Nawara Negm sympathizes with him:

Hassan El Helali thinks he is psychotic:

Wael Nawara wants to remind everyone that:

In late June 2007, Mr. Hasan stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.

“It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.

US-based Lebanese Dr Asa'ad Abu Khalil - The Angry Arab - quotes a newspaper report which says:

““When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.”

And Egyptian SandMonkey has tried to avoid writing about this because:

Anything I think of will sound contrived anyway. I mean, the [shooter] was Arab, Muslim and Palestinian to boot. What’s there to say? It’s an isolated incident? It might never happen again? This doesn’t mean that everybody in the military who is Arab or Muslim will act this way? For real? Do I need to say this? What is there to say?

I can only think of two things actually: 1) My deepest condolences to the families of the victims , and 2) in the name of every Arab or Muslim that will now get screwed over because of your actions: I hope you never enjoy a single day of peace in this life or any next one!

For one of America's youngest presidents, in office less than nine months — and only for 12 days before the Nobel nomination deadline last February — it was an enormous honor.
The prize seems to be more for Obama's promise than for his performance.

The Egyptians reactions started with announcements on Twitter

Then some others were really astonished.

While the majority started making fun of it

Arabawy also wrote a special post about it in his blog.

The butcher of Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) has won the Nobel Peace prize. Congratulations! [Mabrouk!] It’s a great day for world freedom. Obama, Manachem Begin, Henri Kissinger–all men who made this planet a great place to live in. Why can’t Mubarak and Habib el-Adly get it too? The message those a**holes in Norway are sending: Murder and butcher your way to Nobel.

And finally, some others had a different point of view:

In Bahrain, Batool Ebrahim Ahmad is devastated:

In Baghdad, Faris Al Ajrish writes:

At the Iraq and Gulf Analysis blog, Reidar Visser writes:

More than anything, through his political career, Hakim became a symbol of the chaos, the contradictions and the opportunism that have characterised Iraq in the post-2003 period. Having abandoned religious studies at an early level, Hakim made a professional career in the 1980s as a political-military operator in what was then called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Khomeinist outfit created by Iran in 1982 in order to maximise its control of the Iraqi opposition during the Iran–Iraq War. He returned to Iraq from Iran after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, and in August that year, after the death of his brother Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in a terrorist attack in Najaf, was propelled to the top leadership position in SCIRI. […] Hakim chose to be treated for cancer in Iran and it is remarkable that the United States was unable to correctly interpret his physical movements as the most revealing indicator of his true political loyalties. Since 2003 and until today, Hakim, SCIRI/ISCI and members of the Badr brigades have travelled in and out of Iran without any restriction. It was Iranian territory that was used to orchestrate the new INA [Iraqi National Alliance]. It is inconceivable that the authorities in Tehran would have allowed these processes to go on within their own borders had they not felt that right until his death Hakim was pursuing a policy that was in Iran’s best interests. Instead, however, Washington for a long time clung to a rosy scenario in which ISCI was seen as a potential convert to the American cause; ultimately it was the contradictions in this policy that would create the space for Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim’s peculiar political career.

U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Sayyed Abdul Aziz Al Hakim to the White House Monday, Dec. 4, 2006. (Photo by White House, taken from Wikimedia Commons)

Tony Sayegh at Palestinian Pundit is not impressed with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's praise for Al Hakim:

What a let down! This is the first time I am openly disappointed in Nasrallah. He could have kept his mouth shut, or kept the message personal. However, to eulogize the American/Iranian puppet (and his brother before him) as Iraqi “heroes” is a bit much.

On top of that to talk about his struggle for a united and sovereign Iraq! Under the boots of the U.S. occupation, Sayyed Nasrallah? This is a stooge who literally entered Baghdad on an American tank!

Shame on you Sayyed Nasrallah. But again, these are the orders from Tehran; I try to be understanding.

So please forgive the Iraqi bloggers for not jumping on this new bandwagon. In fact I have only one reaction from Iraq about the withdrawal albeit a happy one. Mosul 4 All reports from his home town:

Today 30 of June 2009 ,

I woke up at morning on the sounds of cars in the street , the government considered this day as a national holiday so all my family was in the house , people were celebrating in the street , and exactly at 9:01 am the helicopters were throwing clippings in the air on the streets of mosul and I was able to see them brightly , but it was two streets away from the house and it said that they contain a ” congratulation speech ” from the chief of ministers of Iraq .

This is the first day in Mosul city that we wouldn't see any soldier in the city , this would be very good.

People were celebrating at the streets and some was serving-out candies and juice to the people in the streets and some were putting on an national songs in the cars.

Actually the american army didn't quit from the city finally but they still around the city of Mosul but not inside it .

First reaction came from Layla Anwar who stayed up late to write an urgent post:

There are HUGE misconceptions surrounding U.S troop withdrawal on the 30th of June.

