Amid the cheers, sobering facts: Boston Globe

[jbfam4]

Amid the cheers, sobering facts
By James Carroll, 12/16/2003 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/12/16/amid_the_cheers_sobering_facts/

THE NEWS stopped America: Saddam Hussein captured -- not in some kind of command bunker, running the guerrilla war, but in a "spider hole," with mice and rats. For the last two days, interruption was the motif as the report upended assumptions about the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the US presidential election, the financial markets, even the shopping season. Good news all around, if you can believe the first reactions. Dec. 13 was being described as a historic day because of the bedraggled man found cowering in the dark.


At issue in how the capture of Saddam Hussein is understood, also, is the construction and reconstruction of history. The melodrama of the seizure should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Saddam Hussein, by this point in the war, had long since stopped being the crucial issue. Hussein was a bloody tyrant whose crimes should be adjudicated, but to assess the meaning of America's war in Iraq with that as the key justification would be like remembering Aug. 6, 1945, only with reference to the atrocities committed by the Japanese imperial army. The United States did not attack Iraq because of Hussein's wickedness (The world is rife with wicked tyrants). It did so because Hussein posed an imminent threat to his neighbors and America, and there was no other way to stop that threat. Additionally, Washington tied Hussein to 9/11 (an Al Qaeda-Iraq meeting in Prague), making the war against Iraq necessary to the war on terrorism.

It is already clear that these justifications were false. Even if Hussein now revealed a stock of chemical or biological agents, the question of "imminence" would remain, because post-invasion investigations have established that no weaponized agents were ready to use. And as for the Hussein connection with 9/11 (What meeting in Prague?), that has been exposed as fantasy.

The war in Iraq is more the result of America's agenda than Hussein's. The violence in Iraq (multiple bombings since Hussein's capture) is a result of Washington's terrible miscalculations. The threat from terrorism (Pakistan's leader nearly assassinated) has been made worse by Bush policies. The structure of American alliances has been needlessly undermined (hence James Baker's mission). America's extreme belligerence is imitated elsewhere (Sharon's faith in "overwhelming force"), making the world far more dangerous. These issues must not be blotted out in the glare of the media celebration of Saddam Hussein's capture. That he was caught in a hole, obviously unrelated to the guerrilla resistance, is a turning point in nothing that matters now: not in restoring order to Iraq, not in rebuilding structures of international law, not in thwarting terrorism, not in stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, not in reconciling the West and the world of Islam.

Such is the damage following from President Bush's war. For what? The question about the Bush war and the Truman decision to use the bomb is the same: Was it necessary? Even if Bush hopes we won't ask that question, history will.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. $5,000 Ice Cream Cone

That's what Saddam is. Nice to have, absolutely insane to have at the price.

Oh, and guess who's paying?

[ewagner]

2. Good article

So far, its the only article I have seen (other than some rather good DU posts) that tries to put the capture in some perspective....or, should I say, the proper perspective.

The cable news channels seem to be obsessed with the details of the capture (which are, IMO irrelavant) and interviews with various Iraqis who have been allowed to meet with Saddam to ask him leading questions. (Why were you so cruel? etc.)

Journalism 101! Where are you?

[library_max]

3. To hear the RW crow, you'd think Saddam invented dictatorship.

Iraq has always been a dictatorship. If Saddam had never been born, Iraq would presumably be a dictatorship today, because one assumes that other dictator (like most of the world's dictators) would have had the good sense not to get crosswise with the United States.

The U.S. put Saddam in power and kept him there. We armed him. He was our favorite client in the region (other than Israel) until he overstepped his bounds and invaded Kuwait.

It's good that we've got him. Now we know that he hasn't been orchestrating the resistance. And if he gets a real trial, that will be great for us, lousy for Bush, because all of the dirty backroom deals between him and the U.S. government will come out.

[Nadienne]

4. The question I ask

the unquestioning, follow the leader types is, If it was so important to capture Hussein, does that mean we are any closer to getting our troops out of Iraq and back home?

Their answer: Fighting is still going on in Iraq, therefore we can't bring our troops home yet.

My rebuttal: So then, what's the big deal with Hussein's capture? If he wasn't in charge of the resistance for the past (how many months?), then we are no closer to our supposed goal. Capturing him hasn't accomplished a whole lot, now, has it?

[library_max]

5. Kick.

[pinto]

6. Thx for the post, I agree with Carroll, even if we won't ask "for what?",

history will.

(aside) I've liked this guy's reporting in the past. He thinks. And I'm an ex-Bostonion....