In photos, he appears with his face covered, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. That's how he goes to work out on the street, too -- identity obscured for the protection of himself and his family.

That's what it is to make a living as an Iraqi interpreter working with American troops. If the enemy find out who he is, they might track him down, they might kill him, they might kill his people. Thanks to the idea that those who work with the "occupation forces" are "collaborators," and thus fair game for death, he has much to fear.

For the Iraqi who goes only by the name "The Hammer," when America invaded he felt "Happy. It was like I was living in a jail and somebody set me free. I don’t want Saddam ruling me. Never. I was just waiting and waiting for this moment...It was crazy life [before the invasion], like feeling safe inside a jail. If they sent you to an actual jail nothing changed. They arrested everyone, literally everyone, for no reason and sent them to jail for two weeks just so they could see the jail," he told blogger/journalist Michael J. Totten in a recent interview.

What does he say to the idea of America leaving Iraq? "I will kill myself if it happens."

Meet a second Iraqi, an architect and blogger named Raed Jarrar. He's not afraid to use his real name. Privileged and well-traveled before the war, he's not as happy now that Saddam has been overthrown. Of self-described Palestinian descent and a "secular Muslim," he delayed his first day of blogging out of anger and frustration over the assassination of Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Yassin sanctioned the use of female suicide bombers and said that "Reconciliation with the Jews is a crime."

Jarrar took a similar "sick day" when Yassin's successor to the Hamas mantel, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, was done in. Only on that day, he explained his feelings a bit further: "Everyone is full of HATE!!! EVEN ME!!!" In the 2004 Palestinian Authority election, he supported Marwan Barghouti's candidacy. Barghouti is, and was at the time, serving five consecutive life-sentences in an Israeli jail for murders stemming from three separate terror attacks.

Unlike our first Iraqi, Jarrar wasn't interested in liberation and despises the coalition presence. On July 13, 2005, when a suicide bomber intentionally targeted a crowd of kids surrounding American troops handing out candy, killing twenty-seven people, mostly children, Jarrar blamed the Americans: "Who is more to blame? The Iraqi resistance targeting occupation military soldiers or the coward US army hiding behind Iraqi kids?" he wrote at the time.

So where is Raed Jarrar now? Is he in Baghdad, angrily blogging mayhem and misfortune to the forces of the "occupation?" Is he laboring and putting his life on the line to rebuild Iraqi civil society from ground up?

No, Raed Jarrar is living legally in the United States of America. That's right, thanks to American hospitality, and his great fortune in falling in with a soul-mate who happens to be an American citizen and Iranian activist -- an activist who believes that Iran should be pursuing nuclear weapons to defend itself from the depredations of an out of control America -- Raed Jarrar took time enough away from ranting about America and the Bush Administration to move here.

Once here he delved right in to what he does best. No, not architecture -- politics. His first job was with California Peace Action, going door to door, but it wasn't long before he went on to bigger and better things, working with Medea Benjamin's radical Leftist Global Exchange and the American Friends Service Committee.

If the stories and photos on his blog are any indication, Jarrar has been living the activist's life of Reilly, traveling across Asia, Africa, Europe and America, meeting celebrity activists like Cindy Sheehan, doing television interviews, going on speaking tours...not a bad gig if you can get it.

But it was only a matter of time before Uncle Sam would pay, because that's what you get for being nice.

On August 12, 2006, Jarrar had just finished a political event in New York. Sporting a t-shirt with the slogan "We Will Not Be Silent" (originally an anti-Nazi statement now adopted by the radical Left for use against you-know-who) in English and Arabic on it, he headed for his JetBlue flight back to California. And that's where things took what is becoming a familiar turn.

This was two days after British police arrested 21 people in a plot to blow up multiple airliners flying from the UK to the US in what one British authority said was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale." When Jarrar approached the gate, he was taken aside by JetBlue employees and a TSA agent and informed that his shirt had made other passengers uncomfortable. They demanded he change the shirt before being allowed on the flight. One JetBlue employee even offered to buy Jarrar another t-shirt to wear over his slogan shirt.

Jarrar demurred -- he argued, he asserted his rights...but eventually he assented and got on the flight.

And now a year later, he and the ACLU are suing JetBlue [PDF], the TSA agent involved personally and any other TSA and JetBlue employees they can just as soon as they can figure out their identities ("John and Jane Does 1-10"). They are alleging racial discrimination, violation of Constitutional Rights, and they are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

They say you get the government you deserve. Perhaps we get the immigrants we deserve as well. One may reasonably ask how it is that a man like Jarrar, who spent his time slandering our troops and our government and cheering for terrorists, and is now spending his time stressing our legal and security systems, has ended up here with coveted green card in wallet, while at the same time there are millions of people around the world who would literally sacrifice their right arms for the privilege of having that same little piece of plastic. And still, they'd appreciate the privilege.

So what of "The Hammer?" "I’ll tell you what I tell my family. If I die here, wrap me in the American flag when you bury me." According to Michael Totten, he's looking for "employment in and permanent relocation to the United States for himself, his wife, and his son."

So far, no takers.