Arab "volunteers", misled by their own governments' propaganda and infammatory broadcasts on various news channels, are turning around and going home in dismay. "We volunteered to defend Baghdad," said Firas Ali Abdullah, who returned to Syria with seven other Syrians and Lebanese on Wednesday. "Instead of giving us weapons to fight, they used us as human shields."

They were stupid enough to answer a call to arms by Saddam Hussein and a few clerics on his payroll. Did they once stop to ask whether the Iraqi people needed their help? And if that help was indeed needed, shouldn't they be helped in getting rid of Saddam?