No one wants bombs dropped on them. Just ask the mother of my co-partner at War to Mobilize Democracy, Andrew L. Jaffee, who survived the Allied bombing of Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Yet she, a Lithuanian refugee, knew which side she was on and was lucky to escape the Soviet invasion and reach the American forces. Though her heart goes out to the Iraqi people, whose nation is being invaded, she supports the war effort to remove an evil regime.

It is not so certain the family interviewed for the L.A. Times is on the side of forces, both coalition and Iraqi, which oppose Saddam Hussein. In fact, the real villain of the piece are the American and allied forces dropping their bombs, albeit with precision, on this hapless family in the besieged city of Baghdad.

Mohsen Ali and Jinan Abdul Hamid are just your average Iraqi "joes," trying to live a decent life free of trouble were it not for the Americans and their allies who are overturning the apple cart. The couple has four children, two sons and two daughters, who live an American suburban lifestyle in the midst of Baghdad. The two daughters have read "Gone with the Wind." The father is a well-known actor and the mother works in radio. Put all this together and you have the perfect script to win the hearts of the Hollywood elite inevitably lapping up their self-congratulatory empathy.

The bombings are taking their toll on the family: Weighing on their minds is the knowledge that U.S. forces are advancing toward Baghdad, and a battle for the city is forecast. They are distraught about the civilian casualties, and even mourn the American and British soldiers who have died, along with Iraqi fighters. And they have a sense of betrayal about the United States[,] a country that they had always admired for its modernity and its great people.

Modernity? Could that mean the Bill of Rights, a government by consent, and freedom from torture? Let's cut to the chase for the real flavor of this article: Mohsen speaks of how heartened he is by American opposition to the war. He said that he recently watched a tape of last month's Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, purchased at one of the local video shops still operating, and saw filmmaker Michael Moore denounce the war.

You get the idea what a small town Hollywood is. Its sister city: Baghdad. Why, everything just revolves around Oscar! Michael Moore is an American icon. Forget about Iraqi state terror and torture and the bestial cruelty of a regime that has real dibs on being the successor to Stalin's apparatus of mass murder.

It also clarifies things a little to note that the mother, Jinan, works for the state radio. Can one imagine her opining on Saddam's gassing of the Kurds? Somehow I don't think Mohsen, who runs a theater, would produce a play displeasing to the current regime. But reading the LA Times article you get the sense a production of "Boys in the Band" would pass unnoticed.

Then this staggering piece of agitprop: Although they serve the cultural arm of the government, Mohsen says he is an independent man. Even in the presence of an official interpreter, he acknowledges to American visitors that there is opposition to the government of President Saddam Hussein. But he says the war is making people more loyal to their leader.

You have to love the "President" treatment as if Saddam were an elected official. Observe the casual reference to "cultural arm of the government." Maybe the Kremlin's Beria was only an arm of the state but that appendage managed to do a mountain-load of damage to countless innocents.

The "way we were" is now "gone with the wind" for this Iraqi family. How could the Americans upset all this down-home, wholesome way of life? While the LA Times Iraqi Family of the Week used to live the good life in Baghdad, others, less inoffensive to the regime, have been hurled into industrial plastic shredders. But that script would be too dramatic even for Hollywood.

We wish this Iraqi family survival, safety, and freedom upon the liberation of Baghdad. Shame on the LA Times. It's one thing to oppose the invasion of Iraq. Quite another to be an apologist for a nefarious regime.