<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=#008000 size=2>>where this story not true  (everyone trusts CBS, right?) it could mean saddam died <EM>before</EM> the war >started.   how would that play in the USA?  ... especially when no WMD are turning up.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#008000>In my opinion this is a very scary mass society right now, precisely because the vast majority of Americans I have daily contact with really could give a fart in a high wind about Iraq or what happens there, whether Saddam is dead or alive, before or after.  A vociferous minority has been waving the flags; servicepeople's families are a tiny percentage but the way they're all over the media as they celebrate (understandably) their loved ones' return (those who are being allowed to, that is; many have been held over in Iraq until...when?), you'd think the entire damn country is waiting at every port for every ship.    But the truth is, for us ordinary people, this economy that can't provide decent-paying jobs to more than a handful is the looming threat.    This culture, whose media pounds into your head via local TV news that you can't trust anyone in your neighborhood as far as you can throw them, is the enemy to worry about,  Our bills, in debt as so very many of us are with our plastic that allows us to keep buying and having all that pretty shiny fun that takes our minds off how crappy our lives really are, they are the stuff of nightmares.   Americans really don't care about Iraq, or what Dubya does over there.   It really doesn't have anything to do with us, except for the servicepeople, and hell, they're all volunteers. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>