[12-18-03]

Witherspooner Brian "BJ" Jordan asks this question in an op-ed piece he submitted to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

For links to a couple other comments on the capture of Saddam Hussein, as seen from the perspective of those who have questioned or opposed the war in Iraq, you might click here.

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Alright. So we all woke up on Sunday to the news that Saddam was finally captured.

One can see some justice in the world when a tyrant is brought before those he has attempted genocide against to face due process. Regardless of circumstance - whether it was a brilliantly U.S. led intelligence net that snared him or if his fate was sealed by would be bounty hunters who were later denied full compensation of a U.S. offered bounty ( http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=743 ) - for the sake of this moment of justice I suppose it makes little difference.

However, the precipice of a new day that we stood on yesterday before his capture and today, afterwards, is still a precipice - make no bones about it.

The questions that have haunted the minds of our neighbors and ourselves burn as they did twelve hours before. Perhaps muted in contrast to the new media blitz, but they crackle nonetheless.

Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, mothers, and fathers still lie in harms way. Unknown foreign children and families continue to go hungry and live in inhospitable, unsecure areas "under our control". The red, whites and blues of our curtain continues unabated with the expressed intent to remake the middle east in our own visage, regardless of the desires of the indigenous that live there.

While the time has come for pomp and circumstance predicated on one tyrant's arrest, it should serve as a reminder of the age in which we live - where the truth and the totality of the big picture can become so quickly transfigured by the color of one object within it. And how mass media and the "art" of spin can lead masses down the path of forgetfulness.

Saddam is in custody and will be held accountable for the evil he perpetrated on the people whose care he was responsible for.

But make bones about it, while it is a moment of justice to cherish, it comes at the expense of a unilateral action predicated on lies and perpetrated with disregard for the wants and needs of a people half a world away. And let it not be forgotten, this "police action of liberation" has yielded zilch when it really comes to the war on terror or making any headway on the national security front after 9/11.

Perhaps we can take a deep breath, applaud the work of our sons and daughters for nabbing this despot, and get back to focusing on ensuring a better tomorrow by continuing - unabated - to demand the Truth, to act Honorably as a nation and to keep an abiding Love of mankind central to both our domestic and foreign policies.

Lets encourage justice and freedom but not at the expense of the people we claim to liberate.

I think Bobby Kennedy said it best in 1968 when he said, "The [next] priority for change - the first element of a new politics for the United States - is in our policy toward the world. Too much and for too long, we have acted as if our great military might and wealth could bring about an American solution to every world problem..."

We are over thirty-five years removed from that remark, but it is eery how little times have changed.

I suppose all we can do is pray, and vote next November.

Brian "BJ" Jordan




Other views

For another take on the capture of Saddam Hussein, you may want to look at an article by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, written for The Nation. He notes "what a huge price we are now paying for the President's bullheaded rush to invoke the unwise and unprecedented doctrine of pre-emption to invade Iraq, an invasion without provocation, an invasion without the support of the United Nations or the international community."

Another one bears the intriguing title "Hoping for amnesia"

For an interesting view from Australia (one of the most faithful supporters of the war), take a look at an article by Scott Burchill, lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Australia. He looks at America's close involvement with Saddam Hussein for decades past, and suggests that his captors must hope that if he goes on trial he won't remember or talk about all those past connections.

What do you think about this important development?
Please send a note and we'll share it here.