We will emerge victorious against the world's greatest military [Iraq]."
~ George Bush Jr.

 
Saddam Hussein, despite all his ills, gave these women many of their rights three decades ago, making Iraq the relatively progressive oasis of women's rights in a highly conservative and repressive region. While the views of the vast majority of Iraqi women remain a mystery, the dictator's rare generosity toward them may explain why at least some of these women are plotting to oust what they call American invaders in the name of their "liberator," Saddam Hussein.


"We love Saddam Hussein very much," says Arwa, 23, who was a senior in chemical engineering at Baghdad University before it was trashed by looters. "He was kind. We were safe, even when there were wars. He gave opportunities to Iraqi women. Now every dream is broken."

By Chris Johnson
http://www.alternet.org

 
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. – Bertrand Russell

 
In Baghdad -- where bullets and guns sell alongside tomatoes and onions, thieves brazenly carry looted satellite dishes through the streets and barrages of gunfire wake residents nightly -- the U.S. military says it has made the streets safe.

'The coalition forces have provided as safe and secure an environment as you would expect in any major city -- London, New York or wherever,' Colonel Alan King, who acted as the U.S. Army's first city manager in Baghdad, told reporters this week.

But Suad Zeki says the capital is so dangerous she has not ventured outdoors for a month and refuses to send her two children back to school, where the teachers have asked fathers to stand guard with guns during classes.

'They may lose the school year, but at least I know I won't lose my children,' said Zeki. She studied for a year in England and cannot believe the Americans -- who patrol the city in bullet-proof vests and helmets -- can compare Baghdad to London.

Some Americans said mutual misperceptions were inevitable because soldiers had not been trained to get along with Iraqis.

'My problem is that one day I'm ordered to kill them, the next day I have to be their friend,' said Specialist Bryan Spears, manning a checkpoint on Thursday outside one of Saddam's palaces.

[Saul Hudson, Reuters]

 
"Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured."

 
"Let me now warn you in the most solemn manner. Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. The Nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." —President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

 
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin

 
War on terror: Based on his innate illegitimacy, Bush is obsessed with internal security, and has created the Department of Homeland Security under former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to pacify the American people. It is the largest reorganization of the US government in 50 years, and according to Lawrence Korb at the Brookings Institute, might, "bankrupt the country." But at a cost of $50 billion in taxpayer’s money, it will provide Bush with the "internal security" apparatus he needs to assure the continuity of political power in his hands, indefinitely, at the expense of our democracy and liberty.

[Douglas Valentine]

 
Most of the national media, especially the news networks, seemed serenely unaware of the Shiite problem in southern Iraq. Their talking-head experts informed the country that the Shiites were there, but never suggested that they might almost immediately begin their own theocratic revolution. They were supposed to dance in the streets and throw flowers on the American tanks. Instead, nervous American troops have to gun them down.

The victory celebrations are at best premature. They deceive Americans into believing that most problems in Iraq have been solved. More lies. There are a lot of ayatollahs between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, and they are very dangerous people. It would appear that once again the U.S. government has made a major mistake because it simply cannot factor the religious dimension into its calculations. The mistake is particularly odd in an administration that seems to believe so strongly in divine guidance. Apparently, there are other leaders in the world who also believe that they have a direct line to God--men who, astonishingly, believe that we are infidels, although in fact we are a nation of pious, God-fearing evangelicals who, like the president, read their Bible every day.

One wonders if the time will come when Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William Kristol will feel uncomfortably like Baron von Frankenstein.

[http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel02.html]

 
On Saturday, New Zealand's Prime Minister was reported in Britain's Guardian newspaper as suggesting New Zealand's traditional allies had unleashed the "law of the jungle" by going to war without international backing.

She said Britain and the US had created a dangerous precedent - one they might live to regret when China became the dominant world power later this century.