So We Finally Got Saddam

So after months of hunting and searching, a tipster finally pointed the US 4th Infantry Division in the right direction to capture our old friend, Saddam. Having grown a long beard, he kind of looked like a hung over Fidel Castro when captured. So we have him. Now what?

If he's executed, he becomes a martyr. If he's not, then the US looks weak in the opinion of the Muslim world. If we put him on trial after the Iraqis, the world will decry the trial as a sham. If we allow the "world community" to put him on trial, the spineless weaklings will make it a sham.

After I got out of work today, I ran down to my parents house and I talked with my Dad at some length about where we could go from here and this is what I would like to see happen.

1.) We interrogate him (maybe we let the Iraqis provide some "assistance" with their Saddamite training) until we are sure that we have all the useful information that we could ever milk out of the man.

2.) Afterwards, or even concurrently, let the Iraqi people put him on trial, with the US providing "prisoner security" (in other words, we house him and transport him back and forth every day to the court). Let the new Iraqi government detail out all of Saddam's evils in a most public and damning way. Let them hold him to public account for his actions.

3.) Once we know that he will not give up any more useful information, and once the Iraqi court has had a chance to provide him with a fair trial, we need to "let slip" an Achmed Ruby to assassinate him Lee Harvey Oswald style. Or, we need to allow him to take the Hermann Goering way out, letting him commit suicide. Let him go to meet Allah thinking he cheated the hangman, while actually using it to show just what a weak human being he was.

Since he was taken alive, we have got to make sure that he is absolutely and thoroughly discredited in Iraqi society. The Iraqi people, in particular the guerillas, need to understand that he will never be returning, that his government was despicable, and that personally he was an evil and morally bankrupt person. Many people will go to war for a man they consider to be a great and infallible leader. Virtually no one will go to fight for a murderous, evil thug.

The easiest part of dealing with the Saddam problem is over. The military did their job and did it exceptionally well, bringing one of the two most wanted men in the world to sit in the dock; to face justice. For that they should be commended.

Now we have to condemn the man in no uncertain terms and with no uncertain consequences. But we have to do it right. We should not murder Saddam (execution is another story, of course), but should he choose to take the weak man's way out, at an appropriate time we should allow it to happen. His easy way out is also an easy way out for us.

I hope that somewhere, Osama is messing his comfy little cave. You can run and you can hide, but if we want you, we will find you.