"We want to eat him alive"

"We want to eat him alive," said Salimah Majeed al-Haidari, 60, who spent more than four years in detention, then waited 17 more to learn that her husband and two sons, hauled off by security officers, had been executed. "We wish they would cut him to pieces and hand them out to us and families like us."

Thus reported Sa'ad Al-Izzi and Anne Bernard from Dujail for the Boston Globe (merci à RV). As for Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq's prime minister told the Washington Times' Sharon Behn that

as far as Iraqis overall, there will be no tears for Saddam Hussein.

Not if you listen to French media. The opening paragraph of Patrice Claude's article has no object but to sow discredit on the tribunal to try the former dictator. He goes on with more of the same, wringing his hands about "a weakened man" and referring to Arte's documentary on the Saddam trial. France's newspaper of reference has more in the same vein, notably an article by CBS's Barry Lando.

While Europeans fret and sputter about the alleged sins of Fox News, the word seems to be going around, from the independent newspaper to the state-owned TV station, to depict the Baghdad butcher as a poor old man, to rave against the Americans' perfidious presence, and to refer to the trial a "judicial UFO".

Meanwhile, Michael Rubin reports that

According to an Aug. 16, 2002, commentary in the Guardian--a British newspaper that often opposes U.S. foreign policy--one in six Iraqis had fled their country under Saddam. Millions left because of war, dictatorship and sanctions. Today, several hundred thousand have returned; only the Christians still leave. If Iraq were as chaotic as the media implies, it would export refugees, not resettle them.

Update: "[le but des Français] n'est pas que justice soit faite, mais qu'elle soit défaite" says LSA Oulahbib, who adds a question: "que fait Dieudonné sur le Darfur?"