Posted on 12/15/2003 7:56:13 AM PST by Valin
They cornered him like a rat, in a vermin-infested dirt hole. He was all alone. He looked as if he'd been hiding in holes for months. The man who styled himself the modern Saladin had turned into an exhausted, disheveled, helpless old bum. The man who vowed he would never be captured alive surrendered without a single shot.
The symbolic impact of this moment could not be more powerful. In the culture of the Middle East, honour matters above all else. And now the tyrant has been exposed as a coward. The people's fear has turned into contempt. "He went like a woman," they said in the streets of Baghdad.
For the Americans, it is a crucial victory in a postwar period that has been unravelling disastrously. Every day that Saddam Hussein remained on the loose, they looked weaker and more impotent. "How can they secure the country if they can't even catch Saddam?" people would say.
"I travelled from Basra to Baghdad today, and in all the towns people were dancing in the streets," says Zainab Al-Suwaij, a young Iraqi-American woman who has gone back to help rebuild the schools. "Before, many people were afraid and would not express their feelings. But now they are celebrating."
Iraqis have been living in a state of suspended animation. Saddam Hussein was the living ghost who haunted them. Many people thought it possible that he might come back, and so long as he was free he still had power. You had the sense that everyone you met had put their lives on hold, hedged their bets, could not make plans, until they saw who would be in charge. An enormous shadow is now gone.
People are also jubilant that Mr. Hussein was taken alive. "They want him put in a cage so that everyone can see him," Ms. Al-Suwaij says. There is widespread thirst for a public war-crimes trial, very soon. As one Iraqi web logger wrote yesterday, "We want to see him in a cage bending more and more, humiliated more and more, just as he forced all the Iraqis to bend to him, like they were his slaves. But we will not be like him, we will give him a fair trial, and he will get just what he deserves, although I have no idea what does he really deserve."
Those dramatic close-ups of the living man, unmistakably Mr. Hussein, will also squelch the sort of conspiracy theories that ran rampant after the deaths of his sons Uday and Qusay, when many Iraqis half suspected that the corpses were faked.
The Americans were desperate for good news. Very little of the postwar period has turned out as planned. The deadly insurgency was a terrible surprise, and has proved terribly hard to fight. The insurgents haven't simply killed U.S. soldiers and made the Americans look weak. They've driven away the UN, the international aid groups and business interests that are vital to Iraq's reconstruction and reviving the economy. They have also driven away potential allies that don't want to be sucked into the quagmire.
The insurgents' attacks won't end any time soon. They weren't so much fighting to restore Mr. Hussein as fighting to dislodge the hated occupation. Nor were they directed by the former dictator. They are a disparate mix of dead-end Baathists, Sunnis, disaffected army men, fundamentalist Wahhabis, plus some foreign fighters and al-Qaeda members. But now, perhaps fewer people will be willing to ante up the price of killing an American. Foreign fighters won't be so eager to go there any more. More Iraqis will be willing to help out the winning side with information. And if the Americans are smart, they'll use this triumph as an excuse to rebuild international support. Over time, the vicious circle in Iraq could turn into a virtuous one.
The Americans' fundamental problems remain to be resolved, of course, and many of them are no-win. They'll somehow have to square their promise to turn Iraq into a democracy with the Iraqis' (and their own) overwhelming desire for a speedy exit. The power struggles will be vicious and sometimes bloody, and it's by no means sure the United States can even keep the nation intact.
But when Mr. Hussein goes on trial, as he surely will, the whole world will see the monster brought to international justice for his crimes. And everyone will know that it never would have happened without the Americans.
Meantime, in the streets of Baghdad the euphoria continues. "I thank God for letting me live to this day to see this," writes an Iraqi blogger named Alaa. "This, surely, is the mother of all days for us." Others are at a loss for words. A friend of Alaa's simply wrote, "I don't know what to say . . . I am confused . . . no . . . I am very happy . . . I am very happy . . . I am very happy . . . I am very happy . . ."
Hey now. I guess their women can't fight like American women can:')
The Americans were desperate for good news. Very little of the postwar period has turned out as planned. The deadly insurgency was a terrible surprise, and has proved terribly hard to fight. The insurgents haven't simply killed U.S. soldiers and made the Americans look weak. They've driven away the UN, the international aid groups and business interests that are vital to Iraq's reconstruction and reviving the economy. They have also driven away potential allies that don't want to be sucked into the quagmire.
No slant here ... nope, none at all. What a pant load. We keep making progress, the press keeps saying the sky is falling.
Let's not dis the Iraqi women. I read one story where a widowed woman with an AK-47 ran off a truck load of miscreants who thought she would be an easy target for a robbery.
And it shows the Iraqis who the cowards are and who will stand beside them.
The article fails to make the case that there is any value to an effort to "rebuild international support". I see no value in such an attempt. The countries who recognize the value of participation are there. To encourage countries or the UN who don't share our values to be there, is to contaminate a successful coalition with losers.
LOL!!!! It reminds me of nothing more or less than the defeat of Lord Voldemort in the first Harry Potter book....
Oh, screw him--we were not. Everyday without Saddam and his minions seething against The West and building their poison bombs was good news.
Saddam broken and cowering like a rat was just the punchline to an entire story of good news.
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