned followers to avoid harming fellow Iraqis. "Let your destructive response be by stepping up jihad (holy struggle) against the occupation and against Iran," said the statement. "Avoid reactions against Iraqis because this is what Iran and America want, which is to turn your holy jihad against the American-Iranian invasion into a civil war." "Our revenge from America and Iran is in defeating the occupation and causing it bigger losses."

The United Nations, the Vatican and Washington's European allies all condemned the execution on moral grounds. Many Muslims, especially Sunnis, making the haj pilgrimage to Mecca were also outraged by the symbolism of hanging Saddam on the holiest day of the year at the start of Eid al-Adha -- some Shi'ites also said his death was a suitable gift from God.

>> REPORTS December shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths in Iraq since the AP began keeping track in May 2005. Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to the AP count. That compares to at least 2,184 killed in November at an average of about 70 a day, the worst month for Iraqi civilians deaths since May 2005. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed. The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported. IraqSlogger: ARMY TIMES POLL: UNHAPPY TROOPS The American military, staunch supporters of President Bush and the Iraq war -- has grown increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory, according to the 2006 Military Times Poll, with results published in Army Times. Excerpts from the article are below.

The survey, which polled 6,000 active duty people at random (...) found that for the first time, more troops disapprove of the president's handling of the war than approve. The president's rating is low -- barely one-third of service members approve of the way of his handling the war. (...) In 2004, when the military was feeling most optimistic about the war, 83 percent of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number was only 50 percent. Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president's approval rating among the military is only slightly higher than for the population as a whole. In this year's poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. Almost half of those responding think we need more troops in Iraq than we have there now. A surprising 13 percent said we should have no troops there.

