earthmann

We got Saddam: Hoo ha or ho hum?

Some excitement is understandable, but as far as the media pundits rushing to speculate on how his capture will affect domestic politics- I've got to say, please keep your pants up.

Opposition, to the unilateral, preemptive, war against a not-so-imminent threat was not founded on a belief that Saddam would carry on as usual despite our invasion.
We opposed the war not because we thought Saddam would elude capture and continue wrecking havec on his country. We assumed the opposite, and still opposed the war. Therefore, it makes no sense that all right-minded people reframe their opposition to this fool's-errand of a war just because yesterday Bush gave us good TV.

So give me more images of God's Army probing Saddam's pie-hole. Give me more commentary comparing him to a street bum; Tell me how the Lion of Bagdhad was reduced to a common rat living in a dirty hole beneath the ground. But please, don't expect me to change my opinion of an unjust war and the puppet-monkee who leads it.

Saddam's elusiveness highlighted the fact that victory in this war is not a puzzle to be solved with a really smart bomb, that the true enemy of the region is so ingrained that it will not be defeated with the Americana veneer of guns and love.

Indeed, his capture denies Bush's opponents a powerful symbol of his failures as President of the United States of America. However, beyond the symbols, there waits the substance.

Bush has so bungled foreign policy and the decades' worth of diplomacy that made it possible. There used to be a time when the world, generally, recognized the office of the American Presidency as being "Leader of the Free World." We have traded our position on the global stage to fulfill the narrow interests of the Neo-con hunting buddies who pass for enlightened advisors.