by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 31, 2003 2:39 P.M. EST

'In Our Hearts We Feel Something Else'
The myth of pro-Saddam Iraqi "nationalism" gets a good debunking from an unlikely source: the Arab News. The English-language Saudi paper has an "unembedded" reporter, Essam Al-Ghalib, in southern Iraq, and his interviews with the locals are revealing. From a Friday dispatch:

Arab News asked several of the refugees waiting to enter Basra what they thought of regime change. Accompanying Arab News were several international TV crews. What the refugees said on and off camera were very different things.

On camera, the general feeling among the crowd was sorrow at losing Saddam. Off camera, the citizens of Umm Qasr and Basra appeared genuinely exhilarated at the prospect of a brighter future, after Saddam had been removed.

Then this, on Sunday:

When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam."

I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food.

His answer shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

He said: "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else."

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq.

And from today's report:

I asked several [Umm Qasr residents] what they thought of the US/UK plan to remove Saddam. They told me: "Now that they have started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who isn't."

When asked about what they think of this war, most Iraqis said that they were against the loss of innocent life and the destruction of their cities, but they seemed adamant about the removal of Saddam. They were happy about the "liberation" of Umm Qasr but were disappointed in the US/UK for not keeping their promises to provide humanitarian aid.

An Arab News editorial, however, seems to come from an alternate universe: Iraqis are being subjected the "wrath of invading forces" by a "power that has come to occupy and conquer" and aims for the "wholesale destruction" of Iraqi society, "criminal enterprise--unjustified, unprovoked, illegitimate, catastrophic." Iraqis "do not believe for one moment a word of the marauders' promises."

Do the Arab News editorialists read their own newspaper?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
"Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear," Agence France-Presse reports from central Iraq. Sgt. Kenneth Wilson tells the wire service: "They had slaughtered lambs and chickens and boiled eggs and potatoes for their journey out of the frontlines":

Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.

In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: "We like Americans," adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because "he was not kind."

The same dispatch quotes Lance Cpl. David Polikowsky, who's been guarding prisoners of war at the camp. Of one group of POWs, mostly conscripts, he recalls: "They told me they wanted to go to America after the war. I said where. They said California. I said why? They said the song Hotel California and they left singing Hotel California."

"Hotel California" seems to be quite a hit overseas. As we noted in April 2001, the Chinese captors of two dozen American airmen asked about it.

Reuters Red-Baiting
OK, the bogus Vietnam comparisons are par for the course (front-page headline in yesterday's Baltimore Sun: "The Resemblance to Vietnam War Can't Be Overlooked"). But the guys at Reuters have managed to take things one step further. Here's the start of a dispatch from Geneva by Robert Evans:

"These people are really delighted we are here," said the tall, blonde [sic] army colonel confidently, waving toward a silent crowd of dark-eyed men and partially veiled women watching from the roadside.

"It's just that for the moment they are too frightened to show it," he told a foreign reporter.

Iraq today? No, Kabul in early 1980, just weeks after Soviet troops had swept into Afghanistan to remove a brutal leader and put what they suggested would be a more liberal regime in place.

As the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq moves well into its second week with little sign of the welcome flowers from grateful local people political leaders had promised, memories of the "Soviet War" just a country away to the east are revived for many--like this correspondent who was Reuters bureau chief in Moscow at the time--touched by that conflict.

It would be redundant to register our offense at the analogy, but it is worth pointing out that Evans doesn't even mention that two decades after the Soviet invasion, a more liberal regime did come to Afghanistan--courtesy of America.

Cake, Anyone?
Although allied forces are meeting resistance in southern Iraq, it's looking like a cakewalk in the north, where they have the support of Kurdish militias and are battling Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-linked terror group. "An American-coordinated ground offensive against the group continued [Saturday] with intensive fighting in small pockets in the mountains, but officials said the military battle against Ansar al-Islam was nearly over," the New York Times reports:

It began with cruise missile strikes a week ago and escalated on Friday when about 100 United States Special Forces soldiers and 10,000 local Kurdish fighters seized a network of villages from Ansar and drove the militants from their bases to nearby caves and mountains. . . .

