Is there not a major contradiction in what the US (and Macedonia--I cannot believe that I forgot about the 38 Macedonian soldiers in Iraq) is doing in Iraq? The US insists, through Bush and other high government officials, that it has a long-term commitment to the future of Iraq, and brags that the US embassy in Iraq will be the biggest embassy in the whole region. But don't they know that the scenes of destruction, death, devastation, and the use of Apachi Helicopters (and F-16 according to some residents of Baghdad this morning) against civilian neighborhoods will leave a very long-term effect in the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis? Are they following the advise of the Israeli experts who (according to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 2003) were invited by Donald Rumsfeld to lecture in the Army War College on how best to deal with (and presumably kill) Arabs? Israel is the best example of the failure of the (il)logic of subjugation by brute force by a foreign occupier. As one Iraqi put it yesterday, "Saddam Hussein committed injustices against us for 35 years. It is impossible that we let America do the same." And the arrogant Paul Bremer (who, along with many others, helped guarantee the failure of the US colonial adventure in Iraq) said: "Basically Iraq is on track to realize the kind of Iraq that Iraqis want and Americans want, which is a democratic Iraq." Do those people inhabit our own world? Do they breathe our air? Do they understand humanity? And do they worship force?