So, Saddam was captured, Meanwhile. . .

[MadHound]

Two more American soldier were killed over the weekend, at least fourteen were wounded, along with ten plus Iraqi civilians dead and untold injured. While countries who support the US's preemptive invasion celebrate gleefully, and even the ones who didn't quietly congratulate us, in Iraq it is strangely quiet. For all of the touting of how Iraqis are celebrating in the streets, the reality from eye witnesses on the ground in Baghdad is that it was a crowd of aprox. one hundred that did the celebrating. The rest of this large city was strangely quiet, as was the rest of the country.

And the defecit continues to grow, more scandals involving this (mis)administration see light(and, unfortunately are buried again). The economy, the widely heralded as recovered and growing again is actually tottering along, poised on a razor edge between maintainging the status quo and complete collapse. Jobs are continuing to disappear down the memory hole, and what jobs are created are no more than McJobs, a large amount being part time(a record high amount of people, 4.3 million, are involuntarily part timers, since they can't find full time jobs). Our civil liberties are continuing to disappear at an alarming rate, as does our privacy. The stock market, while rallying to the 10,000 level, is being called a suckers' market by such an esteemed publication as Barrons. The dollar, while it got a 1/2 cent bounce from Saddam's capture, will more than likely continue to fall.

What I'm trying to say here is that Bush is still fucking this country up, and is thus still vunerable. Yes, he might get a bit of a bounce out of this capture, he still has a lot of baggage that can weigh him down next fall. We aren't getting out of Iraq soon, thus bodies will continue to come home. The economy can tumble down that black hole of recession/depression any time, and more and more people are waking up to the fact that this isn't the free country of their youth, and they are getting pissed. So this isn't the end of the world folks, Bush has no more of a mandate today than he did last week. Saddam's capture will fade into memory, and possibly come back to bite Bush in the ass, just as with "Mission Accomplished" and his Thanksgiving turkey trot did.

I'll leave you with something to make you go Hmmm. According to NPR, when Saddam was captured he was carrying $750,000 in brand new, crisp, one hundred dollar bills. Now since he has supposedly been on the run since April, where would he get this money? I don't doubt that he could lay his hands on that much, but what troubles me are the terms "brand new" and "crisp". Hmmm!

[freeforall]

1. You're right to remain on guard...

and continue to look at *s antics in your own country. I agree, MadHound, that Saddam's capture won't really change much - except maybe give * a little popularity spike!