The words we hear (especially the words we want to hear) may not necessarily be the words the Iraqis meant; or they themselves may not know what they mean--people can't usually perceive the kinks in their own psyches.

If you think about it, you can apply this to what ANYONE writes, and at some point, you're left in paralysis, unable to credit anything at all.

I've read enough different accounts by Iraqis and those who have worked with Iraqis to know that they aren't American, but they are human. They are glad Saddam is gone, and wish the Americans were gone, too, but only after the country is safe enough to get by. They would like more electricity and services. They have five times the number of cars now, and don't have five times the gas.

They aren't psychotic, and they don't want another dictatorship, religious or otherwise, any more than we do. If all of their laws and constitution get filtered through a real electoral process, they will do just fine.

The miserable part of all this is that we are actually winning in a lot of areas over there, but there are so damn many people in America who are literally horny for defeat that it's difficult to deal with.

If I were a cynic, I might think you were simply constructing a mental filtering mechanism by which any pro-American sentiment from Iraq can be written off.