The people of Baghdad have been trying to pull down a statue of Saddam. Initially, the US Marines stood by and watched, and then joined in when it became too dangerous for the people trying to pull it down with ropes. Slight intervention, but the people didn't mind.

Then some fucking moronic grunt of a halfwitted US Marine went and draped the stars and stripes over Saddam's head.

The people on the ground were dismayed, but still supportive. The rest of the Arab world will be pissed off. They removed it, but I reckon some marines are in the shit for that one, after the negative reactions they received at Umm Qasr.

Fortunately, someone seems to have found the Iraqi flag and they've wrapped that around his head instead. A bit more appropriate symbolism. And another sign of how fucking stupid some American soldiers are. Fortunately, others were smart enough to realise what they'd done and it was the marines who put the replacement up.

I'm just watching the BBC news now. Rageh Omar's getting excited, and giving a running commentary to the events.

3.46pm - They've just taken the Iraqi flag down. Seems like they're selling it as a 'both flags = friendship' event. Bet the hostile sections of the Arab media won't show the second half of it.

3.48pm - They're starting to pull, but have to keep stopping because the crowd keeps surging forward. Damn this crappy reception I've been having for the past week.

3.50pm - The chains are taut, the APC's having trouble pulling, making a grinding sound.

3.51pm - It's wobbling.

3.51pm and thirty seconds - Still stuck to pedestal, but it's hanging dangerously. People keep throwing stuff at it, but the marines want to keep pulling it off.

3.52pm - Snapped at the ankles, by the looks of it. The crowd surges forwards and starts screaming at it, in floods of tears, hammering it with shoes (the soles of the feet being central to several major insults in the Middle East), battering it with masonry, kicking it, climbing on it, jumping up and down.

3.53pm - The Iraqi flag is fluttering from the remnants at the top of the pedestal.

3.54pm - The Iraqi commentator in the BBC studio was in tears - he's an exile from Baghdad.

Wow... one of those historic moments of symbolism, like Emperor Hirohito on the deck of the USS Missouri, American and Russian soldiers shaking hands in the ruins of Berlin, Nicolai Ceaucescu's corpse after the revolution that toppled him, Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank in Red Square, the demonstrators climbing the walls of the Serbian parliament, the British flag being run up over Government House in Port Stanley.