George-

Bush is all too easily seen as playing God, and some opponents are making interesting use of that. Yesterday an Iraqi official interviewed on TV made reference to the "Anglo-Saxon invasion" of Iraq. We'll see if they pursue that divisionary tactic.

This morning on BBC TV was a report that a significant number of Iraqi men who had fled the Saddam regime and gone to Jordan over the last decade are coming back into Iraq this week to fight FOR the regime. We may disagree with this, but it was compared to the Russians fighting so valiantly against the Germans who had come to free them from their hated, murderous, dictator, Stalin. It would seem that the number of people unwilling to tolerate their homeland being over-run by foreigners is consistently underestimated by attacking generals.

No matter how many times or with how much sincerity you say your bombs come in on the wings of angels, to people who love their homeland it's the devastation that matters.

Rey Barry (via electronic mail, March 27, 2003)