Baghdad Burning: "For those not interested in reading the article, the first line summarizes it perfectly, “US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.”

…which reminds me of another line from an article brought to my attention yesterday…
“A dozen years after Saddam Hussein ordered the vast marshes of southeastern Iraq drained, transforming idyllic wetlands into a barren moonscape to eliminate a hiding place for Shiite Muslim political opponents…”

Déjà vu, perhaps? Or maybe the orchards differ from the marshlands in that Saddam wasn’t playing jazz when he dried up the marshlands… "