Evil bastard caught
I got up late, but just in time to hear my mom say, "Sugar Kat! Come here!" I figured there was something I did wrong (again), so I shuffled to the office and said, "What?" in an aggrieved tone, as I revert to about thirteen years of age when I'm around my mom. She was in her AOL account and watching a live internet news report from ABC.
"They caught him!" she said, waving her hand at me to get closer, not taking her eyes away from the streaming video.
"Who?"
"Saddam."
"Who?"
She gave me a dark, you-idiot look. "Saddam Hussein. They caught him."
Some general-type was giving a news conference and showing pictures of where Saddam had been hiding out when the U.S. Special Forces caught him. The irony of where he was compared to where he had been, and the fact that he could see his palaces from where he'd been hiding, was lost on no one, not even the general speaking.
My first thought was, They didn't catch Hitler, but they caught him.
My second thought was, How do we know this is the real deal? What if it's some sort of fake Saddam they're showing us to make America and the world think the invasion of Iraq wasn't a complete waste of time and money and lives, military and civilian?
Mom said they waited until they had DNA proof that it was Saddam.
I guess they used the DNA from his sons. Or something.
I wanted to listen to NPR, whose round-the-clock news coverage I trust. We had to get in the car, anyway, 'cause Mom wanted me to go with her to Manchester, Vermont, so I could try on a coat at one of the outlet stores there. We listened to the news on the way there, taking pictures of the moutains, hoping we'd make it there and back before the storm hit (no, we didn't). At a certain point when listening to the news coverage, I got goosebumps.
We did some good, I thought. We got rid of a horrible dictator and we caught him and now he'll have to face a court of law.
The goosebumps went away quickly after a little bit of thinking. There are still terrorist cells which have entered Iraq with the increasing lack of law and order since our invasion. They won't go away any time soon.
There will still be Ba'athist resistence, though that may die down after some months more.
There is still no real law and order there, and we don't seem to be bothered to set up any. We didn't bother to get UN support before we went, so I don't think we'll get them to come in any time soon to install UN police forces. (Our guys are military, not police. They are not trained to be police and they shouldn't have to be. Half the problems we have over there are because we're making our military forces play a role they were never trained for. It's not easy to police an area. You need special training and someone to police the police forces in case there's any abuse of power. Ask the NYPD.)
We're pulling out too soon, long before we can guarantee a settled, established native government. We've started this mess, we're responsible. It would be increadibly irresponsible of us to bail out before we've helped the Iraqi people finish the job. We're their government right now, we're responsible for them. They're our colony until we establish a viable Iraqi government. If we don't stay and finish the job properly, take the responsibility our invasion of that nation has given us, there will probably be some sort of civil war followed by a coup which will establish a government not unlike the Taliban (which has been sneaking back into power in Afghanistan since we started ignoring the mess we made there to go make a mess of Iraq).
It's terrifically depressing to think of my classmates getting blown up for no reason.
But they aren't. Saddam has fallen from power. He's been caught. He and his family will never hold sway over Iraq again. They'll never have civilians tortured and murdered. They won't make any more mass graves. They won't be able to reroute a river to destroy a culture as ancient as civilization itself and destroy one of the most fertile lands in the region. Saddam will face some sort of court of law (hopefully an international court of law, like the Nazis had to face, with lots of Iraqis involved). He will be penalized (I think life in prison, for someone who'd held such absolute power and had had anything he desired brought to him, would be exquisite torture for the evil bastard--the death penalty is too easy on him, as he can only die once and he deserves a lot more than one death). Our military forces have accomplished that much, at least. Thank goodness.
"They caught him!" she said, waving her hand at me to get closer, not taking her eyes away from the streaming video.
"Who?"
"Saddam."
"Who?"
She gave me a dark, you-idiot look. "Saddam Hussein. They caught him."
Some general-type was giving a news conference and showing pictures of where Saddam had been hiding out when the U.S. Special Forces caught him. The irony of where he was compared to where he had been, and the fact that he could see his palaces from where he'd been hiding, was lost on no one, not even the general speaking.
My first thought was, They didn't catch Hitler, but they caught him.
My second thought was, How do we know this is the real deal? What if it's some sort of fake Saddam they're showing us to make America and the world think the invasion of Iraq wasn't a complete waste of time and money and lives, military and civilian?
Mom said they waited until they had DNA proof that it was Saddam.
I guess they used the DNA from his sons. Or something.
I wanted to listen to NPR, whose round-the-clock news coverage I trust. We had to get in the car, anyway, 'cause Mom wanted me to go with her to Manchester, Vermont, so I could try on a coat at one of the outlet stores there. We listened to the news on the way there, taking pictures of the moutains, hoping we'd make it there and back before the storm hit (no, we didn't). At a certain point when listening to the news coverage, I got goosebumps.
We did some good, I thought. We got rid of a horrible dictator and we caught him and now he'll have to face a court of law.
The goosebumps went away quickly after a little bit of thinking. There are still terrorist cells which have entered Iraq with the increasing lack of law and order since our invasion. They won't go away any time soon.
There will still be Ba'athist resistence, though that may die down after some months more.
There is still no real law and order there, and we don't seem to be bothered to set up any. We didn't bother to get UN support before we went, so I don't think we'll get them to come in any time soon to install UN police forces. (Our guys are military, not police. They are not trained to be police and they shouldn't have to be. Half the problems we have over there are because we're making our military forces play a role they were never trained for. It's not easy to police an area. You need special training and someone to police the police forces in case there's any abuse of power. Ask the NYPD.)
We're pulling out too soon, long before we can guarantee a settled, established native government. We've started this mess, we're responsible. It would be increadibly irresponsible of us to bail out before we've helped the Iraqi people finish the job. We're their government right now, we're responsible for them. They're our colony until we establish a viable Iraqi government. If we don't stay and finish the job properly, take the responsibility our invasion of that nation has given us, there will probably be some sort of civil war followed by a coup which will establish a government not unlike the Taliban (which has been sneaking back into power in Afghanistan since we started ignoring the mess we made there to go make a mess of Iraq).
It's terrifically depressing to think of my classmates getting blown up for no reason.
But they aren't. Saddam has fallen from power. He's been caught. He and his family will never hold sway over Iraq again. They'll never have civilians tortured and murdered. They won't make any more mass graves. They won't be able to reroute a river to destroy a culture as ancient as civilization itself and destroy one of the most fertile lands in the region. Saddam will face some sort of court of law (hopefully an international court of law, like the Nazis had to face, with lots of Iraqis involved). He will be penalized (I think life in prison, for someone who'd held such absolute power and had had anything he desired brought to him, would be exquisite torture for the evil bastard--the death penalty is too easy on him, as he can only die once and he deserves a lot more than one death). Our military forces have accomplished that much, at least. Thank goodness.
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