In the past, history was recorded, and edited, and bent into shape by the victors. But today, when the factual record is at once so overloaded and evanescent, enduring history is written—or spoken into the camera in a film like "The Prisoner"—by the vanquished. They're the ones who have lived it, felt it, suffered it, and will not forget it. While Americans change the channel, Iraqis will be remembering for generations.

I thought maybe my fellow Southerners would understand this if I reminded them of a song, "Oh, I'm a Good Old Rebel," that many of us heard from other boys when we were in elementary school, a century or more after the end of the American Civil War. And indeed, a few gray beards in the audience did raise their hands when I asked.

There's one verse that really stands out when I dredge it up from the dusty corners of childhood recollection:

Three hundred thousand Yankees is stiff in Southern dust.
Yeah, we got three hundred thousand before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot,
But I wish they was three million instead of what we got.

I think my South Carolina audience understood. There was some nodding. There was a fair amount of stillness in the room. But I have no doubt that Iraqis would understand those lines, those emotions, however unjust we Americans may think they are.

After all, U.S. forces did not blow up Al-Mutanabi street. They're "surging" through Baghdad trying to protect people. They would have prevented the bombing if they could, if anyone had told them that it was a target that needed protecting.