According to the BBC...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3317429.stm

Lets hope for justice.

Lets hope for justice.

My first three thoughts in response to hearing this news a few minutes ago:

1) I wonder if it's a body double.
2) I wonder if he had any WMD's on him. (Like maybe stashed in his pocket.)
3) I wonder if he knows where Osama is.

Good news if it's true, but I'd trade a dozen Saddams for one bin Laden.

Wow, he's sure let himself go lately.

Its him - DNA tests have confirmed it. Time for [censored] to change his pic!

Edit: Why did d33 zy's name get censored above?

how 'bout this?

(hmmm..... can't put [censored] in a filename... it censors it!!)

Trust the b3ta'ers to get working on it:

http://www.b3ta.com/board/2490421

Looks like the unabomber.

Greetings!

Weird. As usual, I find out all of the really big news stories by reading them on this bbs first...

They found him hiding in a hole across the river from one of his lavish palaces.

Is my name a curse word now? [censored] ...hahaha

That's one impressive beard is all I can say

d33zY

Resist! lol

Wow, he's sure let himself go lately.

Yeah, ever since Farm Aid...

[ramble]

Well, it is good to see that they were finally able to track down our former ally and capture him. The prospect of having us go through an agonizing withdrawal and have him pop up again would be pretty horrible. 'Course, I'm not sure what Iraq is in for now. Apparently celebratory gunfire in one town today killed 8 people as those AK rounds mysteriously, somehow or other...fell back to earth. Whether his capture has a positive effect on anti-US insurgent activities remains to be seen but should be pretty plain to see from casualty reports (...at least those that the military choose to disclose. I guess injuries, maimings and amputations are just not a "hard" enough outcome to be relied upon. Only the deaths will do, or so it seems.)

I note the term "arrested" in the thread title with interest (where I think of it as captured). "Arrested" implies violation of a criminal statute as opposed to an armed conflict. That sorry SOB probably broke every law in the books a thousand times over, but it seems like one of the diciest things on the immediate agenda is how to put him on trial. I have to ask: Was this not discussed and planned for in advance? Sounds like he's been whisked away in mystery. So, will he be hung in Baghdad?, displayed in the dock in the Hague, locked up with Brainiac in Guantanamo?

The hallmark of this post-conflict conflict has been piss poor planning based on unbelievable arrogance and a cavalier attitude. "Oh, no. We have all the troops we need!" I wonder how long ago Saddam might have been captured (and perhaps how many casualties might have been avoided) if the Rumsfeld crowd actually planned to the mission instead of their fancy -- like even put enough force in place to secure huge ammunition dumps.

The absolutely coincidental timing of the capture relative to the recent endorsement of Howard Dean by Al Gore is remarkable. I think that endorsement sealed the fate of candidacies like the faux-Democrat Lieberman and eliminated any chance of a Hillary White Knight maneuver at the Democratic Convention, but the capture now gives failing Democratic candidates a stick to beat their leading candidate with, perhaps assuring 4 more years of Shrub, the Nincompoop.

It's a long way to November 2004, though, and I hesitate to predict what may happen in the U.S., in Iraq, and in the world at large. Meriting only a footnote to today's Saddam news was the (2nd) attempted assasination of Pervez Musharraf. Could they have really missed him by 30 whole seconds or was Osama really just sending him a reminder to not send nosey troops into the border regions?

Fascinating to listen to the different reactions to the Saddam news on NPR this AM. Senator Bill Frist said "a defining moment for the Iraqi people" three times, I think. An MP sergeant from Fort Drum figured now that we've got Saddam, now we'll be able to ask him where the WMD are.

Nothing in the news today made me feel any better about what a cock-up this whole adventure has been both from a no-planning/arrogance standpoint and in terms of the damage done to our country's relations and reputation. Oh, and we were lied to big-time, too. Oh, and maybe this is all just to fulfill some folks' wacky notions of Armageddon. The top bad joke of the new century.

It's funny, but I somehow always think of billionaire financiers as market-driven cuthroats -- hard core Republicans. It is with much interest, then, that I hear more and more about George Soros. Maybe he used to be a mean guy and just recently turned nice. Maybe he's got a crafty hidden agenda I just can't figure out and maybe he is actually a meanie under the "nice" facade. Anyhow, he wrote this really interesting essay in the Atlantic Monthly and the Atlantic was nice enough to publish it on the Web. I don't know that he has all the answers, but I like what he has to say.

[/ramble]

You're so angry. Why do people in general panic at the first sign of resistance. The most recent Iraq war was one of the shortest in history, and an incredible success. Now you are pissing and moaning about a few car bombs! Please, wait a little while to see how things work out. BTW I read that essay and found it to be completely unrealistically optimistic about human nature. You can't expect dictators to like you just because you give them free food and medicine. The only way to properly deal with a despot, is to remove him by force. From your comments it seems you see our current president as a dictator, and if you really do want him to stop, you know what to do. Its the only way to be sure.

The hallmark of this post-conflict conflict has been piss poor planning based on unbelievable arrogance and a cavalier attitude. "Oh, no. We have all the troops we need!" I wonder how long ago Saddam might have been captured (and perhaps how many casualties might have been avoided) if the Rumsfeld crowd actually planned to the mission instead of their fancy -- like even put enough force in place to secure huge ammunition dumps.

Heck... it took us at least five years to catch Eric Rudolf, a man in our own country, that was wanted for bombing the Alabama abortion clinic and the only reason we found him was because he was dumpster diving behind a grocery store. I was amazed at how quickly Saddam was actually found.

As far as the "left's" cry for more troops? Well you can thank your pal Bill Clinton for scaling back the military so much. It seems to me the left wanted Bush to initiate the draft just so they could have something to beat on him about and try to make the war look more like Vietnam.