The Kurds said at least 176 Ansar fighters had died. About 150 more were said to have surrendered to the Iranian authorities at the border. Pockets of resistance in the mountains could be heard returning fire, but Kurdish military officers said the outcome seemed certain.

"They will all be finished because there is no choice," said Gen. Mustafa Said Qadir, commander of military forces in the eastern Kurdish zone. "There is just death."

A more recent Associated Press dispatch reports that "Kurdish fighters took control Sunday of more territory left by Iraqi forces withdrawing toward the major oil center of Kirkuk."

Those Adorable Palestinian Arabs
Four American soldiers died Saturday in the first suicide attack of Operation Iraqi Freedom. "The bomber struck at a U.S. checkpoint on the highway north of the city of Najaf," the Associated Press reports. "A taxi stopped close to the checkpoint, and the driver waved for help. The soldiers approached the car, and it exploded, Capt. Andrew Wallace told Associated Press Television News."

The Iraqi regime identified the killer as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, "a noncommissioned army officer and father of several children." Those kids may have lost a father, but their father gained 72 virgins.

Palestinian Arabs wasted no time in lionizing Noamani. The Jerusalem Post reports Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority changed the name of the main square in Jenin from Mosque Square to Noamani Square:

"We want to honor the brave Iraqi officer who carried out the first suicide attack against the American and British occupiers," a senior Palestinian official in Jenin told The Jerusalem Post.

"We hope there will be more suicide operations in the coming days."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The Post also reports that both Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Arafat's Fatah movement are dispatching suicide bombers to Iraq to kill American and British soldiers. Hey, let's give these guys a country!

Masters of the Obvious
Here's what the New York Times considers front-page news in the middle of a war: America's fighting men and women are mostly from the working class! Seriously, the paper spends more than 4,000 words on this stunning revelation. Here's a sample:

A survey of the American military's endlessly compiled and analyzed demographics paints a picture of a fighting force that is anything but a cross section of America. With minorities overrepresented and the wealthy and the underclass essentially absent, with political conservatism ascendant in the officer corps and Northeasterners fading from the ranks, America's 1.4 million-strong military seems to resemble the makeup of a two-year commuter or trade school outside Birmingham or Biloxi far more than that of a ghetto or barrio or four-year university in Boston.

Reporters David Halbfinger and Steven Holmes then go on to consider the idea of a draft, so as to bring more well-off recruits into the military. (They quote conscription's chief congressional proponent. Rep. Charles Rangel, without noting his "no" vote on a resolution supporting the troops.) They do acknowledge that the draft didn't exactly have this effect during the Vietnam era:

The disparity created by the Vietnam draft can be seen on the walls of Memorial Hall and Memorial Church at Harvard University, where the names of Harvard students and alumni who died for their country are inscribed. There were 200 Harvard students killed in the Civil War and 697 in World War II, but only 22 in Vietnam.

For Stanley Karnow, the journalist and author of "Vietnam: A History," who began reporting from Vietnam in 1959, the contrast with World War II was personal. When he turned 18 in 1943, he dropped out of Harvard and enlisted in the Army. In 1970, when his son turned 18 and became eligible for the draft, he was also a Harvard student. "We did everything we could to keep him out of the draft," Mr. Karnow said.

Somehow, though, Halbfinger and Holmes never think of the most obvious way of getting more Harvard students into the military: reinstating ROTC on campus. Harvard kicked ROTC off campus during the Vietnam War and has never allowed it back (today's justification is gay rights). Harvard is far from alone in its official stance of hostility toward the military; in addition to banning ROTC, many schools take steps to frustrate the efforts of military recruiters. (For more on this issue, see the Advocates for ROTC page.) If the absence of recruits with an elite education really is a national problem, the first step toward solving it is an attitude adjustment in the ivory towers.

