Rats is Rats (sampling of letters to the editor from The State, Columbia, SC)

• Saddam was on the lam for a while (This article contains several news items)

What an incredible feat our intelligence “community” has pulled off. We have captured, with this brilliant intelligence, Saddam Hussein, and it only took eight months.

• Saddam’s capture doesn’t end terror (This article contains several news items)

While it is great for the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein has finally been captured and also great politically for President Bush, it means really little to our country’s “war” on terror. His capture will prevent no future al Qaeda attacks against the United States because Saddam had no relationship with that terrorist organization. Even the Bush administration has admitted as much.

So while everyone is jumping for joy at the news, our country is no safer today than it was before his capture.

• U.S. needs peaceful regime change here (This article contains several news items)

Today, something is different. Saddam Hussein is captured. But a lot of things are the same. There are still no weapons of mass destruction. There are still thousands of dead Afghans and Iraqis whose blood is on this administraton’s hands. There is still a president in this country who is trying to take away a woman’s right to choose, environmental protections, and the civil liberties of American citizens. He has still created record budget deficits with irresponsible tax cuts. There are still 453 American soldiers who died for his lies. And the man occupying the White House is still a greater threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein ever was.

Saddam’s fall is certainly a huge step towards a better world, and I applaud the dedication of our military in effecting his capture. It makes up for the illegitimate, illegal power play that was the war. The next and even greater step towards world peace is for all Americans to effect a peaceful regime change here in November 2004. Four more years of Bush do not bear thinking about.

Those are actually pretty tame. Here's a sample from today's Boston Globe:

SENATOR Joseph Lieberman argues that if Howard Dean had been president and the United States had not gone to war, Saddam Hussein would still be in power rather than in prison ("As Bush gets lift, Democrats laud capture," Page A1, Dec. 15).
Lieberman seems to be saying that getting the bad guy is always the right thing to do -- that, even in the absence of other compelling rationale, Saddam's ruthless internal policies were sufficient justification for our war in Iraq.
I wonder whether Lieberman, using such an argument, would have advocated armed intervention in Rwanda during the genocide in that country, or in Uganda under the treacherous rule of Idi Amin, or against Sukarno in Indonesia in the mid-1960s, or indeed against Stalin in the Soviet Union during the 1930s.
In each case the killing of civilians by those in power was at least equal to that perpetrated by Saddam.
Surely we can celebrate the capture of a vicious dictator without subscribing to the belief that it was worth the huge costs of taking our country to war.
F. JAMES LEVINSON
Cambridge
The writer is a faculty member at Tufts University.
AT THE VERY LEAST he should have horns and a tail. The most hated man in the world and yet if you didn't know who he was and he came to your back door at dinnertime, you'd likely be tempted to offer him a bowl of soup and a place to sleep.
He looks like an ancient desert prophet or someone's grandfather. Why aren't his crimes on his face?
MARGARET O. SLICER
South Yarmouth
PRESIDENT BUSH has gone to great expense in lives and dollars to catch a man who did not attack the United States. Perhaps if Bush had instead directed a fraction of those troops and tax dollars toward capturing the man who did attack us, Osama bin Laden, we would actually be safer now and have fewer dead troops.
DOUG LONG
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
SHOULDN'T Anne E. Kornblut's front-page news article on President Bush's "lift" after the capture of Saddam Hussein be better placed on the opinion pages?
Kornblut says that the capture of Saddam, the passage of the Medicare bill, and the "improving" economy will "complicate Democrats' attempts to show why Bush should be defeated next year," leaving out questions of the substance of these "triumphs."
The candidates, and the people, have eyes to see and mouths to speak against the distraction of Saddam, the flaws of the Medicare bill, and an economy that harbors an unprecedented number of unemployed.
It seems the Democratic candidates have as grave an opponent as George W. Bush in an unquestioning press that accepts administration hype and treats it as front-page news.
SARAH LAMSTEIN
Newton
IT IS VERY encouraging to see columnists like Thomas Oliphant ("The two faces of liberation," op ed, Dec. 15) recognizing the immense and unpredictable complexities of Iraq. We have at last caught the great tyrant, but what does that mean in the long term? Are we any closer to achieving our goals in the country and region?
Are we any closer to seeing a thriving, stable democracy in Iraq than we were two days ago? And, yes, as Oliphant says, what unknown and dangerous forces will this act unleash that we will be unable to control?
CARL MATTIOLI
Newtonville

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