Ah, the Good Old Days *Please Read the Body of This Text while Humming the Li'l Rascals Theme* Remember the good old days say 18 months ago when we didn't even have an "Expanded" Lord of the Rings Box Set out for the First of the Trilogy and we made fun of the illegitimacy of Saddam because he got 99% of the vote in a sham election? Oh, and we also had the Administration tell us the Iraqi people would just love us. Well, the false popularity of Hussein has now been joined by those who talk about how popular we really are in with the Iraqi people...so the old days are new again...

According to a new public opinion poll conducted for the U.S. authority in Baghdad, 88 percent of Iraqis now say they regard the Americans as occupiers, and only 7 percent view them as liberators. The Iraqis surveyed ranked the departure of U.S. forces as their third most important priority, behind security and jobs but ahead of democratization, the formation of a new government and reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, said Sadoun al Dulame, a pollster who heads the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies. His group took the poll of 1,640 Iraqis, who were questioned in face-to-face interviews in seven cities two weeks ago, and says there is a margin of error of 3 percentage points... There is also a growing fear, not only of the crime that remains the most pressing concern of every Iraqi but also of the Americans themselves. "When I see American soldiers ahead of me in the street, I change my way just to avoid them, because they have the authority to kill anyone at any time for no reason and I think maybe I will get killed," said Mohammed Majeed, 34, a silversmith in Baghdad's Karadah market. "It is finished. There is no trust, no confidence," said Abu Remon, 42, an optician who would give only his nickname because he said he feared U.S. reprisals. "A year ago I would have invited the Americans in for tea if I saw them. Now if they came to me, I would spit on them."

But as the article makes clear we are still not as bad as Saddam, such has become our moral equivocation...after all 7% still like us...granted they are all likely Kurds, but at least its something.