Der Spiegel tells the story of Amer Mokassin from Basra, who as a teenager in 1990 went into hiding to avoid conscription into Saddam's army. He was eventually discovered and his right ear was amputated as a permanent mark of disloyalty to Saddam. There are hundreds of other men in Iraq who were similarly mutilated.

When the international "peace" movement worked so feverishly to prevent regime change in Iraq, that is the regime they told us must not be changed. I wonder what the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Pope John-Paul, Gerhard Schroeder and the "Win Without War" celebrities might now want to say to Amer Mokassin.