read in full... Missing Links: ANOTHER NEWSPAPER REPORT ON POTENTIAL CRIMINAL CASES AGAINST IRAQI GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS According to the London pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, a spokesman for Saleh al-Mutlak's National Dialogue Front (Sunni) said officials in the current and former Iraqi governments should be brought before international courts for prosecution for crimes against humanity worse than those of Saddam Hussein. The spokesman, Mohamed Dayani, said the parliamentary opposition alliance has presented more than 600 supporting documents as evidence to war-crimes courts, and has sent many files which confirm the commiting of these crimes by officials of the various governments under the occupation, including the "governing council", the "transitional" and the "interim" governments, up to and including the present government. He said the targets include a group of important political and military persons involved in creation of death-squads, and genocide (ibada jamaiya: group extermination) against Iraqis, and the persons include Abdulaziz al-Hakim, head of SCIRI and leader of the UIA parliamentary group; Ibrahim Jaafari, the former Prime Minister; Abu Hassan al-Amari, head of the Badr Corps; Baqr Jabbar Solargh, Interior Minister under Jaafari and currently Finance Minister; Muwaffaq al-Rubaie current national security adviser; along with a group of senior Iraqi army officers. Dayani added that there has been formed a judicial council made up of Arabs, Americans and Europeans, to study these documents and files that have been presented by the parliamentary opposition to the special court for war crimes. read in full... Alive In Baghdad: CHRISTMAS SPECIAL - 12.25.2006 Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Eid Sa'eed, and whatever else you may celebrate. This week we're taking a look back at 2006, and a year of video about Iraq, by Iraqis. link >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS Media Lens Message Board: THE WESTERN ANTI WAR MOVEMENT - THE LEFT BOOT OF IMPERIALISM? The silence of the western antiwar movement on the lynching of Saddam Hussein is deafening and is increasingly beginning to prove what a lot of discerning people have suspected all along - that the mainstream anti-war movement (including large parts of its left wing) in the west is the well concealed left boot of western imperialism, the conscience of the conqueror. The main reason given by western radicals - including many on this board for ignoring the assassination of the deposed Iraqi president is the crimes against humanity he has allegedly committed. How many of these 'left' activists then would welcome a Chinese invasion of the British Isles, the sacking of British cities, the incarceration and torture of tens of thousands of English youths in concentration camps scattered along the Yorkshire Dales, the murder of a million British citizens (the equivalent of the Iraq dead) if the reason Beijing gave for the invasion was to arrest, try and execute Tony Blair for the limitless war crimes he has directly and indirectly carried out in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine over the last three years - killing in Iraq alone (in 3 years) more than Saddam killed in 35. Saddam Hussein has not been tried; he has been executed by the west's leaders, while their 'radical' sons look the other way. If a serial killer was brought to trial in the UK and during the trial three of his defence lawyers were kidnapped, tortured and murdered, (clearly by state agents) the media lens message board for one will be heaving with anger and righteous fury, but now there is only silence. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but as president of Iraq, he represented something which nobody ever talks about these days, the sovereignty of his nation, by his judicial murder by a foreign invader the sovereignty of every poor third world nation has just been executed. The reason why the left in the west cares so little about that is because the sovereignty of poor nations is as much a threat to them as it is to their ruling circles. (...) The primary contradiction for the last 500 years has not been between classes but between nations, the poor and the rich ones. It has been a struggle by the west to dominate and control the rest of humanity. While the ordinary people in the west do not participate in the oppression willingly, many of them share the same patronising and superior attitudes of their leaders. Thus even when they support the struggles of the oppressed in the poor world it is with conditions and qualifications that are never applied to them when they face similar circumstances. It is this ingrained and unconscious superiority that made then overlook the humiliation of Saddam - checking his hair on camera for lice, something they would have baulked at if it had probably been done on the German Herman Goring - who was treated with great personal dignity - in full uniform and well groomed throughout the trial at Nuremberg as was Slobodan Milosevic another 'northern tyrant'. read in full... The Horny Rabbit: COINCIDENCES OR CHOREOGRAPHY? So ... ... the day after Bush has his war-thinking team down Crawford way ... ... and just a few days before W. tries to convince the nation that his plans for Iraq are enjoying a new beginning ... ... Saddam Hussein "coincidentally" reaches paradise on the end of a rope? This thing is more choreographed than Oklahoma. link Mirza Yawar Baig: THE BLACK BULL DIED TODAY They did it. They gave this Ummah a sacrifice on the day of Eid ul Adha. What an unforgettable Eid!! A human sacrifice. Not a sheep or goat. What a message!! Wow!! What a powerful message that I am sure has shaken all the thrones of the puppets who are watching the events. Poor puppets!! Saddam Hussain, they say, is dead. The news reporting is one good example of the pimp press in full swing. If anyone who is not suffering from amnesia can recall, 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' was a phrase coined by American foreign policy experts to lie to their own nation and the world and justify their invasion of Iraq. Then their lie was exposed but by then their objective of looting Iraq's oil had also been accomplished. They had control of the oil fields. And in the process a few hundred thousand Iraqis died at the hands of Americans; well that is inevitable - collateral damage. As they say Weapons of Mass Deception - which of course the pimp press is responsible for and continues to perpetrate on the world. Death is not the "item" in the news. It is the death of the myth of American justice and freedom. So now we can all breathe freely as we see the true nature of the animal before us. Even those who continued to insist on living in doubt can deny it no longer. But watch out!! This news item and a million like it, floating on the net or shouting themselves hoarse on the TV are all focused on trying to make you and me distracted from the reality of what we are seeing here. So they talk about how brutal Saddam was and how many people he killed and how he 'started' the Iraq-Iran war. The issue of course is none of those things. If these were in fact issues, then we would see Bush and all his cronies and most of their puppets sitting on thrones in their gilded prisons, swinging from the gallows long before Saddam came anywhere near them. The issue is America's right to invade a sovereign nation. Any country's right to invade and occupy another sovereign nation and loot its wealth. That is the issue. Are we, the people of the world saying that it is the right of America or anyone with the power to do so, to take by force what they want from whoever they want? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the rapist to rape? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the bandit or the highway robber to hold you up and take from you what he wishes by force? Because in my opinion, by remaining silent, that is exactly what we will be saying. You decide what you want to do. I have already made my decision as you can see. read in full... Left I on the News: ALL SADDAM'S FAULT Headline:

Saddam's reign leaves destruction behind

The article is exemplified by its final paragraphs:

Wahid Abdel Meguid, deputy director of Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said Iraq will need decades to recover from Saddam. "Saddam leaves behind misery and destruction everywhere," he said. "It is a society imbued with fear."

