They've captured Saddam Hussein. I see this as a good thing. However, I've been having a discussion on IRC about the impact of this overall. I think that things will begin to change more rapidly in Iraq. The people of Iraq can now see that he will not be back, and that the US, by capturing him alive, is at least making some attempt to follow the non-assassination policy. In the perspective of the Middle East as a whole, I think that there will be slightly less tension as it is more visible that Hussein (who is hated there by many as well) will not become a martyr. However, Iraq is a side issue in the greater perspective of the Middle East and will remain so until a government is satbilized there. Finally in the context of the world as a whole, I think that Hussien being brought to a war crimes trial will expose a lot of things that will (hopefully) prove that what the US has done was not only justified, but necessary. What remains to be seen is what happens after. Does the US government put as much effort into building a government that the Iraqi people want and need as they do into the economic restructuring. And does the US continue to pursue the "war on terror" with the same determination, when the terrorists aren't as hated as those who have attacked Americans. Will we go after the IRA? Drug lords? The Russian mafia? What about racist police officers in the US? I'd like to think that we will go after each of these with that same level of determination that we have pursued bin Laden and Hussein, but I'm enough of a realist to know that since these things have almost no effect on the people who spend $40,000 on an SUV and bitch about the high price of gas, that they will encourage the government to work on other things that have more impact on them. Like building wider roads and walls so they don't have to see the houses of people who could live on what they pay for gas. But whatever.
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