Three weeks. That’s all it took to bring down the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In three weeks the U.S. and its allies invaded the country, secured the oil wells, captured several cities, and ultimately rolled into the capital with little resistance. Why did this take so long? It should have been done twelve years ago. If I were the leaders of Iran, Syria, Egypt, or any number of other Middle Eastern countries, I’d be worried. Things like this tend to spread … See below …

I can remember as a kid in junior high watching the Berlin Wall fall and the rally for democracy in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. I was filled with a sense that the world was about to change. The Iron Curtain began to fall and the Cold War ended. Democracy swept across Eastern Europe. The same thing is about to happen again in the Middle East. Mark this day and remember what it took to bring down Hussein. The UN did nothing to bring this about. They are irrelevant.

Remind me again how this war is all about oil?

More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.

Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.

I found it so ironic last year that Jimmy Carter, of all people, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Exactly what has he EVER done to promote peace?

It’s refreshing to see a true hero like Elie Wiesel, a more deserving Peace Prize winner, support the war:

“If some European countries put as much pressure on Saddam Hussein as on (US President George W.) Bush, there would have been no war,” he told a press conference in Montreal.

“Saddam Hussein had to be disarmed (and) there were no other means,” said the Nazi concentration camp survivor and author who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1986 for his message “of peace, atonement and human dignity.”

Meanwhile, over at OxBlog, David Adesnik reveals the true intention behind Carter’s opposition to this war.

Almost three weeks into this operation, and we’re in Baghdad, watching the NCAA Championship game in Saddam’s palace. Yeah, so much for the war dragging on … Anyway, some great quotes:

“This used to be a nice place, they should make it like a Six Flags, or something,” said Spc. Robert Blake, 20, of State College, Pa., and the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry, as reported by Fox News

From Iraq’s ambassador to the Arab League: “Iraq will not be defeated” in the war, Ambassador Mohsen Khalil told a news conference in Egypt. “Iraq has now already achieved victory - apart from some technicalities.” As reported by Zawya

As I’ve written before, the great hypocrisy of anti-war protestors is their enthusiasm for stopping a war being fought against an evil dictator and his regime. They are trying to build a peace movement on the back of a man who has been about the business of war for decades. The people of Iraq understand this and over seventy percent of Americans know this. Over fifty nations understand this, even if France, Russia, and China are not among them, and even Germany is coming around.

How well do the people of Iraq understand the evil of Hussein?

The Iraqi man who tipped U.S. Marines to the location of American POW Jessica Lynch said Thursday he did so after he saw her Iraqi captor slap her twice as she lay wounded in a hospital.

“A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being,” the tipster, a 32-year-old lawyer whose wife was a nurse at the hospital, said in an interview at Marines’ headquarters, where he, his wife and daughter are being treated as heroes and guests of honor.

“He is an extremely courageous man who should serve as an inspiration to all of us to do the right thing,” said Lt. Col. Rick Long, spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

After he saw Lynch slapped, the lawyer slipped into her room at the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah and told her, “Don’t worry.” Then he walked six miles to the nearest U.S. Marines and told them where she was.

He later returned to the hospital, at the request of U.S. commanders, to map the facility and count how many Saddam Hussein loyalists were there.

Damn right. These are the kind of people on whose backs the new democratic Iraq will be built. Men and women of integrity who are full of compassion for others and who can see beyond despotism and fundamentalism.

Anyone who doesn’t think the pressue the U.S. exerts on Arab nations to embrace democracy doesn’t work isn’t paying attention. Sure, in every nation it may not be an invasion of 200,000 troops, but every nation isn’t Iraq and every leader isn’t Saddam Hussein. I’ve said before that I think once Baghdad goes democratic, then Tehran won’t be far behind. It looks like a lot of other nations in the region are starting to get the message.

The Bush administration’s embrace of a democratization strategy for the postwar Middle East has triggered a torrent of scorn from the region’s traditional political and intellectual elites, not to mention regional experts at the State Department and CIA. Less noticed is the fact that it has also produced a flurry of political reforms, quasi-reforms and grass-roots initiatives in countries across the region.

Two days before the war began last week, the Palestinian legislative council dealt a major blow to the autocracy of Yasser Arafat, rejecting his attempt to limit the powers of a new prime minister. This happened by a democratic vote after a noisy democratic debate — which in turn came a few days after President Bush called for a strong prime minister in a Palestinian democracy.

The next day an Egyptian court finally ended the prosecution of the country’s leading pro-democracy activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had twice been sentenced to prison on trumped-up charges — and whose last conviction prompted the Bush administration to freeze aid to Egypt. Two weeks earlier, Gamal Mubarak, would-be heir to his father, Hosni, as president, announced a plan to end trials of civilians in the security courts in which Ibrahim was sentenced, and proposed an independent national council to monitor human rights.