Yeah, that was Saddam's fault. George Bush and U.S. imperialism had nothing to do with it. Remarkable how powerful Saddam has been in the last few years from the inside of a jail cell, isn't it? Re-read Hannah Allam's article about how much fear has increased just in the last year and tell me about how it was all Saddam's fault. Saddam was no saint. But the blame for the destruction and fear reigning in Iraq (not to mention the million and a half Iraqis killed by the sanctions and the U.S. invasion and occupation) lies squarely in Washington, D.C. link Abu Aardvark: SADDAM'S EXECUTION COMES AT THE HANDS OF THE SAME FORCES WHICH HAVE TURNED IRAQ INTO A BLOODY MASS GRAVE Ghassan Cherbel summed up a common view in his al-Hayat column yesterday which argued that "the fate of Saddam Hussein the person is not important." It is absurd to defend Saddam, he writes, given his well-known crimes, even if - echoing a very common theme in the Arab debates - Iraq's condition today is worse than under Saddam. But executing Saddam today amounts to a death sentence against Iraq itself. Saddam was a horrible dictator, but at least during his rule Iraq existed - and from Cherbel's Arab nationalist perspective, the destruction of Iraq is the worst of all. Al-Quds al-Arabi focuses on the ways in which Saddam's execution will inflame the Iraqi internal situation. It describes the decision by the Americans to execute Saddam at this time as yet another strategic error in a long line of American strategic errors. It argues that the execution will put an end to any hope of political dialogue with the Sunni community, and will have a very negative impact on American - (Sunni) Arab relations far beyond Iraq. It predicts a dramatic escalation in the size and destructiveness of attacks on American targets, as the Baathist insurgency seeks revenge and abandons any faith in the political process (which it has in fact threatened, in a statement reported in al-Quds al-Arabi yesterday). The transfer of Saddam from American to Iraqi authority is fooling nobody at all. Tahir al-Udwan, a prominent Jordanian journalist, writes that Saddam's execution will be and should be judged as an American act, regardless of who actually executes him. The trial lacks all legal legitimacy, he writes, and can not be taken seriously as a legal exercise (relatedly, I saw Tareq Aziz's lawyer on al-Arabiya arguing that the execution is actually illegal under Iraqi law - which requires 30 days in between sentencing and the execution). Echoing Cherbel's formulation above (and many other Arab commentators) Udwan writes that Iraq itself is being snuffed out by the same forces which will hang Saddam. Al-Quds al-Arabi editor Abd al-Bari Atwan (in the course of a depressing essay which claims that Saddam will go to his death with head held high) similarly argues that Saddam's execution comes at the hands of the same forces which have turned Iraq into a bloody mass grave. read in full... Angry Arab: DON'T CRY FOR ME MESOPOTAMIA Yet again, the Bush administration looks stupid exactly when it thinks it is being smart, or when it thinks it is being strategic in its actions. (...) The Iraqi people of course has the right if they wish to exact a punishment on Saddam for his crimes against Iraqis (and against others). But the execution has been marred by a number of issues that will later serve to backfire against the ruling puppet government of Iraq, and its backers in the US. 1) The entire course of legal and political processes in Iraq, including the weekly or monthly elections, are not legitimate in the presence of the American occupiers. All day long, administration propagandists kept stressing that this was an Iraqi decision. Yeah. Sure. This year, Iraqi puppet officials, including the former puppet prime minister, admitted that in fact the ruling prime minister of Iraq can't order a police officer on a mission without the authorization of US occupiers. And they now want us to believe that the Iraqis acted entirely on their own, as if they can. And the timing itself: it was not dictated by US calculations? And Iraq is not supposed to be sovereign and independent? And the 140,000 US troops are merely there for purposes of traffic control around the country? Whether they are elections or trials, the processes under foreign occupation are not legitimate or valid, certainly not in the eyes of Arab public opinion. 