Yes, those are small crowds, but imagine living your entire existence under the thumb of a brutal dictator, and then imagine the world's greatest military power bombarding your existence for over three weeks. You might be a little frightened to venture out into the streets, you might be a woman, you might be in mourning for your own family members who were killed in the bombings. As anyone who has read my posts before knows, I hate this war, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, and I stand firmly against the Bush Junta in our own country, but I am not so jaded that I can't feel happiness and joy and even shed a few tears that the Iraqi people are slowly being freed from the grip of Saddam Hussein. He was an evil prick. I've got a pretty strong BS detector, but I won't allow all the U.S. propaganda we can dish to jade me into being upset about this moment. I do think that the statue coming down in the center of Baghdad was an authentic thing, and I'm pleased for the one good outcome of the war: Saddam is finished.
Flame me if you want, but I'm thrilled for Iraqis, I'm proud of our soldiers, I cry for the innocents killed both by our regime and Saddam's, and I pray that we won't be fighting the "new boss" in the next 20 years or so.