Iraq will almost surely have an Islamic Republic of a sort because that’s probably what the people want. I’m sure the God-Nazis of all persuations are revving up their evangelical engines for this one. Are we supposed to prevent them from having the kind of government they might want? Heck, we have never had a democracy in this country (see last election for an example of how the demos is denied its 'cracy), and the system we do have is so corrupted by legal bribery that it needs some fine tuning before export. The Swiss system would probably work better for the Iraqis, with distinc ethnic groups and a rotating presidency.
The capture of Saddam will just serve to make the Sunnis humiliated and emasculated…and that is a dangerous situation. But what Saddam might have to say in front of an international court might be even more interesting, especially when he talks about the details of US support during the time when he was our darling in the area. And, yes, he was a murdering tyrant even then, but then he was murdering Iranians and Kurds and we din’t give a damn. So my prediction is that he will NOT be allowed to go to The Hague, where he might be allowed to speak too much. He will be tried in Iraq, by political necessity, and because the Iraqis need to feel that it is THEY who are trying him. He will be guilty and probably shot or hung after a televised show trial. Violence is not going to end because we captured the big rat.
And then the cycle begins anew of corruption and power gathering and a new tyrant will emerge sooner or later, under our wing we hope. already our man Chalabi is wanted for Bank fraud in Jordan, so we have a good start.
So its on to Syria. And now that we have voted sanctions, and the president can impose them, we have the tool to ratchet up the situation. Bottom line is we have not yet finished the work that our friends in Israel have tasked us to do. The Near East must be made safe for the Israeli colonialists.
I’ve tried my best lately to avoid participation in these political threads. However, I would simply like to say that I am amazed by the number of participants here that rush to find some darkness rather than light at the end of this particular tunnel. As I watched the news shows this morning, I likewise (and I should be unsurprised) saw many of the anti-Bush pundits scramble frantically to find anything but a silver lining in the latest news. I for one, am very, very happy they got this asshole. I see it as one more little instance of the triumph of good over evil and am happy to let it go at that for the moment.
I hope this brings us one step closer to bringing our armed forces back home.
I hold out no hope at all that a lasting free society can be set up at this time in any part of the Middle East.
I will be satisfied simply to get our kids out of Iraq.
Also, I hope this makes Bin Laden lose some sleep at night, and brings the message home to him again: we haven’t forgotten, and one day we will find you. You have to be lucky all the time…all we need is to get lucky just once.
This quote, made before Saddam’s capture, echoes yours I think:
“I am not trying to say that [the Americans] are angels! They have their interests; they came to Iraq for that reason, not to free the Iraqis. But the fruit is, in fact, liberation.” - Chaldean Bishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, speaking to an Italian journalist.
Well, Pete, if you’re making any hints in my doom-and-gloom direction, I’m just cautious by nature, and I found that quote in tandem with its source to be very interesting, to say the least. I’m fully aware that there’s as much jubilation in Iraq as there is grousing -and worse- right now. I probably won’t contribute any more to this thread, myself; like you, political threads make me itch. But, FWIW, I’m glad that Saddam has been nabbed, too. Perhaps some focus can be got out of all this, now.
I just wish everyone in the world would behave themselves. Then we wouldn’t have these messes and we could talk about whistles more. Would someone please tell them for me?
I agree. Also there seems to be a tendency to get carried away with rhetoric, to discount political reality,
and to view the people here not as flawed human beings, a mixture
of good and evil like the rest of us, but as
phenomena that come along quite rarely:
evil incarnate. 'Blood, blood! I must have more blood! ’
Now that Dale’s not saddled with the day-to-day chores of managing the board, maybe he could talk to them about it. He’s good at that kind of stuff. I think he’s got some kind of professional training.
Seriously though, I’m glad they got him!! But on the other hand I sad cause many of the dumbass people we have over here will see this as the end of the war and success. And they’ll line up in the millions to cast that vote for George W. Bush. When in fact it will not reduce terrorism, and yet has the great probability of increasing it. Before everyone starts bending over for George, lets remember that we’re no nearer the end of terrorism today and we have hundreds of US service men and women dead, a god knows how big of a budget deficit… above 500 billion dollars, countless dead Iraqis, increased hostilities and hatred around the world, a bankrupt society and how many other problems there are out there that haven’t even been address, like overpopulation for that matter. I know I sound cynical, and I know that Americans and the rest of the world should celebrate the capture of Saddam but all it does is give me a greater sense of foreboding…
Nah, I’m just kidding, hears a vote for George. :roll:
Democracy in the minds of uneducated people is anarchy, even our founding fathers knew this. Things take time and time in Iraq is something i wouldnt want to do. Just god bless our soilders!!! i did not support President Bushs reasons for going, some people do i understand that and we all hvae our reasons, but he got us into this now we got to get out.
