IRAQ'S CURIOUS CALCULUS of normal. Read the whole thing...its really well done.

Iraqi soldiers were being called to arms again in what eventually became a devastating rout, and those who dared talk to an American reporter would shrug off the looming conflict. The United Nations had launched economic sanctions against the country in what would become a decadelong period of international isolation, and Iraqis responded with government-choreographed protests. The Iraqi government imposed food-rationing again, but no one complained.

Asked to explain the predicament, Iraqis would opaquely reply, ``Everything is normal.''

So normal, in fact, that more than a dozen years after the defeat of Iraq, it took the will of another President Bush, billions of dollars and thousands of cruise missiles to uncork today's freedom -- collapsing Baghdad into nightly shooting sprees while Washington struggles to carve out some semblance of civility.