A year ago today

[RickSp]

A year ago today, Saddam Hussien was captured. Jed Babbin wrote:

This is a big win for Mr. Bush and his team. Until Saddam was caught, the war wasn’t over. Now the win is almost in Dubya’s hands.

Captured!

Well, not exactly. Eight hundred and thirty one Americans have died since Saddam was captured, including seven this weekend. Americans are being killed at a faster rate since Saddam's capture than before.

"Many Iraqis thought that the Americans would bring democracy and freedom, so at first, most Iraqis did not support the resistance," said Salman al Jumaili, a political analyst at Baghdad University who has written extensively about the growth of the insurgency. "But they discovered the Americans are an occupational force, and a bad one at that - if there was some serious plan to end the occupation it would lead to the end of the resistance, because most Iraqis want to live in peace." As long as there are 140,000-plus U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq, Jumaili said, the violence will continue. Steven Metz, an expert on guerrilla warfare at the Army War College, said that while the U.S. military has done an efficient job of hunting down insurgents, that's a small part of the solution. "Most of the problems that have emerged are due to the fact that insurgency is only 25 percent or so military and 75 percent political, economic, and psychological," Metz wrote in an e-mail exchange. "The dilemma is that no agency of our government is clearly in charge of and configured for those other vital efforts. The military has done what it can in those realms, but this is only a partial solution."

Insurgency roils Iraq a year after U.S. captured Saddam Hussein

The longer we occupy Iraq, the worse it will get. It is time to support our troops, by bringing them home.

[Scribbler1]

This is the biggest problem with the sheep, no collective memory. Americans in general seem to live for the moment and what is past is forgotten. Worse still, when the past is brought up, the true believers ignore it and shift positions, such as ignoring WMDs and focusing on the "free the poor Iraqis" fallback position. And now THAT seems to be a load as well, considering how many of our troops have already died. The "poor" Iraqis are either a BIG part of the problem (the insurgency) or are doing nothing to help the Americans.
At least *I* don't forget things like the other day when half of the Iraqi police force simply didn't show up for work because they were scared of being killed. I wish I had the time to do a "man on the street" interview, just to ask how many people recall THAT story.

[rmnunez]

Last I heard it seemed like some of Saddam's entourage had decided to commemorate the anniversary of his captivity with a hunger strike.

[RickSp]

Quote by: rmnunez Last I heard it seemed like some of Saddam's entourage had decided to commemorate the anniversary of his captivity with a hunger strike.

From reports I've read they skipped breakfast but started eating again at lunch.

Prospects for Saddam's trial is in shambles in the mean time. Judging by US standards from Gitmo holding folks indefinately without trial is just fine.