Carmenm,

Our bad! Apparently you didn't understand what Red said. She said she's been there, and seen the hell, while you keep giving us left wing rhetoric that's part of the extreme socialist propaganda, written by people who prey on weak minds.

By the way, that is a terrible picture. It reminds me of the hundreds I saw of Kurds and Shiites that Hussein was systematically killing. That was called genocide, the picture you offered was for "shock effect," and had little to do with the reality that there will unfortunately be some people killed through collateral damage.

Making matters worse, you have conveniently ignored the fact that American forces are being very careful to avoid collateral damage, and they are being subjected to greater danger because of it. You should tell the truth, not paint a picture that suits your political ambition. It should be beneath your dignity. It also tells me you could care less about the truth, as long as it allows you to denegrate the U.S.

Sorry! I can't buy your offerings. They are totally biased, and without foundation.

LW,

I always tend to believe people who put facts on the table. When I read that "millions of people" are coming out in American cities to protest against the war, I begin to ask myself what the person who has written an article is smoking, or what kind of mushrooms they put on their steak.

The fact is, there have been thousands of protestors in cities, and the fact is that the "vast majority" of people support the war against Iraq, regardless of the reason. That's what matters.

As for the "political retrospective" of the author, he's making assumptions, and has his own point of view, which may be totally wrong. He's condemning the Iraqis in saying they will never have a democratic government.

As for the question as to whether or not Americans are seeking revenge, that's about the dumbest statement he could make. Who in hell wouldn't want revenge for 9-11? It has to be part of our reasoning for action.

Oh! I forgot! That 20% that think it was okay for the twin towers to crumble because the Muslims were just making a "statement."

I'll tell you what. Let's just say, "We're making a statement back."

Maybe it's time for people to hear the truth. Not from others who lay safe and warm in their own beds, have a full belly, and feel relatively safe when they get up in the morning, and pack themselves off to school. Let's hear it from people who went to Iraq protesting this war, intent on being "human shields" to protect the Iraqi people. After all, they are counted amongst your opposition numbers if I'm not mistaken....

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Scenes From the Liberation--Courtesy of the Wall St. Journal's "Best of the Web Today" by James Tarranto:

"You just arrived," Ajami Saadoun Khlis of the southern Iraqi city of Safwan tells London's Guardian. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave." He lost his 29-year-old son to Saddam's thugs; the younger man "was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran."

The Telegraph reports from Umm Qasr, another southern Iraqi locale:

"We never wanted to fight--only the diehards did," said one Iraqi, as they grabbed at water bottles and clasped their palms as if in prayer, begging for food. . . .

One man pulled up his shirt sleeve and held up his right hand. Two fingers had been hacked off and his upper arm was criss-crossed with scars.

"This is the price of defiance--of trying to run away," he said, his eyes beseeching. He held up a torn gas mask that had no air canister. "We have one. We draw straws for it. We know if the British and American soldiers leave as they did before, and Saddam survives, he will gas the town." To make sure we understood, he drew his finger swiftly across his throat.

The Times of London describes a horrific scene after a slave revolt:

Iraqi conscripts shot their own officers in the chest yesterday to avoid a fruitless fight over the oil terminals at al-Faw. British soldiers from 40 Commando's Charlie Company found a bunker full of the dead officers, with spent shells from an AK47 rifle around them.

Stuck between the US Seals and the Royal Marines, whom they did not want to fight, and a regime that would kill them if they refused, it was the conscripts' only way out.

And another Guardian report, from Baghdad, notes that civilians have been largely untouched the shocking and awesome bombardment of the Iraqi capital: "So long as the rest of Baghdad remains almost unscathed, ordinary Iraqis appear relatively buoyant, as they reach for the possibility that maybe this war will be less punishing than they had feared."

Meanwhile, some of those "human shields" came to their senses after arriving in Iraq. United Press International has one such report:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

The Telegraph has a first-person account from one Daniel Pepper, an American resident of London, who says he "was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam":

I was shocked when I first met a pro-war Iraqi in Baghdad--a taxi driver taking me back to my hotel late at night. I explained that I was American and said, as we shields always did, "Bush bad, war bad, Iraq good." He looked at me with an expression of incredulity.

As he realised I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the President spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

It scared the hell out of me. First I was thinking that maybe it was the secret police trying to trick me but later I got the impression that he wanted me to help him escape. I felt so bad. I told him: "Listen, I am just a schmuck from the United States, I am not with the UN, I'm not with the CIA--I just can't help you."
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I guess we can all learn, if the educational system is right. Let's just say that these people did. It's obvious by their statements.

By the way. Their videos will be put out for all to see. Of course, if you want, you don't have to watch. It might be better that way, if you intend to back the stand you do agains the war.

Wolf