I finally settled on the driver of a minibus filled with an assortment of men, women and children. This is public transport. These guys buy these buses and run regular routes or do commission type things. He was an older guy with richly-wrinkled eyes and a patient look, plus a truly enormous white mustache. I caught his eye and waved. There was just a second while it registered. And then he jumped just a little, and gave this huge grin, and then...everyone else in the bus saw him and started waving and smiling too. Everyone pressed up against the windows and smiled and waved just as idiotically as I was doing. A dozen hands appeared here and there and little faces and big ones popped up in the windows. And they were all so friendly, so happy, that it took a while to sink in.
Read the whole thing.
Then there is Powerline which has an extract from the Wapping Times about Fallujah and a picture of more happy Iraqis. The extract reminds me a bit of the descriptions of Najaf after Moqtada Al Sadr had left.
"But we were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin. Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time."
The same story of arbitrary executions was told by another resident, found by US troops cowering in his home with his brother and his family.
"They would wear black masks, carry rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs, and search streets and alleys," said Iyad Assam, 24. "I would hear stories, about how they executed five men one day and seven another for collaborating with the Americans. They made checkpoints on the roads. They put announcements on walls banning music and telling women to wear the veil from head to toe."
Feel free to compare and contrast with the remarks of Frère Jacques mentioned just below.