Very rarely does victory resemble defeat. In Sri Lanka, while government officials celebrate triumph and some citizens light firecrackers in the street, more than 250,000 displaced Tamils are trapped in tiny, dense relief camps in northern Sri Lanka waiting to hear whether or not they can return home. What kind of victory is this?

According to the Sri Lankan government and photos of a pale-faced Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE has been defeated and all peace will be restored to Sri Lanka’s embattled civilian population. That’s obviously an exaggeration of the truth.