-andrew cassidy
We were led to believe that this man Saddam was a fighter, someone who would go down fighting to the death, not some coward who’d get caught in a rat hole, and act like a chicken. I bet he got caught by surprise and decided to play the fool, so he talked alot (strategy to talk them out of it) since he figured they didn’t know who he was for sure. I bet he thought he could get out of this one, but got a real wake-up call when he came to the surface and saw the mighty forces.
My guess is that he hasn’t been living like that all this time…dirty, haggard, unkept due to isolation. He probably had word that there was a search for him and went to his childhood playgrounds. But I’m probably wrong. He couldn’t hang out with friends or relatives…he didn’t trust anyone, so he had to avoid everybody. I’d guess that the beard was by design…to disguise his face, and the money was for paying off his couriers and assassins. He probably did move about quite a bit, in his yellow and white limo, and it was probably some relatives or friends that squeeled on him for the reward.
Is there a chance that the US is in Iraq because the Israelis want them there? Yes. Not a big one though, as more likely they’d rather have us take out Syria. They are also a justifiable target from an anti-terrorism standpoint. Iraq wasn’t exactly the biggest threat to Israel.
Is there a possibility that the US is in Iraq for oil? Yes, it’s possible that we simply want access to their oil. Does this mean we are going to cheat the Iraqis for it? Not necesarrilly.
Is Bush just in Iraq because it was his dad’s war? Maybe, but we really don’t know that, and it’s not the sort of thing that shoud be assumed unless you know a person well enough to make character judgements on him. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that none of us do.
Did Bush fabricate a bunch of evidence just because he felt like going to war? Who knows. He seems like an honest guy, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot.
My point is that a whole lot of rhetoric is being thrown around these days about all the bad reasons the U.S is really in Iraq. The truth is, no one knows why we’re there. Maybe Bush actually was lead to believe that Hussein had WMD(there’s a novel idea). Maybe they were right, but Hussein managed to ship them out of the country. Who knows. It’s easy for anyone with an political viewpoint that opposes Bush to simply assume the worst because it fits what they want to believe about the president, when in fact, no one knows. The liberals don’t know, the conservatives don’t know, the moderates don’t know.
So what do we know? Well, we know an evil dictator has been forced out of power. We should be glad for that. We also know what we fear: that the Bush administration will set up another corrupt puppet government and in that in truth neither we we nor the Iraqis will be better off for all the fighting. Only time will tell if our nightmare comes true. Until then…don’t assume too much.
Probably most people try to make some amount of character judgment before voting on a presidential candidate’s electors, granted all the vast majority have is second hand (or third or more) information, at that point.
Wow, I am really shocked. I first heard about it here on the board, this morning, and didn’t believe it at first. I thought they would never find him.
I hope this will help peace come more quickly over there and help our military come home sooner. (My uncle…originally from Panama but became an American citizen…has been over there for 10 months, leaving behind a wife and four children. She’s had a real struggle without him. He gets to come home next week for two weeks of leave and she is so ecstatic about it. After that, she won’t see him again until April when he gets to come home for good.)
He was caught like the cowardly rat he is. After torturing, murdering, using chemical weapons, etc., on his fellow countrymen, he hid in a hole, and, upon his capture, had the audacity to say he wanted to make a deal. I suppose so. He went from being a terrorstic dictator, to being checked for head lice.
As one of the Iraqis at the conference announcing his capture stood and shouted out, “Death to Saddam, long live Iraq. Long live Iraq, death to Saddam!”
But let’s let the Iraqis deal with him now in their own courts, after they are set up. If he were executed now, he’d be a martyr to a misguided few. The majority of the citizens of Iraq were dancing in the streets, praising the American troops, and firing their guns into the air…BTW, where do those bullets land, anyway?
I am absolutely against the death penalty in all cases, as I believe it is cruel and barbaric. No matter how horrid and terrorizing any given person is, no matter how many people they have killed and/or tortured, that does not give us the right to take their life. I feel we should show as much compassion as possible. Granted, it’s Saddam Hussein, you can’t exactly be cuddly with him, but what message are we sending (as people) by killing him? “To show you that your murdering people is wrong, we are going to murder you.”?
I believe he shouldn’t be executed. Instead, he should go to a maximum security underwater prison in the Netherlands until he dies.
I worry about that, too, Larry. What goes up must come down, right? Was that The Fifth Dimension? Seriously, though, isn’t there the potential for harm to innocent folks when they do this?
Well, Pete, if you’re making any hints in my doom-and-gloom direction, I’m just cautious by nature, and I found that quote in tandem with its source to be very interesting, to say the least. I’m fully aware that there’s as much jubilation in Iraq as there is grousing -and worse- right now. I probably won’t contribute any more to this thread, myself; like you, political threads make me itch. But, FWIW, I’m glad that Saddam has been nabbed, too. Perhaps some focus can be got out of all this, now.
