It's the community of good, happy, free people who make all this worthwhile. From Omar in Iraq:

My friends, celebrate the New Year, but don't forget to add a new name to your invitation list, We would love to join, and we will have the honor and pride to do so.

We came holding our slogan "it won't be our duty to anticipate the coming disaster, but to struggle for a better world"**

Give us a little space on your ship, we still stumble, but we shall never fall again. We have our star that will guide us.

Believe me my friends. We want to be on your side.

Our hearts are bigger now; they will not only carry our sorrow, but those of the entire world as well.

Your help have taught us a valuable lesson :( we're all sinners, I'm in jail as long as there's a man in jail, and I'm hungry as long as there's a hungry man on earth)***

We've got to create another world, a new land; where there's less pain and sorrow, and that will not be hard to do if the brave gathered for it.

I wish that my people as well as the oppressed people every where come to appreciate the gift of freedom, as when they do so they will be ready to fight for it and then, they will have it and no one could take it away from them.

As for the free people who helped us and are ready to help the others; I wish you peace and all the best as you certainly deserve it.

It is a struggle for a better world, Omar, and all of us who in some way support the effort are happy to have you beside us (Link via Instapundit).

Amir Taheri sees a whirling dervish barreling through Iraq, as a passel of bad guys struggle for the right to terrorize:

The three main groups involved in the power struggle are organized along tribal and clan lines covered by a thin veneer of Baathist ideology.

What is possibly the largest group is led by Colonel Hani Abdul-Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti, a former head of the Secret Services Organization (SSO) and a cousin of Saddam. Hani and his younger brother Rafi are reportedly trying to maintain the cohesion of what is left of the Tikriti clan that provided Saddam with his principal support base for 30 years. Although both brothers feature in the deck of cards issued by the U.S.-led Coalition, there are indications that they are still able to operate with some freedom within the so-called "Sunni Triangle." Their group includes Sabaawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a half brother of Saddam, and Lt. General Tahir Dalil Harboush, a Soviet-trained expert in intelligence.

...The nominal head of the second group is Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who was number-two in Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). This group has absorbed the remnants of the Baath party's secret military organization, of which Duri was leader since 1986. It is also possible that some members of the Fedayeen Saddam organization, led by the deposed dictator's eldest son, the late Uday Hussein, have rallied to the group.

...The third group could be described as the civilian wing of the insurgency and presents itself as "the true Baath." It is led by Muhsin Khudhair al-Khafji who has just declared himself president of the Iraqi section of the pan-Arab Socialist Baath party.

Back in July, when Udai and Qusai went into permanent retirement, I thought a disintegration of order would follow:

With yesterday's deaths, the Ba'athist component of disorder in Iraq will be without the venerable bloodline, and should crumble in a month or two. Some members will try to vanish; some will surrender; some may struggle in vain for position on a now-dead hierarchy, perhaps drawing undue attention to themselves; some may take a vertical transfer downward, join the criminal elements of the country's unrest now or else wait for the Iraqi livelihood to stabilize and then try their hand at organized crime.

But I was assuming that Saddam was dead or incapacitated; alive, his presence must have served well as a keystone for insurgency's power structure. With him removed from the scene, something like what I described may well be finally occurring. Taheri also accounts for other parties to mayhem:

The situation is further complicated by the presence of half a dozen other groups, some of them consisting almost entirely of non-Iraqi Islamist militants, who have their own agendas and pursue their own strategies.

The largest of these groups is known as Ansar al-Sunnah (Victorious Soldiers of Tradition) and is close to the religious leaders in Fallujah and Baaquba.

Another group is known as Lajnat al-Iman (the Committee of the Faith) which has a presence in Baghdad and Mosul. Both include non-Iraqi militants and have contacts with pan-Islamist movements in other Arab countries, notably Algeria and Saudi Arabia.

...Also operating in the context of the instability that prevails in the Sunni Triangle are mafia-style groups that once controlled the black market created by United Nations sanctions. These groups have absorbed some of the criminals who Saddam released from prison on the eve of his own downfall. These gangs pursue no particular political agenda and switch alliances from one former Ba'athist outfit to another.

They'll blend, cooperate, and fight amongst eachother - but no matter what they do, these ranks will threaten stability inside Iraq. Not to worry, says Taheri:

With Saddam in the can, the situation in Iraq may get more complicated, at least for a while. The idea is to fasten seatbelts for the bumpy road ahead. With the head of the snake chopped off the rest of it will also be destroyed. What is needed is patience and resolve.

Only a scholar like Taheri can write up a list of scoundrels like this one and remain steadfast - and I think his unworried example is a good one to follow.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran's startling Sunday report in the Washington Post, reporting the Coalition Provisional Authority's desire to scale back liberalization after favorable conditions were spoiled by the insurgency, turned more than a few level heads. Glenn Reynolds has been gauging truth to the rumor, partially by comparing it to other observations, none of which contain the cliff-edge Chandrasekaran describes; he also remarks that "The ultimate storyline, of course, is that if we don't chicken out, things are likely to turn out well - and if we do chicken out, things are certain to turn out very, very badly." He's right. All that has been sacrificed in Iraq will be for naught if the country isn't made pluralistic and liberal, politically and economically.

