Big News

[davidklecha]

Pretty incredible stuff.

US Troops Capture Saddam

As a guy who has been pretty frustrated over media coverage of the occupation, and the general nay-saying to be found in some quarters, I'm pretty curious to see how this will be received. Personally, I'm expecting a lot of "yeah, but"'s. We'll see.

Comments

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

Actually, the response has been pretty good, in my opinion.

Best quote of the news conference:

Dumb Reporter: "What was Saddam doing when you found him?"
General Sanchez: "He was hiding."

(ok, paraphrased from memory, but true to the circumstances)

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Well, there's been a significant, "Yeah, but Bush still sucks" type commentary over on Fark (http://www.fark.com), but that's to be expected, I think. That place is like the Bad Ol' Days of USENET all over again.

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

I'm curious: Wouldn't you find it rather hypocritical if people who had always been critical of Bush and the war in Iraq did an about-face when Saddam was captured? Just as I'd imagine you would if the reverse happened, and Bush- and war-supporters became critical when things *didn't* go well?

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Probably, but I'm not really thinking about the people who were against the war, on principle. In fact, I'm rather befuddled that France and Germany have come out with congratulations.

Rather, I'm interested in those who, whatever their initial attitude toward the war (granted, generally against), have been crying doom and gloom since it began. The offensive bogged down, all of Iraq's cultural treasures are lost, the power's out, there's looting, we're doing a horrible, horrible job all around, this is another Vietnam, etc. Those folks, I've noticed, have had a tendency to downplay whatever progress has been made, or respond with a "Yeah, but..." Many of those sort were making much of the fact that we had yet to be able to track down and capture Saddam, indicative of an overall intelligence failure in the country that we supposedly controlled, further indicative of a lack of support among the populace which, oh woe is us, means our efforts are doomed, this is another Vietnam, all this blood for nothing, blah blah blah.

At a certain point, it gets to be ridiculous. You'll never get these folks to acknowledge that the power is back on and staying on, or that the hospitals and clinics are all operating well above pre-war levels, or Iraqi kids are all going to school again, or any of that. They'll just point to every car bomb like it's a division of Saddam loyalists sprung full-formed from the ground.

Granted, I'm a normally optimistic guy, so the cynicism can wear on my pretty easily. But still. Who doesn't see this as a positive step forward for Iraq? Who says so, and who does not, I think, is indicative of, not a sober appraisal of the situation, but the subjugation of such judgments to broader political aims. To wit, Bush and his administration and his effort in Iraq can do no right, do no good, and whatever good fortune befalls the occupiers is just that: good fortune.

[kinetikatrue]

I'm not a yes-butter.

I've been against the war from the beginning(I'm a Quaker; I'm not sure what it would take for me to be *for* a war.), but I'm glad Sadaam is out of power and has been captured all the same; I'm just not pleased by the method by which that was achieved.

I'm also not pleased that this will end up reflecting well on Bush, as I don't think the capture has anything in particular to do with whether he's doing a good job as president(just as I don't think that any economic recovery we might be experiencing has anything to do with the job he's doing, but I'm not trying to draw parallels, just show what sort of standards I'm using to judge things). I still want a different President next time around, though, as he hasn't done anything to give me a better opinion of him than I had in 2000; in fact, if anything, if I'd known some of the things he's managed to put through, I would've worked harder to keep him out of office in the first place.

Huh. That turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry 'bout that.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

No prob. And again, that's not the sort of thing I was musing about in my original post.

No, the improving economy probably isn't his doing--but by the same token, neither was the recession we faced through the first couple years of his term. As I've said, at a certain point, things just get political and, for some reason or another, GWB has managed to garner a lot of animosity from the Left. (Personally I find it a bit puzzling--and, at the same time, not puzzling at all.) My complaint is that a number of people try to ignore or downplay events like these because they are contrary to their political agenda, even when, as in this instance, one of their criticisms of the administration had been their inability to locate Hussein.