Saddam captured
Yes, United States forces have finally managed to capture Saddam Hussein. This is good news indeed, as the man is a monster of the worst sort.
The question now is, what will happen next?
To start with, there’s the matter of a trial. The Iraqi Governing Council has just recently laid out plans for a tribunal to try members of the former regime, so they’d obviously want to be able to try Saddam, and there are also arguments that would favor an international tribunal of some kind. I personally favor the latter, as any tribunal whose judges are appointed by the hand-picked American lackeys who make up the IGC may not be seen as being truly fair and impartial. There’s also the fact that an international tribunal has at least the possibility of detailing out the many crimes that Saddam committed against his people while he still had the full support of the American government. I’m sure the U.S. administration doesn’t want that to happen though, so my prediction is for a short trial by an Iraqi tribunal, and for any coverage of it by the mainstream U.S. media to completely ignore our complicity in many of his crimes.
Beyond what happens to Saddam though, there’s the question of what happens to the Iraqi people now. Even the U.S. administration has been admitting that his capture won’t end the attacks against the troops there. It would seem that it will do little to ease the continuing suffering of those living under the occupation either, especially in the face of things like our ridiculous insistence that only the companies from the “coalition of the willing” will be able to bid for reconstruction contracts and the fact that we’re going to build a new secret police for Iraq, staffed with people who worked for Saddam’s intelligence services.
The Americans may have saved the Iraqis from Saddam, but who will save them from America?