And it'd be a shame if the general public began to worry about a chickening out that wasn't. I don't know Rajiv Chandrasekaran's politics, but I do know that his reports over the past eight months have been reliably bleak, or at least largely contributed to by killjoys and grumblers. A couple stand out. Remember when the accusation of mass looting of Iraq's historical treasures was beaten over the military's head for a few days before the whole thing was deemed, at best, a mean-hearted hoax? Chandrasekaran was there, quoting all the hand-wringers. He was also one of the first to focus on Iraqis, who we know are of a solid minority opinion, pointing their fingers Westward.

As the Post goes, Chandrasekaran is no Walter Pincus - which is to say, he doesn't bring a new meaning to "Rainesian." But his glass tends to be half-empty. As I said to Glenn, I'll be waiting for other sources (read: Winds of Change, do your stuff!) to agree that CPA's reforms are being nixed.

SOMETHING ELSE TO CONSIDER: Chandrasekaran uses at least one anonymous source as a basis for his report. One quotation carries some weight, as it's from L. Paul Bremer himself:

[T]here has also been a noticeable dampening of some early ambitions to remake Iraq. In June, as he returned to Baghdad aboard a U.S. military transport plane after speaking at an international economic conference, Bremer discussed the need to privatize government-run factories with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold. "We have to move forward quickly with this effort," he said. "Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands is essential for Iraq's economic recovery."

Asked recently about privatization, he said it was an issue "for a sovereign Iraqi government to address."

But when one actually reads some statements of Bremer's from this past summer, he was by no means preparing to implement all free-market reforms before transition. From July:

"Privatization is obviously something we have been giving a lot of thought to," Bremer told reporters. "When we sit down with the governing council ... it is going to be on the table." Bremer said although he has the authority to change Iraq's legal code, in place since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in April, foreign investors need some assurance any legal changes could survive once an elected Iraqi government takes over.

"The governing council will be able to make statements that could be seen as more binding and the trick will be to figure out how we do this," Bremer said.

"On the table." "Should consider." Determined, yes; "fervent," as the Post article puts it, no. A general vibe taken away from a press conference isn't good enough. How much more of this article is based on the way Chandrasekaran heard things?

They say he's singing like Pavarotti:

Saddam Hussein has given his U.S. captors information on hidden weapons and as much as $40 billion he may have seized while he was Iraq's president, an Iraqi official has been quoted as saying.

"Saddam has confessed the names of people he told to keep the money and he gave names of those who have information on equipment and weapons warehouses," Iyad Allawi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily.

Very interesting, indeed. The real worth of these reports will obviously be known when weapons and equipment have been recovered. I'll keep watch and update as information makes itself available. Interestingly enough, Saddam's latest confession was somewhat part of Sherwin Rubenstein's New Year predictions, intriguing in their own right.

NOT TRUE, OR COY?: The military is apparently denying this particular story (though not its substance). No link yet.

The blind are made to see, so it appears (via Instapundit):

When Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, a 50-year-old Briton, arrived in June to lead the mainly European force controlling southeastern Iraq, he was skeptical, he said. He felt that "this is going to be a lot more difficult than we realized."

But as General Lamb prepared to hand his command to another British general, he said at a news conference here on Tuesday that Saddam Hussein's capture and other changes, including progress in restoring oil installations, power stations and running water, as well as the Iraqis' fast-rising prosperity, had fostered a new confidence that the American-led occupation force can eventually hand a politically stable Iraq back to its people.

"Is this do-able?" he said. "You'd better believe it."

After the near-total success against the warnings of catastrophe before March, the steady rebuilding and new construction despite soulless attacks on brave Allies and innocent Iraqis, the capture of Saddam Hussein and the severe damage dealt to the strength of these terrorist attacks, and the words and deeds of Iraqis who are soberly prepared to govern themselves in peace, we can distinctly see two kinds of people in the world. The first are those who think wisdom comes from shrewd misanthropy, and, guided by petty politics and philosophies of condescension, hope for failure of those whom they hate - universal freedom be damned. The second kind are those of us who believe in the strength, courage and will of good men; men who are found in all walks of life, all cultures; and who will, someday, bring this world to the less fragile peace between nations of free will and enterprise.

Did the Ba'athists intend to assume a Plan B? Stratfor thinks so, and their analysis is that money made the insurgents' world go round. (Via Instapundit.)

Also - from nearly a week ago, Zeyad's explanation of why Saddam's broadcast as captive was so powerful (and so necessary for Iraqis):

If you had lived all your life ruled by a tough dictator elevated to the level of a god and then suddenly without warning watched that dictator displayed to the public on tv as a 'man', you probably would have related with my position.