Benedict Arnett
Peter Arnett's career has been on a downward arc for some time now. He was a Baghdad correspondent for CNN during its Gulf War heyday, but his credibility suffered as a result of his notorious "baby milk factory" report. In 1998 CNN "reprimanded" Arnett for his involvement in a report that falsely accused American forces of using sarin, a poison gas, to kill "U.S. defectors" in a Laotian village in 1970. Soon after, he and CNN parted ways.

This time around, Arnett has been in Baghdad as a reporter for the struggling MSNBC cable network, but now he finds himself out of work. The network gave him the ax today after he gave an "interview" to Iraqi television. CNN has the transcript:

It is clear that within the United States there is growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war. So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments. . . .

Clearly this is a city that is disciplined, the population is responsive to the government's requirements of discipline and my Iraqi friends tell me there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing. . . .

Now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan.

NBC initially defended Arnett's comments as "analytical in nature." The context, however, belies that characterization. As a practical matter, Arnett's comments were pure pro-Saddam propaganda. They put the imprimatur of a Western "journalist" on the regime's claims that the allies may lose the war--and thus made the job of winning the Iraqi people's trust more difficult.

Before her network dumped Arnett, spokeswoman Allison Gollust explained that "his impromptu interview with Iraqi TV was done as a professional courtesy." This calls to mind the lawyer who doesn't get eaten by sharks--and makes us wonder what profession Arnett thinks he's in.

Life Imitates Satire

"Marking the first departure from the military's new program of 'imbedding' journalists with its units, an army unit has demanded that veteran newsman Geraldo Rivera be 'unimbedded' from their troops, effective immediately."--Borowitz Report, March 25

"Celebrity television journalist Geraldo Rivera, who has been on assignment covering the US-led war in Iraq, has been told by US military officials that he is no longer welcome to accompany US troops there."--Agence France-Presse, March 31

L'affaire and Balanced
"President Jacques Chirac has ordered his officials to draw up plans for a French-language, international television channel to counter the growing influence of the BBC and CNN," London's Daily Telegraph reports. But Jacques, there already is a channel to counter the BBC and CNN. It's called the Fox News Channel. And it's every bit as critical of the French government as the Beeb is of the British and CNN of the American.

San Francisco, City of Loons
Check out this letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle by one Bill Travis:

Should we trust the reports from embedded reporters to be fair and unbiased? I don't think so.

These reporters are in hostile territory and are dependent on American troops for food, protection and their survival. The reporters spend 24 hours a day with the soldiers and more likely than not are becoming good friends and forming close bonds with them. Under those circumstances, I would have to question the objectivity of any embedded reporter and I have yet to hear a single negative report from any of them.

Given current statistics, it is just as likely for our people to be killed by friendly fire as it is for them to be killed by hostile fire. Who would want to tempt fate and send home a less than glowing report? Accidents do happen.

This is further proof that the entire city of San Francisco is insane. What else can one think about a place where the newspaper editors find such a letter fit to print?

Then again, maybe New York is no better. Check out this blurb on the New York Times Web site for columnist Thomas Friedman: "Mr. Friedman's columns are refreshing to read now, especially since he's seen the light on how badly wrong the whole zionist enterprise against Iraq could go."

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts: Saddam Trying to Prolong War"--headline, Associated Press, March 28

What Would We Do Without Pakistan?
"Pakistan to Declare al Qaeda Terrorist Group"--headline, Associated Press, March 31

'Human Rights Backlash'
Amnesty International says "that since the U.S.-British onslaught was launched against Iraq 10 days ago, there had been a human rights backlash in 14 countries," Reuters reports:

It listed Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Norway, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Turkey, the United States and Yemen as transgressors.

Not on the list is a country whose rulers, since the "onslaught" began, have opened fire on civilians, conscripted children, assassinated opposition political figures and taken mothers and children hostage so as to force the fathers to fight.

Another Zionist Plot Uncovered!
The Guardian's John Sutherland has discovered a Jewish conspiracy in connection with Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old terrorism advocate who died in a bulldozer accident she caused:

Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.

