"The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us."
--Quentin Crisp

So, Iraq has opened the doors of its prisons and loosed the thousands into the streets— free at last .

But the question whispered in the streets and by the thousands of families of the imprisoned is: Where are they?

Is Saddam slipping? Has last week’s faux election victory gone to his head?

It seems to me, the worst mistake a police state can make is to allow an en masse realization of the terror it inflicts upon its own people.

In Haiti the uprising that drove the Duvaliers from power started after they broadcasting a lavish private party on the state’s only TV channel allowing their impoverished people an unblinking glimpse into the heart of their kleptocracy.

Following Argentina’s dirty war, the main square of Buenos Aries was filled day after day by the Mothers of the Disappeared. More than the endless reports from Amnesty International and “fact finding missions” from other NGOs, this brave action by a few dedicated individuals shamed the government into admitting to the use of torture and murder as a means of suppressing dissent.

The righteous anger of Iraq’s citizenry will not remove Saddam by itself; he knows the power of terror all too well. The jails will quickly fill up again. What this chink in Saddam's armor does demonstrate is that the US will likely have a waiting fifth column in place for when the time comes to remove this boil from the gluteus maximums of the world.