The images were shocking. I couldn't make myself believe this was the same Saddam that slaughtered hundreds of thousands and plundered my country's wealth for decades. The humiliation I experienced was not out of nationalistic pride or Islamic notions of superiority or anything like that as some readers suggested. It was out of a feeling of impotence and helplessness. This was just one old disturbed man yet the whole country couldn't dispose of him. We needed a superpower from the other side of the ocean to come here and 'get him' for us. I was really confused that day I went out and almost got myself killed by those Fedayeen and angry teenagers in the Adhamiya district.

Zeyad's weblog, by the way, is fantastic (as are the other Iraqi blogs in my right-hand column). Take a moment and look at photographs taken during Zeyad's road trip to Basra.

William F. Buckley delivers the hammer-blow to those who would through a certain court give Saddam both a pulpit and a possible exit:

The model in The Hague gives us Slobodan Milosevic as the star player. That action is in its third year. It has served only the purpose of encouraging equivocations, in which Milosevic is as accomplished as he was in executing a genocidal approach to ethnic cleansing. A truly balanced judiciary is at work here. Three judges of disparate backgrounds. One Englishman, one South Korean, and one Jamaican. One might mention the international court in Sierra Leone, commissioned to look into regional war criminals. The court has been operating for about a year. There have been indictments. Nobody has yet been tried.

...It isn't to ask for lynch law or even for victor's justice to say simply: This is a man, finally apprehended, who killed by the thousands and tortured his country, committing genocide north and south. His "trial" should be of the order we'd have given to Adolf Hitler if he had been taken alive. Exhibit him, make him dwell on what he has done, satisfy the Iraqi people that we share their concern, and that having dispatched an army to their country to contain and disarm him, we will back the Iraqi court that sends him to the gallows. If anybody around wants to plead his cause, go ahead. There will always be fever swamps from which they can make their nescient calls.

Exactly. This one is too important for the dada left to even think of clowning around with. Provide Saddam a fair and impartial hearing - then hang him.

In years to come, I see Iraq becoming one of America's closest democratic allies:

In a pointed address delivered with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on hand, Hoshyar Zebari said the United Nations had failed to stand up to Saddam to defend the Iraqi people, and called for a swift UN return to the country.

"One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable," Zebari told the 15-nation council, which was sharply divided over the war.

"The UN as an organisation failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny of 35 years," he said. "The UN must not fail the Iraqi people again."

He's got an inkling as to who truly cares about freedom and human rights. And assuming Mr. Zebari's opinion is shared by at least part of Iraq's current leadership, the country may eventually - and correctly - decide that the United Nations isn't worth petitioning for assistance or support. If so, will France, Germany, the left, and the Democratic Party accuse Iraq of unilateralism?

It's coming for the terrorists in Iraq: secular, sacred, tied to Saddam, and getting the stuffing knocked out of them by Allied forces.

WHAT "GLORY" MEANS TO COWARDS: Killing countrymen who are risking their lives to enforce a soon-to-be constitutional rule of law. With Saddam out of the picture, I can't see how these horrible events will amount to anything other than Iraqis increased anger at murderous strongmen - Ba'athists and Islamists.

"WE CONTINUE TO TAKE IT DOWN": Saddam may not have been directly responsible for continuing terrorist activity, but his capture may eventually prove to be the dead end for the "dead-enders."

Steven Den Beste on what might, unfortunately, become the first in a long line of sour grapes arguments from the left in the wake of Saddam's capture:

One of the anti-war arguments that had kind of faded out is now back in its full glory with the capture of Saddam: "America is responsible for Saddam."

...Most of those claims are exaggerated and have been refuted long since, but assume they were true. The response to that is pretty clear: If we are responsible for Saddam being in power, we have an obligation to make up for the sins of our past by removing him. If we made a mistake in the past, should we not correct it now?

Den Beste's conclusion is a disturbing one: the left seeks to strip free nations of their sovereignty by chaining them to guilt for past actions - most of which have occurred in the last two major wars of the last century, the Second World War and the Cold War. America, for one, made choices - and alliances - against what it recognized as the greatest evil. We do the same today, with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China against terrorists, for exactly the same reason: cooperation is, in a world only half-free, our best choice. It will not always be. A span of less than one hundred years, the rise of both a modern age and modern democracies, and yet to the left the self-governed have purposely worked with dictatorships from the beginning of time, and out of sheer spite.

Steven asks a few questions - I'll ask my own, which I've asked before. If America and its allies are blamed for not doing more than condemning Hussein for his crimes in years before, why are they criticized now precisely because they've done much more than condemn Hussein for his crimes? (As Steven might wonder, was Hussein really the issue?) And if strategic cooperation with some dictatorships is so deplorable, why wouldn't their gradual elimination - beginning with Afghanistan's Taliban and Iraq's Ba'athists - be an admirable goal?