Human Shields Shocked

UPI has an interesting little article. Most of what they talk about is the effect of the war on Jordan, but it does have an interesting paragraph:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

I wonder if he feels any guilt about having tried to defend this kind of regime. I wonder if he feels any remorse for having tried to help oppress these people that he obviously feels such concern for.

At least he was responsible enough to admit that he was wrong about Saddam and his relationship with the Iraqi people. At least he was intelligent and open-minded enough to learn the facts that many of us have known for months--if not years. How many human shields still need to learn these lessons?