2) The trial itself, like everything that the US managed in Iraq, were bungled. If the US occupiers wanted to show Arabs a legal system or a court proceeding unlike what they have in their own countries, the US failed miserably, just as it failed miserably in translating any of its empty rhetorical promises. The trial was in fact as cartoonish and as politically managed as trials in neighboring Arab countries. From the changes of the judge (and whatever happened to that judge who went missing as soon as he said in "court" that he does not consider Saddam to be a tyrant?), to the selection of the crimes--clearly intending to spare Gulf countries, Europe, and US embarrassment from their association with the crimes of Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war years. That was why Dujayl--of all his crimes--was chosen. And notice that the Anfal trial was rushed in order to not link it to his other crimes during the time. 3) The decision to execute Saddam will further aggravate sectarian tensions in the region. Sistani had to even change the day of `Id Al-Adha. Even the `iD can be changed by that most cowardly of clerics--who was cowardly under Saddam and is cowardly under US occupation. Of course, this could not have been inevitable. In other words, had the puppet governments of Iraq not act in blatantly sectarian ways and forms--and the US occupation was clear from the beginning on utilizing--typically unsuccessfully--and exploiting sectarian differences in Iraq, the people of Iraq could have come together to condemn the crimes of Saddam and to accept a fair and legitimate trial. But the successive Shi`ite sectarian governments of US-occupied Iraq, and their sectarian Shi`ite militias, brought many of the Sunnis of Iraq closer with Saddam. And the support that the puppet government of Iraq receives from Iran and from Hizbullah--openly or not so openly, it does not matter--only serves to reinforce the sectarian cast of the ruling puppet government. This execution will go down as a sectarian decision and not as a political or legal decision, as it should be, because the ruling government a) relies on a foreign army of occupation; and b) because the ruling government employs sectarian death squads that have been killing Sunni Iraqis and Palestinians; c) because the ruling death squads are inspired by a Grand (not at all) Ayatollah who left his house only once in 6 years. AlArabiya (a virtual arm of the propaganda apparatus of the occupation) thought it was being smart when it asked a Shi`ite cleric to first appear and praise the execution. But that cleric is known to be an advocate for occupation. 4) This will not represent the end of the Ba`th Party. In fact, the Iraq Ba`th Party got rid of its worse baggage. Now the Ba`th can unfortunately rally and re-emerge without having to answer or account for the crimes of Saddam. Now they can claim that they did not know, and did not authorize--that it was all Saddam and his two sons who are all dead. The Ba`th Party will come back, just as the Taliban seem to be returning--yet another sign of the failures of the Bush Doctrine. Not a single element of that doctrine was fulfilled, or will be fulfilled. And the Ba`th party, I always argued, is as brutal in the underground as it is in government. 5) Arab regimes are more secure than ever--not from their people (who are either sleeping or outraged over Danish cartoons) but from the wrath of the US. All Arab regimes now know that the option of another US war against any other Arab regime is ruled out for a long time to come. That option was squashed by the stupidity of this administration, and the abysmal failures of the Bush doctrine. Arab regimes are now secure in the belief that the US will resort to threats but threats of a different kind. This explains the recent self-confident tone of the Iranian and Syrian regimes. 6) The quality of the US puppets in Baghdad have in a weird (and unfortunate way) increased the credibility of Saddam in the eyes of some Iraqis and more non-Iraqi Arabs. 7) Revenge attacks will be planned and executed, in Iraq and beyond. The execution of Saddam will be seen by Ba`thists and non-Ba`thists alike as killing of a "leader" and will be used to justify the assassination of Middle East leaders, especially those who are close to the US. 8) People in the region will look back at Saddam with some nostalgia because Arab leaders are now more submissive and subservient than ever to US/Israel, and Saddam's bombast and bluster in his last years will be remembered. 