THOSE DAMNED INCONVENIENT TRUTHS AGAIN:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip “had shocked me back to reality.” Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera “told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn’t start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam’s bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head.”

Makes it hard to portray them chiefly as victims of American imperialism, doesn’t it? Not that some people will let the facts get in their way. But some, thankfully, will. Perhaps we’ll see some highlights from this video broadcast at the Oscars tomorrow night, a tribute to the power of film to reveal truth. . . .