rantings and ramblings about the Saddam capture

Okay, I am cheating. The first posts I am going through are the Captain's, and following the links. Lots of vitriol against the lefties on some of these sites and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I, for one, am *not* an "American-hating Looney Left" as Amish Tech Support says in the comments of a post on The Truth Laid Bear. I was/am against the war, and I am glad Saddam is out of power. I am not a pacifist. I believe in justified wars and wars done the right way. I still contend we would have been better served with the backing of the international community. That is past and Saddam is captured. I do not believe people against the war want Saddam back in power. I believe they just wanted to avoid all the death in achieving those ends.

I have heard a tale, and am desperately seeking verification of it, that early on (late 80's early 90's?) we sent an American team that snuck into Saddam's palace and left a little note on his bed reminding him we control him and not to get uppity. Now, if that is true, we should have been able to control him better, and we should have been able to take him out without blundering through the countryside. That's a big if. That could be so much urban legend. I do know people who worked in the military who said we were able to do such things, our tools for gathering information and for surgical insertions were that advanced.

As for the Saddam/Osama thing, tell me this: first Bush and co. imply there is a connection. Later, Bush admits they didn't have proof of a connection. Then later, we find out there probably is a connection, but I am not sure about those reports. Granted, I am not the political pundit that my fellow bloggers are, but isn't it worse to say "yes there is a connection, no there isn't a connection, oh wait there is a connection see we were right all along," that to say "we thought there was a connection and have now found out otherwise. This is correct to the best of our intelligence and we will let you know if that changes."

That said, I do believe there are some things that the American people don't need to know till after the fact because it compromises security and makes it harder to deal with when the govt has to deal with media spin too. However, in those cases I expect my government to go in and act quickly and not make a big media to-do about it. I think most Americans are not going to bluster around about not being told what is going on if they don't have any hints anything is going on. Unpopular position I am sure, but that is what government by representation is about, isn't it? I give you power to make X decision for me based on what is in my best interest? We are not a democracy, we are a republic. Popular vote means jack if your representative has stronger affiliations than to you, his constituency.

Okay I am just rambling on at this point. I need more coffee and maybe I will make more sense of things later.

addendum: I just called the guy who told me the "note on the bed" story. He was in Air Force, and in training some of his AF commanders were talking about the Marine Special Ops who did this insertion sometime during the Gulf War. He says it was never made public, although it isn't a secret or anything, like some guy's POW stories, it is just the retelling of what these guys' buddies did. If I can find some proof I will post it.