Channeling the Psyche of G. Gordon


The front "page" of the online Pravda on the Hudson has a slightly different version of the picture above, with the caption

The ceremony celebrating the handover to Iraqi forces included chanting, a karate demonstration and a musical interlude...

Click on the link, though, and you'll get a slightly different story (also seen at First Draft)

They slit the rabbit’s belly, ripped it open and feasted on the still beating heart. The commandos of the Iraqi army were celebrating on Wednesday after the Americans had handed over control of Najaf province.

Well, isn't that special? Their idea of "freedom" isn't all that different from a youthful Shrub himself...torturing small animals must give them a kind of rush that civil society just can't compete with, I guess.

I'm sure that paragon of democratic virtue, G. Gordon can relate, if not G.W. hisself.

But I wonder--has anyone told the latter that, at least for some Iraqis, "freedom" means "killing American soldiers?" Or that it's as likely as not that the people we're turning over "security" to don't really give a shit about U.S. interests in the region?

Oh, and check this out:

The local authorities closed all the roads in the city before the transfer ceremony, and while the security situation is relatively stable here, foreigners still needed a military escort to travel the five miles from the heliport at the old American military base to the site of the ceremonies...

The general public did not attend the event. Much of the audience was made up of the area’s powerful tribal leaders, who sat beneath a sign that read: “We are the sons of those who drove the British out in 1920.”

As soldiers paraded by a grandstand with top American and Iraqi military officials, as well as dozens of tribal leaders, a group of commandos with their faces blackened gathered for a demonstration of their courage.

Each man reached into his right pocket, pulled out a frog and bit its head off. They threw the squirming legs to the ground as the group’s leader held aloft a live rabbit. He slit the belly and plunged his mouth into the gash. The carcass was then passed around to the rest of the soldiers, who took their own bites.

It was explained later that this practice was especially popular among Saddam Hussein’s feared Fedayeen militia, whose members had done the same thing with live snakes and wolves.

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