The Capture Of Saddam

I wrote this when the Saddam statue fell in Baghdad earlier this year.

I was at first hesitant to point to it as an accurate depiction of my feelings about yesterday's capture of Saddam Hussein, because a good chunk of the optimism that I had on that day is gone, but since Glenn & Andy refuse to put any work into formulating an original response -- and by "original" I mean "one that resists the by-now-Pavlovian instinct to go lefty bashing whenever something good happens to this country" -- I see no reason for me to do so either.

I would particularly like to emphasize this part:

"Looking around at some of the prominent war-supporters, I see that they have gotten it into their heads that victory in Iraq is somehow a defeat for everyone who did not actively support the war. Haughty "I-told-you-so"s are currently streaming forth from the likes of Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, and virtually the entire staff of the National Review- each one of them more venomous than the last, and each one promoting the dishonest and divisive notion that those who opposed the war are made unhappy by the images of Iraqis dancing on Saddam's fallen statues.

They say these things as if we had less to lose than they did if things went poorly in Iraq, or that we somehow gain less than they do from the fall of Saddam.

I reject this idea, and I condemn the politically motivated liars who advocate it. Regardless of how we feel about this war and its prosecution, we are all American citizens, and we all stand to gain or lose equally from our actions in Iraq.

We who were against this war disapproved, for various reasons, of the risk the administration took, but because our well-being was just as much at risk as those who approved, we have every reason -- and every right -- to celebrate the fact that it has apparently gone well, even as we acknowledge the dangers and hardships that lie ahead.

And damn what the liars say."