Thomas Nephew reminds Senator Jay Rockefeller of the full extent of Resolution 1441 - namely, the relevance of previous Security Council resolutions Saddam swatted aside. And that the Senator voted to enforce every letter of those resolutions. A commenter deflects the "Bush told us about an 'imminent danger'" talking point.

(Via Instapundit.)

Let's put this on the shelf next to "Mother of all Battles" and "The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs to die in disgraceful failure."

It's the most effective form of military preventive dentistry:

Four truckloads of weapons and munitions have been seized in raids by Afghan forces targeting suspected Taliban hideouts in eastern Afghanistan.

The haul includes rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, assault rifles and other weapons.

An Afghan commander says it's believed the Taliban wanted the weapons for terrorist attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. No one was arrested in the raids this week in Afghanistan's Khost province.

The Associated Press report is undated and unclear as to whether the operation was related to the Afghan army's first assignment, Operation Warrior Sweep. I'll update if the information becomes available.

Also, Saddam's seven-inch singles are stiffing on the charts:

There is a reluctance among Muslims to replicate in Iraq the jihad fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Saddam Hussein's exhortations to the Muslim world to join him in a war may strike a powerful chord, but for now, many of the Muslims are staying out of the fray.

[...]

[T]here may be recruitment drives in the future, but it would take six to nine months to yield results. Right now, there is little evidence of recruiting on campuses or on websites.

[...]

Many of those non-Iraqi fighters [detained by Allied forces in-country] have returned home, disillusioned by Baghdad's quick fall and stories of Iraqis showing little enthusiasm to fight to save Saddam's regime.

The article serves up an obligatory reference to the anger "stirred up" in the "Arab world" by Allied postwar conduct but as has been demonstrated for two years now, the Arab street never rises. The article's author is astute nonetheless, and understands Bush's judgment of being "With us or with the terrorists":

[A]rab governments may think twice about supporting Al-Qaeda, for fear of US punishment.

Bingo. The next step is, over the next years, enabling liberated Near East populations to think twice about even listening to hateful ideologies, for fear of destroying their newfound freedoms.

Two of the most overused sound bites are "Troop moral is low" and "The Iraqis don't appreciate us." Andrew Sullivan presents letters from troops - one culled from a fascinating weblog - that, while anecdotal, don't seem to be the kind of sentiments one might expect from disgruntled troops in a hostile, postwar country.

Glenn Reynolds finds a diamond in the rough of Salam Pax's latest, generally sniffy report:

The question in Aujah now is how the family is going to get the bodies [of Uday and Qusay] back "to bury them properly". Someone in Baghdad later told me that proper burial for these two is to dig a hole somewhere in the desert and have the family look for them for years. How can they expect a proper burial for people who have denied it for hundreds of thousands?

That's it. If you enjoy prose as a refugee of '90s chic cynicism, dive headlong into the Guardian article. If you don't, be sure to counteract the onset of dismay with some words from a real advocate of freedom like Koorosh Afshar.

I had the television on for overexcited ambience the other night and Greta van Susteren of Fox News' On the Record was talking with embedded Fox journalist Greg Kelly, a former Marine himself and witness to the Allied trouncing of Saddam Hussein's war machine. Perhaps he'd been hanging around the wrong neighborhoods; maybe the doldrums seeping into the skin of some Third Infantry grunts and officers had begun to affect him. For goodness' sake, he could have coughed up for a flask or four at a Baghdad liquor store fifteen minutes before, and just so happens to be one of those "irritable" drunks.

Whatever haunted him, one aspect of his report was unmistakable: it was absolute, sincere and assured pessimism. His face was putting the proverbial 45-muscle-frown into double overtime; his listless drone and glassy stare like that of an eight-year-old burying his first dog, trowel still in hand. After watching his measured, slightly optimistic coverage in March and April, this only a bit less than completely out of character.

No, he informed Greta when she inquired, the deaths of Uday and Qusay hadn't dispelled the anger (anger!) that remained prevalent among Iraqis everywhere, of all ages. "Anger?" Greta asked. Anger, repeated Kelly, who went on to complete a picture of an ungrateful, bitter, dispossessed, misunderstanding Iraq where one would expect to see children attacking Allied troops in swarms and deformed, bruised men organizing violent protests to be allowed back into Qusay's finest secret police headquarters, strapping the private-part-electrodes back on themselves.

Well, not quite. But the man was emphatic; he had clearly been disillusioned. And, I fear, powerfully.

My first reaction, however, was to view his fallen spirits as isolated and incorrect. He seemed to be unaware of the typical nature of 20th-Century, American postwar occupation - myriad tiny mistakes and oversights, occasionally poor communication from occupier and the occupied, shifting tactics based on rapid changes in any given situation and other challenges that succeed in daily challenging the foundation of even the most self-confident occupation authority. Kelley was also missing all the triumphs of an otherwise steady stabilization, even in spite of continuing resistance from an honorless enemy.

The Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot was in Iraq, too. His article on the trip, balanced by reasoned criticism of the Bush administration and considerations of adversity, is nevertheless a vastly different and nearly totally opposite impression:

[The] chairs [of the Shiite-composed, Najaf city council] are arrayed in a circle to hear from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, who invites questions. The first man to speak wants to know two things: There's a U.S. election next year, and if President Bush loses will the Americans go home? And second, are you secretly holding Saddam Hussein in custody as a way to intimidate us with the fear that he might return? Mr. Wolfowitz replies no to both points, with more conviction on the second than the first. But the question reveals the complicated anxiety of the post-Saddam Iraqi mind.

Most reporting from Iraq suggests that the U.S. "occupation" isn't welcome here. But following Mr. Wolfowitz around the country I found precisely the opposite to be true. The majority aren't worried that we'll stay too long; they're petrified we'll leave too soon. Traumatized by 35 years of Saddam's terror, they fear we'll lose our nerve as casualties mount and leave them once again to the Baath Party's merciless revenge.

Tom Donnelly reported for the Weekly Standard that Saddam's power grid was designed precisely for population control, not popular satisfaction - leaving a task to the Allies not unlike using the available parts of a concentration camp to build a hospital.

The inhumane reversal of Saddam's domestic priorities goes much further:

The degradation of this oil-rich country is astonishing to behold. Like the Soviets, the dictator put more than a third of his GDP into his military--and his own palaces. "The scale of military infrastructure here is staggering," says Maj. Gen. David Petraeus of the 101st Airborne. His troops found one new Iraqi base that is large enough to hold his entire 18,500-man division.

Everything else looks like it hasn't been replaced in at least 30 years. The General Electric turbine at one power plant hails from 1965, the boiler at one factory from 1952. Textile looms are vintage 1930s. Peter McPherson, the top U.S. economic adviser here, estimates that rebuilding infrastructure will cost $150 billion over 10 years.

All of this makes the reconstruction effort vulnerable to even small acts of sabotage. The night before we visited Basra, someone had blown up electrical transmission pylons, shutting down power to much of the city. That in turn triggered long gas lines on the mere rumor that the pumps wouldn't work. Rebuilding all of this will take longer than anyone thought.

And who looks forward to the day-to-day reality of an often stressful, often tense occupation by a foreign army, however polite and helpful? Very few. But then, who wants to live for decades in horrific misery? No one:

Iraq's mental scars are even deeper. Nearly every Iraqi can tell a story about some Baath Party depredation. The dean of the new police academy in Baghdad spent a year in jail because his best friend turned him in when he'd said privately that "Saddam is no good." A "torture tree" behind that same academy contains the eerie indentations from rope marks where victims were tied. The new governor of Basra, a judge, was jailed for refusing to ignore corruption. Basra's white-and-blue secret police headquarters is called "the white lion," because Iraqis say it ate everyone who went inside.

"You have to understand it was a Stalinist state," says Iaian Pickard, one of the Brits helping to run Basra. "The structure of civic life has collapsed. It was run by the Baath Party and it simply went away. We're having to rebuild it from scratch."

And from Gigot's interactions, America has as many of the best as she could ever want in the arid land:

The U.S. media have focused on grumbling troops who want to go home, especially the Third Infantry Division near Baghdad. And having been in the region for some 260 days, the Third ID deserves a break. But among the troops I saw, morale remains remarkably high. To a soldier, they say the Iraqis want us here. They also explain their mission in a way that the American pundit class could stand to hear.

"I tell my troops every day that what we're doing is every bit as important as World War II," says one colonel, a brigade commander, in the 101st. "The chance to create a stable Iraq could help our security for the next 40 or 50 years." A one-star general in the same unit explains that his father served three tours in Vietnam and ultimately turned against that war. But what the 101st is doing "is a classic anti-insurgency campaign" to prevent something similar here.

These men are part of a younger Army officer corps that isn't traumatized by Vietnam or wedded to the Powell Doctrine. They understand what they are doing is vital to the success of the war on terror. They are candid in saying the hit-and-run attacks are likely to continue for months, but they are just as confident that they will inevitably break the Baathist network.

Read the Gigot article - the journalist himself a fantastically erudite author and exactly the kind of optimist to write a bellwether paper like this. Someone ought to send Greg Kelly a copy of today's WSJ, too. These two men might have crossed paths - or at least stood in the same corner of the city for a short time - yet they saw two different worlds, and came away with equally antithetical conclusions. But why begin to doubt in the face of past victories? All else being equal, I'll choose Gigot.