A week before Mubarak spoke, King Abdullah of Jordan, who has not allowed an election since taking office four years ago and who dissolved parliament in 2001, set a date for parliamentary elections. He chose June 17, thereby ensuring that as the postwar political discussion gets underway, Jordan will be able to point to its own democratic exercise.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been urging Western journalists to take note of an “Arab Charter” floated by ruling Crown Prince Abdullah, which calls for “internal reform and enhanced political participation in the Arab states,” and a related petition by 104 intellectuals calling for the direct election in Saudi Arabia of a consultative council, an independent judiciary and freedom of speech and assembly. In January, on Abdullah’s order, a host of senior Saudi officials met with a visiting delegation from Human Rights Watch — the first time a Western human rights group had been allowed to visit the country.

As I’ve written before, I don’t have a problem with the idea of war protestors. In fact, I think most Americans, and most of the civilized world, think that on the whole, war is a bad thing. The chief among people who dislike war is the U.S. military because soliders, sailors and pilots are the ones that die during wars. Rarely are protestors taken prisoner, tortured, or listed as casualties.

The problem with this current generation of protestors is not that they are against the war. I’d have no problem if that was truly the case. The problem is that they are against George W. Bush and anything that’s not markedly leftist about America. And I don’t mean just soft liberalism leftist. I mean hardcore socialist, communist leftist. The fact that a group like ANSWER — an openly communist organization — would be at the forefront of this movement just illustrates how problematic it really is. Look at these rallies that feature not just war protests, but efforts to legalize marijuana, free Mumia, destroy Walmart, etc. Even more prominent is their unending angst over the 2000 election. These people cannot get over the fact that Bush won the election. That’s why they are mad. That’s why they protest with pictures of Bush’s face plastered on Hitler’s body.

Great example of the youth and ignorance of war protestors over at Winds of Change.NET:

Winds of Change.NET reader and loyal correspondent Tom Donelson passes on this email from a friend in Washington, D.C.:

“To nobody’s surprise there were protestors today in DC, they attempted to disrupt the metro system and block the Key Bridge, a leading artery into DC from Northern Virginia. I got hosed twice because I come in from NoVA on the metro and it is raining hard which makes traffic worse any way. My commute was long and arduous and only caused further resentment for protestors… Anyway, I’ll get to the point.

I got off my train in Rosslyn because I had to use the bathroom and the train was moving quite slowly. When I was getting back on the train, there were protestors on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one.

An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protestor offered her a pamphlet, she politely declined. The young protestor put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder as a guesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, “Ma’am, don’t you care about the children of Iraq?”

The old woman looked up at her and said: “Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I’ll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it.”

I’m glad to report that loud applause broke out among the onlookers and the young protestor was at a total loss for words.”

I think it’s about time for President Bush to call out Saddam Hussein, as the kids are fond of saying. Honestly, if he really were still alive and in decent health, then he certainly would have gone on television by now and said something better than the same old, “Let’s get this jihad started!” schtick. He’s obviously dead or in pretty bad shape otherwise he would be on TV, acknowledging specifics about the war. He’s not. What we’ve seen are cut-and-paste videotapes and written statements. If it turns out that we killed Hussein in that first night missile attack, I hope all the naysayers and critics spouting off about the lack of progress we’ve made will shut up. We took out their king in the opening move of the chess game, so what if the pawns, rooks, and knights don’t make it across the board as fast? From GlennReynolds.com:

Saddam’s situation isn’t much better. Ever since the bunker-bombing that started the shooting war, he’s been suspiciously unaccounted for. His video appearance wasn’t very convincing (Churchill remarked that there’s nothing more exhilirating than being shot at without effect, but Saddam — who looked noticeably non-exhilarated — couldn’t even manage a simple “you hit the bunker, but I’m still here, nyah nyah,” and the tape was rather non-specific about current events in general). Since then Iraqi TV has run some tapes of Saddam, but none of them had anything useful, like say a March 25 issue of the New York Times visible in the frame.

Is Saddam dead? Hiding in a hole and afraid to come out? In a Francisco Franco-like state of near-death that’s not quite dead enough to allow a successor to take office?

Beats me. But I’m declaring him dead as a doornail. An un-dictator. History. Osama, too.

About that whole liberation thing … I know this isn’t happening everywhere American troops are going, but I think it’s illustrative of the kind of reception average Iraqis are giving to coalition forces. The longer we fight this war and the more successful we are, the more hearts and minds we will win:

Hundreds of American troops marched into town at midday today and were greeted by its residents.

The infantry was backed by attack helicopters and bombers, and immediately destroyed several arms caches and took over a military training facility to serve as their headquarters.

The occupying forces, from the First and Second brigades of the 101st Airborne Division, entered from the south and north. They had seized the perimeter of town on Tuesday.

People rushed to greet them today, crying out repeatedly, “Thank you, this is beautiful!”