The photo came from that well-known front for Israeli intelligence, the Associated Press.

How Flattering
"Up to 1,000 Royal Marines and supporting troops, backed by heavy artillery and tanks, staged a commando assault in a Basra suburb, killing some 30 Iraqi fighters and destroying a bunker and several tanks," the Associated Press reports. What's cool about this is the name: Operation James.

You Don't Say
"Spring is a time of transitions from winter to summer."--National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Warner, quoted in the Miami Herald, March 30

Not Too Brite--LXIV
" A girl was recovering from injuries on Wednesday after the shopping cart she was riding in crashed while careering down a hill at an estimated 45 miles per hour," Reuters reports from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Oddly Enough!

Treble Damages
"All triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages," reports the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia:

The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime.

The number three is thought to be auspicious in North Korea and triplets are revered. It is believed they are likely to rise to positions of power, which accounts for Kim's insistence that they are all raised in state-run orphanages, where their development can be controlled.

In Ha'aretz, a "philosopher and writer" named Francois de Bernard has published an anti-American essay that may be the purest example yet of its genre. (As reader Edward Tannen quips, "This could only have been written by someone named Francois.") It includes the stock denunciation of "primitive moralizing": "For two years now--and increasingly since September 11, 2001, there has been a great deal of focus in the discourse on the subject of 'good and evil' and the strategy derived from it with respect to the 'axis of evil.' "

But what other than evil would you call something like Kim Jong Il's kidnapping of triplets? To be sure, the sheer weirdness of the story lends it an element of dark humor, which even we primitive Americans are sophisticated enough to understand. But without the concept of evil, it's impossible to see it as anything other than a joke. Francois's sophistication looks to us more like a simple-minded nihilism.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Dave Nagy, David Worley, Alex Nagy, Glen Smith, Stuart LeVine, Carl Sherer, Linda Cooke, Jerome Marcus, Barak Moore, M. Finley Huang, Rosanne Klass, S.E. Brenner, Marie Bourgeois, Kevin Manning, Steve Huba, Michael Segal, Drew Cooper, Mara Gold, Jameson Brooks, Jeffrey Weinstein, Natalie Cohen, N. Eckert, David Gerstman, Howard Weiser, Damian Bennett, Nadine Wildmann, Don Mishell, Natahan Wirtschafter, Gordon Kaplan, Hershel Ginsburg, Eli Meisels, Shabtai Atlow, Stacey Heller, Michael Hopkovitz, Elena Matis, Mikael Nussdorf, Elliot Ganz, Yehuda Hilewitz, Joel Goldberg, Josh May, Janice Borawick, Joseph Braunfeld, William Katz, Gad Meir, Todd Warnick, Eva Belavsky, Mariam Himmelfarb, C.E. Dobkin, Monty Krieger, Raghu Desikan, Terry Young, Rosslyn Smith, Miguel Lecuona, Edward Morrissey, Jonathan Rothenberg, Justin Taylor, Jeffrey Spiegel, Janice Lyons, Jim Wrenn, James Foster, Erik Moy, Jim Orheim, Shelley Taylor, Peter Rice, Jamie Wigdreson, Chris Fehr, Buddy Larsen, Daren Heidgerken, Mark Schulze, Steve Weingartner, Ryan Nelson, Allen Thorpe, Reuven Weiser, Marion Dreyfus, Ron Finch, Judie Amsel, George Lenz, Jim Fehrle, Aaron Taylor, Brandt Zembsch, Peter Wolodarski, Rudy Buntic, Paul Ruschmann, Jonathan Meyers, Nicole Carter, Robert LeChevalier, Leanne Shain, Roger Heinig, Jeremiah Calvino and Joe Littrell. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Richard Perle: Phony ethics charges shouldn't distract from the nation's defense.
• Robert Bartley: Democrats are in trouble--and not only because of the war.
• Peggy Noonan: The virtues of the long haul.