Hussein's Capture Is Yesterday's News
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17387By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
December 14, 2003
The TV talking heads tell us that the 2004 elections and the future of Iraq were decided this morning when Hussein was found in a hole. In my humble opinion, that's perhaps the stupidest comment since Paris Hilton speculated that Wal-Mart is a store that sell walls. Catching Saddam was a mop-up operation, rather like the slaying of his sons a few months back. The guy was already done-for; once a dictator falls from his perch, the wolves – his own or others – ensure that he will never again be alpha male in that pack. All the issues surrounding the occupation of Iraq will be with us tomorrow morning, and the day after that, and the day after that.
As far as I can tell, catching Saddam is not going to fix Iraq's economy, build a functioning democracy, prevent a Sunni-Shiite civil war, or bring back the Americans and Iraqis who have died and will continue to die at the checkpoints, home invasions and while driving their Humvees down the nation's roads. Humiliating Hussein with public dental examinations will hopefully reassure some Iraqis that peace is on the way, but while it would be nice if his old cronies who may be involved in the insurgency would lay down their arms, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Nor can the capture of Saddam heal the rifts in our own country, where the lies of this administration have so polarized the populace that the coming election year promises to be extremely nasty. The President repeated Sunday that the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Hussein is part of the "War On Terror," despite having finally admitted only weeks ago that there was no evidence linking him with Al Qaeda.
We Americans are now in one of three miserable positions: We can deny that the Administration lied and continues to lie about Hussein's ties to terror and the threat he allegedly posed to the United States; we can get angry about the lies and afraid of how truth has become a casualty of 9/11; or we can be aware of the lies, but cling to a faith that good things will come from them, that the ends justify the means.
We are, none of us, in a very good place. We are encouraged to believe in an Alice-in-Wonderland world in which Saddam Hussein is a workable stand-in for Osama bin Ladin; that it is worth sacrificing thousands of American lives to grant human rights to Iraqis but not to Congolese, Burmese, Liberians, Uzbekistanis, Syrians, Colombians, North Koreans and other societies that lack precious natural resources; and that progressives actually oppose human rights and base their political positions on an irrational hatred of alleged patriots like George W. Bush.
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