- as Saddam Hussein's regime crumbles, the Iraqi president's images are falling, too.
The instigators are twofold: U.S. military forces and, at times, Iraqis themselves. Sometimes they do it together.
"Every time we tear down a picture of Saddam, they cheer," said Cpt. Peter McAleer, commander of Echo Company of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The 15th is helping to hold Nasiriyah, a key crossroads for supplies and military personnel heading north to Baghdad.
Just a few days ago in Nasiriyah, a huge statue of Saddam gazed down upon motorists entering town. Now, after a two-week battle won by invading U.S.-led forces, the enormous concrete pedestal stands empty.
Everywhere in this city, U.S. Marines are pulling down images of Saddam, with residents often joining in. [AP]
Most dramatically of course, this:
- Saddam Hussein's rule over Iraq collapsed on Wednesday as U.S. troops swept into the heart of Baghdad and helped jubilant residents celebrate by toppling a huge statue of their ousted leader and dragging its severed head through the streets. [AP]
Watch "Saddam Statue Toppled, Images Defaced" AP film here as American and Iraqis TEAM UP to topple the statue of the baby-rapist - no need to deconstruct the symbolism here.
Article comments
1 - InMarin
Under the heading: I Feel So Much Safer Now:
A former head of the KGB (the secret police of the former Soviet Union), General Yevgeni Primakov, has been hired as a consultant by the US Department of Homeland Security
Independence Hall in Philadelphia is closed to visitors because of the war on terrorism.
Alameda, California, laid off every one of its 635 teachers.
Russian nuclear subs are heading for the Gulf
The U.S. is killing journalists in Iraq who aren't embedded.
The U.S. Navy is seeking the power to exempt itself from environmental laws.
Congress is about to make raves illegal.
Thanks, Ralph.
2 - InMarin
Hero of the Week
Lance Corporal Stephen Funk, a US Marine reservist who deserted his unit, turned himself in and declared himself a conscientious objector Tuesday, becoming one of the first to do so since war erupted in Iraq.
Don't Take My Word For It
"We just wanted to let them know that we're here."
- Gen. Buford C. Blount III after American forces killed more than 2,000 Iraqi fighters and civilians -
"Slowly but surely the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people are being won over as they see security increase in their areas."
- Ari Fleischer -
"What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen."
- Leo Tolstoy -
"If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all people, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt -
"A time has come when silence is betrayal. That time is now."
- Martin Luther King Jr. -
"I most certainly do not see God at work in the slaughter and destruction now unfolding in Iraq or in the war plans now being developed for additional American invasions of other lands. The hand of the Devil? Perhaps. But how can I suggest that a fellow Methodist with a good Methodist wife is getting guidance from the Devil? I don't want to get too self-righteous about all of this. After all, I have passed the 80 mark, so I don't want to set the bar of acceptable behavior too high lest I fail to meet the standard for a passing grade on Judgment Day. I've already got a long list of strikes against me. So President Bush, forgive me if I've been too tough on you. But I must tell you, Mr. President, you are the greatest threat to American troops. Only you can put our young people in harm's way in a needless war. Only you can weaken America's good name and influence in world affairs."
- George McGovern: The Nation -
"Those who spend their time, money, and energy fighting tyranny are patriots. Those who spend their time, money, and energy fighting patriots are advancing tyranny."
- John Perna -
"Yeah, it is the end of the world. What, do you think it's going to come on a TV show, right on schedule? Shit. They've been digging this for a long time. Read the fucking Book of Revelations… The end of the world is not just coming; it's here. Until Bush came in it was still possible to be successful, happy. That was two years ago, but now the wheel is turning and I don't think what we're in now will possibly get any better."
- Hunter S. Thompson interviewed by Marty Beckerman -
"To say that the current debacle in Iraq is the fault of Don Rumsfeld is to miss entirely the structure, mindset and functionality of the Bush administration. CIA officials, as well as analysts from the State and Defense Department, warned the administration that American forces would face stiff and deadly resistance from Iraqi forces. These warnings were utterly ignored. The spin now is that these views were not presented 'forcefully' enough, intimating that Bush was not given all of the facts in the manner required. This is nonsense. What has happened is clear. Bush wanted war on Iraq, period. He is surrounded by a mob of yes-men who also wanted war, and so they made sure that only the rosiest of predictions were listened to in the planning stages."
- William Rivers Pitt: The Miscalculations of Yes-Men -
"The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans."
- Hermann Hesse -
"Like Roman Caesars Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, and Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini before him, Bush's fanaticism threatens to plunge the world into endless war and bring to an ignoble close America's 227-year democratic run."
- Wayne Madsen: A Material Breach of the Constitution - Bush's War on the Soul of America -
"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions."
- Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, in his opening statement to the tribunal, Nov. 21, 1945 -
"Get the following production pieces in the studio NOW: . . . Patriotic music that makes you cry, salute, get cold chills! Go for the emotion."
- McVay Media, a Cleveland-based consultant, in a War Manual memo to its station clients -
"It looks very neat on television, the American marines on the banks of the Tigris, the oh-so-funny visit to the presidential palace, the videotape of Saddam Hussein's golden loo. But the innocent are bleeding and screaming with pain to bring us our exciting television pictures."
- Robert Fisk -
"Does anyone imagine that Osama bin Laden isn't laughing insanely at the idea of young Arab children sitting in their living rooms watching images of American GIs fighting Muslims in the streets of Iraq? Could Osama bin Laden possibly share the Bush administration's excitement about regime change in Iraq? After all, it's the only way Islamic militancy stands a chance of taking hold in that country in ways that it never could under Hussein's iron-fisted secular dictatorship. Hussein has been stepping on bin Laden's Iraqi Muslim brothers for more than 30 years. Bin Laden set the trap, and think-tank refugees from the American Enterprise Institute walked U.S. troops into it."
- Oregon Daily Emerald Editorial Board -
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
- Douglas Adams -
Stop the Presses
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH is an anagram for HUGE BERSERK REBEL WARTHOG.
Quiz from Hell
With the invasion of Iraq, the United States is telling the leaders of the world...
a) Don't take the lives of your own citizens or WE'LL take the lives of your citizens.
b) If you don't want to be invaded by the United States, you better get yourselves some weapons of mass destruction.
c) Fuck you.
d) All of the above.
History Lesson from Nexus/Lexus
704 stories about Gore inventing the Internet.
13 stories about Bush failing to show up for his National Guard duty for a year.
1,000+ stories about Gore and the Buddhist temple.
12 stories about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy.
347 stories about Al Gore wearing earth tones.
10 stories about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya.
Contact George W. Bush - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Saddam Hussein - press@uruklink.net
Contact Kim Jong Il: eng-info@kcna.co.jp
Contact Jacques Chirac - france-presse@un.int
Contact the Pope - accreditamenti@pressva.va
Embassy of France in the US: 202-944-6000
German Embassy in the US: 202-298-4000
Embassy of the Russian Federation: 202-298-5700
Embassy of the People's Republic of China: 202-328-2500
Embassy of Belgium in the US: 202-625-5801
White House switchboard: (202) 456-1414
Contact your Senator - http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm
Contact your Representative - http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
House and Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Links to Central Government Agencies - http://www.firstgov.gov/
3 - nick carroway
Wouldn't it be a shame if Joran Van Der Scum and his douche-bag friends mysteriously disappeared also??
4 - Bob A. Booey
It's Lexis-Nexis. Anyone who doesn't even know how to spell it wouldn't know how to do a proper search.
That is all.