Both Iraqi and American/Western media are using the term withdrawal. This is a propaganda spin and I need the reader to become very aware of the usage of words. There is NO American withdrawal from Iraqi cities. What there is, is a pull back to the 15 or so American bases AND in parallel a redeployment of American troops on the edges of the cities.

The official Iraqi version wants us to believe that this is victory. Suddenly the official language of PM Al-Maliki, is full of patriotism with statements like “This is the end of violence and sectarianism in Iraq”.

This is BULLSHIT, because only today there has been a massive campaign of arbitrary arrests in two neighborhoods - Adhamyia (sunni) and Shula'a. (I dont know what Shula'a is anymore. It used to be mixed.) …

The Americans are not leaving Iraq, they are just pulling back to their bases and redeploying on the outskirts. In the Nineveh province they are staying put. This means there is no pull back. So please stop believing this term withdrawal because it does NOT exist and it is very misleading. This is a ploy to confuse the layperson and make believe that Iraq is now a success case - an American success.

Hammorabi agrees:

The occupying troops only pulled few kilometers from the cities centers to rest on well equipped bases in very strategic positions which are all over controlling these cities. In fact the occupiers have strengthened their control and reduced their losses… It is not the end of the occupation to call it this. On the other hand the Iraqis were happy to see the occupiers have left the streets taking with them their arrogance and destructions however the only way to gain the sovereignty is when the last solider leaving Iraq for ever.

Nibras Kazimi was interviewed on Al-Jazeera:

I said that the troop withdrawal today is the result of a U.S. and Iraqi victory against the ‘mutinous' insurgents… I thought it was funny that I was openly speaking from Baghdad, from Abu Nawwas Street, while the mouth organs for the ‘resistance' were in exile or in hiding. Oh, and I got a free PhD to boot, ‘Dr. Nibras' this and ‘Dr. Nibras' that. Grad school is for suckers.

Raed Jarrar gives his reaction in a video interview:

With a new wave of bombings in Iraq that coincide with the American pull-out from cities, Iraqi Mojo worries about new sectarian tensions. He writes: “The Iraqi Shia withstood two years of bombings before militias began rounding up ordinary Sunni Arab men and killing them. I hope the Iraqis do not allow their enemies to ignite another sectarian war.”

Raed's mother, Faiza, has hopes for the future. She writes:

Hope it will be the beginning of a real Iraqi sovereignty ,and the right way towards national reconciliation , then the country can have peace and start the reconstruction process soon.
Our political Iraqi leaders should act as national leaders , no sectarian no ethnic discourse we want to hear any more.
Hopefully they can be awared enough to understand the difficult challenges facing the future of Iraq.

I have a big HOPE that Iraqis can pass over all the pain and the bad memories of the last years, to accomplish a better future.

And Attawie preferred to talk about jellyfish-shaped crop circles.

Iraqi Mojo:

As the the death toll in Iran reaches into the dozens and outrages American leaders, the “resistance” in Iraq and other jarab continue to mass murder Iraqis in the numbers we have become accustomed to seeing there, without the outrage expressed by the President. It's as if Iraqi lives are worth less than Iranian lives. It reminds me of the comment by Madeline Albright, about the sanctions being worth the price. Iraqis have always been expendable.

Nadia:

Hey I wish the Iranian people the best too, at least the best that they can possibly get out of the situation they're in right now. But why is it when so many liberals and leftists feel the need to convince the right wingers that Iranians are human beings, it's a portrait they paint as a contrast to all those “special” people that they are surrounded by? Not that I didn't already know that that was how they felt, cause believe me, this is not the first time I ran into this sentiment and it won't be the last.

This really wasn't what I wanted my first post on the aftermath of the Iranian elections to be about, but there it is. If anyone cares though I concur with this guy.

Layla Anwar:

Neda Agha Soltani is the name of the young woman assassinated with a bullet in her heart by the Iranian government Basij Militias. No family funeral was allowed for Neda.
Her family and fiancé were interviewed and the video of her ruthless murder has not ceased circulating across the globe…

All the media outlets have been talking about Neda. That is fine with me. But how come no media outlet has spoken of the thousands of Nedas in Iraq that have been brutally murdered by the Iraqi Shiite Militias trained, armed and funded by Iran ?

Hundreds of Iraqi women have suffered a worst fate than that of Neda, and only in total 3 articles and a couple of videos were circulated in their names. Not even.

Why ?

…

The whole of Iraq has become a Neda with a bullet in her heart.

And that is more or less it. While Twitter and other blogospheres have been ablaze with comment most other Iraqi bloggers chose to spend their words talking about daily life or Michael Jackson, or Microwave Chocolate Mug Cakes. From a country which will, arguably, be the most affected by any upheaval in Iran, this lack of interest speaks more than all the comment in the world.