March 28, 2003

Ken Joseph, Jr., former war protestor, admits he was wrong! I wept with family members as I shared their pain and with great difficulty and deep soul searching began little by little to understand their desire for war to finally rid them of the nightmare they were living in. The terrible price paid in simple, down to earth ways - the family member with a son who just screams all the time, the family member who lost his wife who left unable to cope anymore, the family member going to a daily job with nothing to do, the family member with a son lost to the war, a husband lost to alcoholism, the daily, difficult to perceive slow death of people for whom all hope is lost. The pictures of Sadaam Hussein whom people hailed in the beginning with great hope everywhere. Sadaam Hussein with his hand outstretched. Sadaam Hussein firing his rifle. Sadaam Hussein in his Arab Headdress. Sadaam Hussein in his classic 30 year old picture - one or more of these four pictures seemed to be everywhere on walls, in the middle of the road, in homes, as statues - he was everywhere! All seeing, all knowing, all encompassing. "Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over." The bizarre desire for a war that would rid them of the hopelessness was at best hard to understand. "Look at it this way. No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now." 4:48:43 PM

UPI - Iraqi commander Ali Hassan al-Majeed ordered seven Baath officials in Basra executed on charges of "treason," Lebanon's al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported Friday. The newspaper also said al-Majeed dismissed the Baath party leader and replaced the military commander. 2:19:52 PM

Iceland is one of 30 countries supporting the international coalition to disarm Iraq (called the ‘coalition of the willing’ by the U.S.). Iceland has allowed coalition planes to use Icelandic aerospace and the Keflavík airport if needed. 2:17:59 PM

10-year-old charged in slaying of boy, 3 Boston Globe - A 10-year-old boy was charged with murder yesterday for allegedly luring a 3-year-old boy out of a library, beating him with a baseball bat, and sexually assaulting him before dumping the body in a ditch. 1:56:13 PM

How could the "ARAB STREET" be so lost?  The reports of Saddam and his thugs killing thousands Iraqi men, women and children have been going on for YEARS, and yet when 15 civilians die, and it is (probably mistakenly) blamed on an american missile they fall all over themselves to decry the massacre: "Massacre in Baghdad" screamed a headline in Lebanon's daily As Safir yesterday after two explosions devastated a street in the Iraqi capital and killed as many as 15 people. Iraqis called it a U.S. attack, while the U.S. military suggested it might have been a stray Iraqi anti-aircraft missile or sabotage. Egypt's Al Ahrar condemned the "American slaughter of civilians", while Morocco's L'Opinion called the blasts a "murderous raid", and Palestinian newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadida mourned the "savage bombardment" of Baghdad. "They call Saddam Hussain a butcher. Aren't the Americans butchers? They're worse. They're killing children who've done nothing wrong," said Iman, a 26-year-old woman working in a Cairo haberdashery shop. Will the Iraqi people be able to forgive this once they are liberated? 11:34:18 AM

Andrew Sullivan:  One lesson of the ferocity of the Saddamite resistance is surely this: who now could possibly, conceivably believe that this brutal police state would ever, ever have voluntarily disarmed? Would a regime that is forcing conscripts to fight at gun-point have caved to the terrifying figure of Hans Blix, supported by the even more itimidating vision of Dominique de Villepin? I'd say that one clear lesson of the first week is that war was and is the only mechanism that could have effectively disarmed Saddam. If true disarmament was your goal, it seems to me that the inspections regime has been revealed, however well-intentioned, as hopelessly unsuited to staring down a vicious totalitarian system.   9:17:32 AM