No matter how this was handled the "left" would have found something to complain about.

I knew that was coming.. just wondered what took so long.

... wondered what took so long.

Heh.

-Zeke

I knew that was coming.. just wondered what took so long.

It's this pesky condition called "employment"! It is really cramping my style. Probably can't type any more until this evening.

[Ahnold]

I'll be back.

[/Ahnold]

> As far as the "left's" cry for more troops? Well you can thank your pal Bill Clinton for scaling back the military so much.

I could argue that this is BS, but I will just say that it is more reasonable to claim the reason we were short of troops is that "bring 'em on" Bushie is fighting too many wars at the same time.

The most recent Iraq war was one of the shortest in history, and an incredible success.

One of the shortest? Most certainly. An incredible success? Hmm...

Main Entry: suc·ceed
Function: verb
1 a : to come next after another in office or position or in possession of an estate; especially : to inherit sovereignty, rank, or title b : to follow after another in order
2 a : to turn out well b : to attain a desired object or end

Now obviously (2a) and (2b) are the definitions that are relevant here. So did the war "turn out well?" Strictly in terms of the number of U.S. casualties, it was a "good war." We didn't lose nearly as many GI's as we did in other conflicts. Now to "turn out well" and have a true success, you need to meet the stated objectives, or, as (2b) says, "attain the desired object or end." So what was the desired object or end?

No, I'm serious, please tell me, because it kept changing. In the beginning of the war, our Government would have had us believing that Saddam and Osama were poker buddies, smoking cigars and exchanging WMD's over a bottle of Courvoisier. Then, as our "intelligence" about Al Qaeda ties and WMD possession melted away, it was suddenly about liberating the Iraqi people. Those Iraqi people that we care so much about otherwise, right? Of all the dictators, despots, and all-around dickheads on the planet, we just had to go get Saddam? Something does not compute.

Look, if you go back and do a search for previous discussions of this war, you'll find I supported our initial charge to go in there and back up the toothless UN Security Council resolutions that had already been agreed to. I also, for some strange reason, believed our Government when they said they could prove the existence of the weapons, and that there was a tie between Saddam and Al Qaeda other than the fact that they both hate the U.S. When I started to realize that it was all circumstantial evidence that was suddenly turned into "can't-miss" intelligence, I was worried. When that intelligence completely fell through, and the war was suddenly about "liberating the Iraqi people".. Well, let's just say that this administration used up all of the benefit of doubt I had given them in the beginning.

So now we have Saddam. Hooray. Let the debates begin about whether he should be tried by the Iraqis, sent to the Hague, or dumped into the ocean to see if he floats like a witch. Frankly I couldn't care less. Removing him from the country does take away a longterm problem, but a good portion of his network is still going to survive in Iraq long after his ouster, and contrary to popular belief, he is not going to suddenly rat out all of his cronies who are propping up the resistance in Iraq. You can be assured that there is a whole army of similarly-minded Iraqis who haven't seen Saddam in a long time anyway, and aren't going to stop now that he's no longer hiding in Tikrit.

Don't get me wrong, having Saddam in our custody is better than not having him, and not knowing what he's up to. But after all of the failures to meet the ORIGINAL stated objectives of the war (ridding Iraq of WMD's and getting rid of Al Qaeda) I think anyone who sees nabbing this figurehead as a sign of successful war has a serious case of amnesia.

National Security Council

I assume you mean UN Security Council, and, IIRC, even that's not correct, as it was a general UN resolution, not just one of the Security Council. But I'm not real familair with UN policies, nor does it make much difference. I'm just making sure you're talking about the UN and not some US-internal organization.

Edit: Yeah. I was wrong about that. It was the Security Council, but again, the UN, not the (US) National (read Condoleeza Rice).

Yeah, I meant UN. Thanks for the correction.

(Original post edited)

The objective of the war was to remove Saddam's regime from power. That objective was successful. We can argue all day about why we wanted to achieve that objective. It was actually a variety of reasons, only one of which was his failure to comply with the UN regarding WMD's. Personally, I think that Saddam Hussein is in need of a ba'ath.

It was actually a variety of reasons, only one of which was his failure to comply with the UN regarding WMD's

But that's not how Congress and the American public were sold on the war. We were told that the U.S. was just enforcing the UN Security Council Resoultions. That was the only thing that made the war justifiable, and the only thing that created a situation where Congress would approve a bill giving Dubya the authority to use force in Iraq. It's a classic bait-and-switch. Hence my argument that the war cannot be claimed to be successful because the ORIGINAL stated objectives were not met.

The objective was to remove Saddam's regime. The reasons for the war were WMD's among other things.

I think our leaders did what they thought was in the best interests of our national security at the time. Ok, they had some bad intelligence...little egg on their face. Now they have to clean up the results as best they can, and if they can make it out of there with a secular, democratic government in place, I'd say it was a success. We've removed one of the most openly antagonistic regimes from power and strengthened our position in the Middle East and helped our allies there.

Well, I don't know. If your intention is to remove all WMDs and it turns out that they don't have any, then they've all been removed, whether they've all been removed ten years ago or if nothing from nothing still leaves nothing.

I think that follows as much logic as any other argument the US gov't made.

Been away for a few days, naaahh - sod the DNA, that's Lord Lucan.

one of the most openly antagonistic regimes

Maybe I have a short memory, but in what manner were they antagonistic? The only thing I can think of is when they invaded Kuwait, but even that was after the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, essentially told them to go ahead and do it.

come on, didnt you see the way he fired that rifle in the air?

Yeah, but in Iraq, that is apparently as common as passing gas.