9) It is a sign that the Bush administration has nothing to offer but same of the same. Some brilliant mind in the White House I suspect came up with this idea of the execution hoping that it will galvanize American public opinion--they don't think beyond that. 10) It may be a sign that the US is ready to leave Iraq. It may be part of tying the knots before leaving; they are trying to make sure that Saddam will not be there after they leave. 11) It is because Saddam was such a brutal tyrant, he deserved to be tried in a legitimate and real court; where a non-sectarian government can make him account for his crimes. But that was not to be in the presence of a sectarian puppet government, backed by foreign occupiers. read in full... Born At The Crest Of The Empire: A FEW MORE STRAY THOUGHTS Why is it so important that America knows that Bush was asleep during the execution? (AP, NYTimes, AFP) Obviously, the White House wanted that out there. Second, I'm not going to put the "noose" picture up because it's on the front pages everywhere. For some reason I'm finding that pervasiveness very strange. Third, now that Saddam is dead, the secrets so successfully suppressed during the trial, are forever kept: The US's role in the Iran/Iraq war, the US and European supply of the precursors for Saddam's chemical weapons arsenal. (There's a reason the US wanted him tried and executed for Dujail before/instead of the Halabja gassing.) link Layla Anwar: TO SADDAM HUSSEIN I don't care what they say about You . The misuses and abuses of power, the Dujails, the Anfals and the rest of the well knitted pieces of grossly exaggerated melodramas. I know one Truth Sir,You stayed in Iraq and did not run away like the rest. You did not seek asylum in the USA , Egypt or Jordan like others. You did not pack your bags nor your millions. You stayed and that is what matters to me. (...) What pains me most is that they succeeded in massacring yet another TRUE IRAQI. A true Iraqi amongst many thousands. And this is what You are . Granted, you had your downsides , your shadow. But it pales in comparison to what the "Land of the Free " is doing to us. Your shadow is like a ray of sunlight, Sir. (...) They say you were authoritarian and totalitarian. Come and see them now. See their Fascism infesting the streets. See it in every neighborhood, see it in every corner . You said Women are the Pioneers of this Arab Ummah , come and look at us now. Rape has replaced sexual intercourse, censorship replaced education and forced domestication has replaced public life. You said Education is the sign of a Progressive Ummah. Our schools and universities are empty.And our Brains drained and killed. You said Health is Free for all. Our hospitals are dilapidated and our doctors in exode. You said Kurds are our brothers, they are now being trained as snipers by Israel. You said Christians and Muslims are part of this mosaic called Iraq. The Christians are fleeing by thousands and the churches are deserted. read in full... >> BEYOND IRAQ A Tiny Revolution: MORE FROM THE GOEBBELS ARCHIVE Wow, people can really deceive themselves:

...National Socialist Germany feels itself the leader of the entire civilized world. It would cease to exist were we to give up before the enemy's assault. We are God's instrument today, fulfilling a great historical mission. It cannot be postponed. We must do it, or humanity will collapse. We all know this. This is a struggle between light and dark, between truth and falsehood, between true humanity and inhuman barbarism. Germany carries the banner. All the oppressed and tortured peoples look to us in hope, because they expect from us alone a new order and the salvation of the world. -Joseph Goebbels, January 2, 1944

Fortunately, of course, when OUR pundits say stuff like this it's really true! read in full... QUOTE OF THE DAY - 1: "First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial. So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?" -- Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq, as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad QUOTE OF THE DAY - 2: "The fact that atrocities worse than those caused by [Saddam Hussein] are now going on during the occupation, should make the Bush administration feel ashamed that they have made Saddam's brutal dictatorship look like a walk in the park." -- from "Saddam's Execution" at Raed in the Middle