Laugh and Die in Baghdad

Patrice Claude reports from Baghdad: "In the Iraq of today, humor is an even more dangerous practice than it was under the former regime. 'Under Saddam,' says well-known comedian Jassem Charaf, 'we couldn't mention God, Saddam, his family or his ministers. But we were more or less tolerated.' Today, a slip of the tongue will more surely send you to the morgue than to a straw bed in a dungeon."

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How to Stay in Iraq

Tom Engelhardt writes: "On Wednesday, at the end of a gestation period nearly long enough to produce a human baby, the Baker committee - by now, according to the Washington Post's Robin Wright, practically 'a parallel policy establishment' - will hand over to the president its eagerly anticipated 'consensus' report, its 'compromise' plan that takes the 'middle road,' that occupies a piece of inside-the-Beltway 'middle ground,' and that will almost certainly be the policy equivalent of a still birth. Whatever satisfaction it briefly offers, it might as well be sent directly to the Baghdad morgue."

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