David Brooks is a welcome addition to the NY Times op-ed page. I guess it's pretty easy to shine next to the likes of MoDo and Krugman. Today he shows that along with Friedman and Safire, he may yet inject some sanity into that wretched mess:

Um Haydar was a 25-year-old Iraqi woman whose husband displeased Saddam Hussein's government. After he fled the country in 2000, some members of the Fedayeen Saddam grabbed her from her home and brought her out on the street. There, in front of her children and mother-in-law, two men grabbed her arms while another pulled her head back and beheaded her. Baath Party officials watched the murder, put her head in a plastic bag and took away her children.

Try to put yourself in the mind of the killer, or of the guy with the plastic bag. You are part of Saddam's vast apparatus of rape squads, torture teams and mass-grave fillers. Every time you walk down the street, people tremble in fear. Everything else in society is arbitrary, but you are absolute. When you kill, your craving for power and significance is sated. You are infused with the joy of domination.

These are the people we are still fighting in Iraq. These are the people who blow up Red Cross headquarters and U.N. buildings and fight against democracy and freedom. They are the scum of the earth. And they are being joined in their lairs by the flotsam and jetsam of the terrorist world.

Thanks to the Vodkaman for pointing me to this article. I used to read the Times op-ed daily but couldn't stomach it any longer. maybe I'll start tuning in more often.

Stephen also pointed me to this excellent explanation of the potential death of the Democratic party.