Hey, whatever happened to “Baghdad Bob”, anyway?
He’s got a great future working in the US as a flack for Halliburton.
Robin
Thousands of people in America have been executed from being ruled guilty in a court of law where the accused are presumed innocent before proceding. Saddams victims, whether they died from him commanding bombardment from chemical weapons or from torture didnt have this luxury.
Oh yeah, can someone clear up this Bush lied about the WMD thing? Is it simply because no WMDs have been found yet?
Being unemployed and the sun coming up rather late at these latitudes, I’ve only been out of bed for a short time. I was awakened at 0530 by a message being left on the answer phone by a former neighbour. He’s a Zionist, and rather rabid about it. I wondered why he was calling at oh-dark-thirty. I thought maybe he was high or something. I still haven’t listened to the message. Well, now I suspect I know why he called.
I don’t know how I feel. Maybe I’m still too close to having been asleep to feel anything. It’s good that Saddam has been caught. But I don’t really feel anything yet. No shock, no jubilation; just “Oh. Saddam has been caught.”
The Great Philosopher might be flamed for his post. Capital Punishment has been debated ad nauseum here in the States and on these boards. I am opposed to capital punishment, and I am angry that Dubya lied to the American people and violated international law. I’m angry at the way the Bush Administration (Rumpsmelled, Ass-boff, et al) have been trashing our civil liberties. As The Great Philosopher said, Saddam’s capture is wonderful news. Now we need to take a close look at our own government’s behaviour.
[sub]I don’t really mean to turn this into a Great Debate. Feel free to ignore my caffeine-deprived self.[/sub]
Great philosophy, but the facts are still to come in. We just found a massive weapons cache under the airport in Germany…how many years after the war? I’m not enamored of Bush, but I don’t just assume he lied. History teaches me that facts are like nuggets of gold, closely guarded and slow to reach the streets. Moreover, mistakes aren’t always lies, however unfortunate or advantageous they may turn out to be.
Meanwhile, we will always suspect the motives of those with whom we disagree. I believe every Administration has lied to its people either out of convenience, necessity, or deceit. I also believe they have more facts in front of them than do I. So, I prefer to wait it out, because the truth will out.
However, secure in my ivory tower, not having been brutally oppressed and scared out of my mind for the past 30 years, I can only watch the reaction of the Iraqi people and think I’m glad, for whatever reason, we saw fit to undo a terrible wrong we inflicted on the Iraqi people when we helped Saddam to power.
And then we find that Atta was trained in Iraq. How inconvenient.
Cite?
My first reaction was “Thank God.” The Iraqis have suffered so much under his thumb, and deserve this day. There is still a long way to go, of course, but I think we are finally seeing the beginning of the end. And Iraq will again become it’s own country, ruled by a leader of their choosing.
As a matter of note, Mr Bear thinks that he was, very shortly after capture, taken out to one of our aircraft carriers out in international waters, for his safety as well as for the safety of all who are now guarding him. I agree. We want Saddam alive and relatively well to stand trial for his crimes against humanity in general and his own people in particular.
Isn’t it interesting how quickly some people are to forget all the Iraqi scientists who admitted they had been working on WMD’s, and all the growing evidence that Saddam was/is one of the biggest financial backers of Osama and his band of lowlifes.
Good on ya, troops. Stay safe, come home soon. We miss you.
Well said, Joan. Amen.
Hmm… Bush’s approval ratings will shoot WAY up after this. Barring some sort of MAJOR fuckup, is there any way he can’t win?
On behalf of the many who suffered or died under by his hand, some who were relatives:
Hurrah!
An interesting thing I heard this morning. A friend of mine, a very active anti-war movement Green Party politician said he got an anonymous phone call this morning at home saying that Sadam Hussein was going to be flying through Shannon Airport heading to Guantanemo Bay. He said he often gets odd calls like this and he wasn’t sure if it was a hoax or not.
I wonder how long it will be before we see Saddam looking pretty darn close to how he looked before he fled. I myself wouldn’t be surprised to see him in one of those fine suits pretty soon.
Because yeah, we’re going to coddle him–to an extent. He’s a raging egomaniac, and we’re going to play to that. No humiliation. The better we treat him, the more he’s likely to spill.
And in a weird way, I’m okay with that. I mean, in a “ya gotta do what ya gotta do” kind of way. If giving him a comfort or two, and treating him in a somewhat respectful manner gets us the information we’ve been looking for all this time, then do it.
Personally, I’d prefer that they just stick him back in that spider hole and cement it shut, but that’s probably why I’m not a politician. 
That’s a pretty big “barring” you have there, Lando. The election is eleven months away, and there are still plenty of Americans left who disagree with Bush, his pretexts for the war, his handling of the U.S. economy and security, his foreign policy, etc… Still lots of time for anything to happen.
Just heard a good one on TV: they’re calling him the Ace in the Hole! HA!
They just released two[url=http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000GAIW.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg two more Saddam pictures.
Well, peace hasn’t broken out. A car bomb just went off in front of th Rueters office in Baghdad.
Remember, the Bush guys told us that they had visual confirmation of thousands of tons of nerve gas, anthrax spores, and other nasty stuff. Later (after the war) they admitted that they didn’t really have visual confirmation after all. Plus, intelligence guys have testified before Congress that they made the evidence “clearer than truth.” So yeah, we know that Bush lied to us.
Assuming we’re talking about the same event, that was the result of someone shooting a gun into the air in celebration, and the bullet coming down onto the gas tank of a police truck.
Oh, just let it rest.
It’s been awhile, and the debate’s gone in dozens of directions since the scientists were in the news. So please refresh my recollection of what was meant by ‘working on’. Were they drawing diagrams of molecules on blackboards, or were they involved in recent production of bio/chem weapons, or what? (Cites appreciated.)
Cite required here. I’ve never even heard of any such evidence.
Troy McClure SF, yes, that’s what I was talking about.
What’s the line I’m thinkinng of? First reports from the field are almost always incorrect? Saddam is off the list of thigs the Iraqis fear. Gravity has moved up a notch.