Detail: The first elections in Germany were four years after the war, not ten.

Little Hawk: the comparison of foreign fighters against Franco to foreign fighters in Iraq is ludicrous. I mean, really ludicrous: (1) Spain had a freely elected government. (2) The government was still in power in parts of Spain and invited foreign help. (3) The foreign fighters fought openly together with the troops of the government. (4) The foreign fighters did not fight by way of intimidating Spanish civilians.

The foreign fighters in Iraq have not the main intention to help the Iraqi people (both factions), they have their own agenda. They are killing even more Iraqi than they are killing allied troops. They use a lot of money for their actions. They pay Iraqis desperate for money for some of their actions. They probably more than once (but only one of the victims so far has survived) have staged 'suicide' attacks which in reality were murders. One survivor told how someone has offered him big money for a 'transport' and didn't know that his 'suicide' had been already planned by remote control triggering of the van bomb.

I have a lot of bad things to say about the Americans being in Iraq at all and how some of them behave, but if the opposing forces are painted as freedom fighters and the goodies here, it makes me furious.

Dianavan, I know you don't like to acknowledge an error, but sometimes a three-word sentence like 'I stand corrected' or 'I was wrong' is the quicker and better way.

Wolfgang