Saddam or whoever is in charge knows they are going to lose, and are counting on us doing it in such a horrible way that the rest of the Arab world will take us on.

Our administration and military are painfully aware of this, which is why we are bending over backwards to try and make the impression that this will benefit the Iraqi people, including many situations where we accept a severe military handicap rather than risk collateral damage and casualties.

Only a very naive person would not see that no matter how hard we try to win hearts and minds, we are going to come out of this on the shitlist of a lot of Arabs. But minimizing this number is important.

If we didn't care about such things, if we were the monsters we are accused of being, we COULD have won this war in three days, by turning Iraq into gravel with conventional weapons. With nukes, it would have taken thirty minutes. Genocide always works. That's not our goal.