Free Republic

Western clothes are death sentenceNOOR and her boyfriend used to go out a lot and listen to dance in their favourite restaurant in Baghdad. The 26-year-old university lecturer also used to enjoy going window shopping at night in the city’s once-glitzy Mansour district, dressed in the latest fashions. That was before the “men in black”, the Taliban-style militias waging terror against the urban middle class, arrived in Noor’s neighbourhood, threatening to shoot, kidnap and shave the heads of anyone who challenged their draconian strictures. The militias are part of a hardline religious crackdown organised by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the...

This is not the way some "experts" said the U.S.-led war for liberating Iraq would unfold: a military campaign of astonishing speed with a minimum of casualties, given the lethality of the weapons. So many of the experts derided this as a fantasy of the warmongers. There was supposed to be, according to these experts - we shall not embarrass them by mentioning their names - a grotesque carnage of innocent civilians. It would be a war with the scenario of hell gratuitously visited upon Iraqis: cities reduced to rubble; an unprecedented humanitarian crisis following fierce battles. However, there were...