Glenn Reynolds posted a reader's fiskette on an MSNBC story about Uday (yes, after deliberation, I've decided to stick with a "y" at the end) Hussein's home video collection. As only could be expected with a member of one of the most horrific dynasties from the last century, Uday's exploits are at once totally unsurprising and yet utterly and discomfitingly mad:

One of the most memorable tapes [probably a difficult task for the judges' panel, -ed.] is of a birthday celebration. When the drunken Uday becomes bored with sullen dancing girls, he pulls out a machine gun and starts shooting in the air in time with the beat from the band. When that palls, he fires at champagne bottles with his pistol and orders one of his flunkies to throw beer bottles in the air for him to shoot at with an assault rifle. For fun, he aims a few rounds over the heads of his guests, some of whom throw themselves on the ground in terror, only to arise laughing and clapping at the prank, and, no doubt, in relief at still being alive. Uday then finishes off the party by shooting directly over the heads of the band members, who amazingly, keep playing. The keyboard player crouches behind his instrument, still pounding the keys, as Uday shoots up the HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign hung at head level across the stage. When he runs out of bullets, Uday shakes hands with the frightened singer, and just to show he’s a good sport, tells the keyboard player: “See all those holes? All those bullets could be in your belly.” Then he laughs.

Tee-hee! What a card! As is always with circumstances of judgment, we can separate the incoherent from the sane by discovering who would possibly think this man's destruction - immediate, thorough, permanent - makes the world less rich or secure.

When you have a man like Mark Steyn on your side, you know immediately that your detractors lack wit, insight and common sense:

[A]nti-Americanism is the New Universal Theory: It explains everything; it's the prism through which every event is viewed. But it's an unlikely strategy for American electioneering. One anti-Bush Democrat at a protest the other day carried a sign reading ''FRANCE WAS RIGHT!'' That's not a winning slogan, even in Vermont.

What happened this week is a foretaste of what the party can expect in the next 15 months: Reality will keep intruding, and if the Dems keep moving the goalposts ever more frantically, pretty soon they'll be campaigning from Planet Zongo. This week, Tom Daschle insisted that Odai and Qusai were all very well, but where was the Big Guy? Why hadn't that slacker Bush caught him yet?

Well, yes, Saddam's gone the Osama route, releasing audio cassettes every couple of weeks. Why is that? These days, a compact camcorder's as easy to smuggle in as a Walkman, and video would have far more impact. Could it be that Saddam isn't in such great shape for the cameras? Not quite ready for his close-up? Wherever he is, he's dependent on a dwindling band of aides and, after the way his sons were sold out, he's gonna be a bit twitchy if Ahmed's trip to the 7-Eleven seems to be taking a little too long.

Once again - if Saddam turns out to be alive, someone must convey our appreciation for such a fantastically inept defense of his brutal kingship. In a slightly stretched analogy, I doubt that we'd have footnoted the tenacity of, say, Winston Churchill had he spent the days after early 1941 moving from farm to farm in the north of England, occasionally releasing 78 RPM exhortations of British will to fight against "God Save the King."

It's telling of the Democrats' choice for appeal to the American public to deify a dictator whose complete deposition - from free will of life as well as seat of power - is only a matter of time.

Another complaint with American facilitation of the Hussein brother's death and presentation has emerged: "Naked bodies of Uday and Qusay should never have been shown by the U.S. It gives them a bad reputation in the Islamic world." If I may, self-righteous Islamic world: spare me. Please, spare me. The bundle of nations still identifying themselves as Muslim, with all remaining due respect, have a fantastically terrible reputation all by themselves - one of failed kingdoms, misguided angry young men, tumult, joblessness, cultural backwardness, mindless Jew-hatred, and chief exports of despot's oil and madman's terror. To put it bluntly: if the Islamic world's claim on moral and ethical authority were a service-wait note on a slow day at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, they'd be number 875,351.

I don't believe I've ever heard such condemnation directed at Palestinians, who routinely parade bullet-ridden, dead bodies on main streets with flailing histrionics. That is, when they're not faking a funeral procession.

And it seems certain to me that if American command did not present the bodies in an indiscriminate, diffuse fashion, the Islamic world would instead accuse our leaders of fearing the confutation of counterfeit bodies - or else accusing the "puppet" governing council of repeating the lies of their "American masters."

As before: only two days have passed since the rupture of Hussein's line of ascension and American public display of the dead. Even so, the Near East still has quite a need for maturation.

UPDATE: Charles Johnson took this report and mashed it like a clay bowl before whipping it into a blast furnace.

Dream on: the current headline is "How Saddam Beat the U.S. in Baghdad," a ridiculous departure from both the story and sober analysis.

As to the testimony of Udai's bodyguard - perhaps more evidence supporting Saddam's survival, especially if it can be corroborated? If we capture the devil, I'd be more than happy to have been incorrect in my theorizing - all the more reason to consider Hussein a terrible military leader.

UPDATE: Allied forces just captured what they believe to be Saddam's personal security detail. We may be staring at the truth of the matter within days or hours.