Reuters picks up the violin:

Some Iraqis who had celebrated the downfall of Saddam Hussein last month in a U.S.-led invasion now say insecurity outweighs any feeling of political freedom and liberation.

Unfortunately, my apparently uncoincidental reading of Japan's chaotic first years outweighs any feeling of sympathy or worry for the Iraqi people beyond what I already, reasonably, have invested. In fact, I'm inclined to suggest a swift kick in complainers' rear ends.

"Under Saddam we lived in fear, now we live in terror from crime and we live in poverty," said Othman, a taxi driver queuing to fill up his car with petrol.

The absence of law and order was also disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid.

"We are concerned about the security situation," senior U.N. aid official Kenzo Oshima told a news conference in Baghdad. "Without adequate security, the delivery of humanitarian assistance will be hampered."

Iraqis complain that the cost of living has more than doubled in weeks. While the Iraqi dinar's exchange rate to the dollar has appreciated, prices of food and petrol have risen.

Suha Abdel-Hamid, a wealthy housewife, disappointed with the turn of events in Iraq, said she is now thinking of leaving the country in search of a safer and better life.

"Saddam was brutal and cruel. He suffocated us but at least he restored electricity and normality after the 1991 war. What are the Americans waiting for?" she told Reuters.

Quotations from a "wealthy housewife" ought to be ignored outright, for wealth under Saddam came from Saddam after it had been stolen from the Iraqi people. She misses skimming off the cream rising from the corpses on the bottom of the dream life - sorry, Suha, baby, the golden days are over.

One month. One month. I'm confident that the Iraqis quoted here do not represent the population - if they did, Iraq would be one lazy, petulant, ungracious, ignorant, impatient and vulgarly disloyal country.

It's not.

But Reuters' amplifying these complaints without any perspective is detrimental to the reality of the Iraqi situation. Really, how many democratizations do any of us remember? I read last night information that was corroborated in the other books: famine swept Japan in time for the 1945-1946 winter; random violence escalated to the point where Tokyo residents, even family members, were killing each other for scraps as late as 1947. Mass joblessness, starvation, a gigantic black market, and even a Moscow-funded Communist takeover that was successively defeated in the early 1950s were all part of early post-war life.

None of this is happening in Iraq. People are frightened, displaced, and without amenities. But they don't understand the extent to which lives are shattered after total war - how lucky they and their country really are - or how those suffering greatly can, with the help of benevolent victors, rise from the sorrow and destitution.

While those interested in the failure of Iraq's liberation won't cease trumpeting the slightest glimmer of doubt, we should not take them any more seriously.