In the obituary for the Late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, R-NY, Adam Clymer of the NY Times includes poignant and timely quotes and observations from the senator's long career:

On Sunday Nov. 24, he said in a television interview: "I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought we had a little more time." He added softly, "So did he."

He also scorned the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the 1984 mining of harbors in Nicaragua and the 1989 invasion of Panama as violations of international law, and voted against authorizing President George H. W. Bush to make war against Iraq. It was not enough, he wrote in his book "On the Law of Nations" in 1990, for the United States to be strong enough to get away with such actions. The American legacy of international legal norms of state behavior, he wrote, is "a legacy not to be frittered away."

Elsewhere, there is grim humor, as reported by Andrew Grice of The Independent: "More than 30 US Marines were injured in a 90-minute battle near the southern city of Nasiriyah – apparently when two units mistook each other for the enemy."

Unfunnier still is what David Fox and Paul Harris, also of The Independent, are reporting from outside Basra:

Basra's 1.5 million inhabitants have endured days without water. Red Cross engineers have managed amid the battles around the city partly to restore a water treatment centre that had been down since last Friday when cables carrying electricity to the plant were cut by Allied bombardment. But most homes still have no access to potable water. People have resorted to collecting water from rivers around the city, which are polluted with sewage, prompting warnings from the UN of a potential cholera epidemic. Children are at risk from diarrhoea, which is already a big killer of Iraqi children under five.

Despite its several faults, al-Jazeera TV deserves at least grudging admiration from reporters in other countries for its perserverance and determination. Check the Telegraph's spirited account of the tiny network's battle against the world. For, when everyone is angru with the messenger, he mist be doing something right:

Now, however, al-Jazeera finds itself in a bizarre position. It is 35 per cent owned by the foreign minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al-Thani, and receives an annual subsidy from his cousin, the Emir. Yet the same country plays host to the US Central Command's media centre, where the coalition military briefings are held.

So, whose side is al-Jazeera on? With the Qatar royal family, which has provided the Americans with the Middle East's longest runway to bomb Iraq? Or with the Iraqis, who rain down threats on Arab regimes who provide facilities?

Further afield in the star-and-crescent press Al-Ahram Weekly opines:

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all for the US/British military has been the strategy adopted by the Iraqi leadership. Iraqi strategy (see pp. 10&11) has been to avoid large troop deployments and direct confrontations in which superior fire power would be decisive. They opted instead to create relatively small detachments, ensuring greater manoeuverability, luring invading forces into the cities, forcing them into urban warfare. In a paradox of epochal magnitude, an Arab military dictator, faced with certain death, opted for popular warfare.

The coalition military chiefs have been yelling foul. Some of the greatest losses suffered by the coalition forces, complained the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff on Tuesday, "were due to the Iraqis' committing serious violations of the law of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions by dressing as civilians and luring us into surrender situations and opening fire on our troops". None of the coalition officials, however, admit what history has revealed on countless occasions -- that a people faced with foreign invasion of their homeland do take up arms in its defence.