{"id":51001,"date":"2003-04-10T05:06:00","date_gmt":"2003-04-10T05:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulhuntre.com\/items\/date\/2003\/04\/10\/dictators-fall-even-tinpot-ones\/"},"modified":"2003-04-10T05:06:00","modified_gmt":"2003-04-10T05:06:00","slug":"dictators-fall-even-tinpot-ones-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/2003\/04\/10\/dictators-fall-even-tinpot-ones-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dictators fall, even tinpot ones\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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This Is Good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This is going to be a pretty fast entry, I am going to bed and I don’t have the time to get too deeply into my thoughts here at the moment.<\/p>\n

We’re [[wp:2003_Iraq_war|kicking ass in Iraq]] and there is literal dancing in the streets about it. Obviously questions remain int he minds of many as to whether this war was necessary or correct; but I think we can lay to rest the belief that the Iraqi population is not happy to be free of the dictatorship of [[wp:Saddam_Hussein|Saddam]]. Nothing has been seen like this since the fall of the [[wp:Berlin_Wall|Berlin Wall]].<\/p>\n

Heavy fighting is still ahead of us, but things would have to go very badly for us to ‘lose’ this one. The only thing we really have to worry about now is someone who hates us enough popping a [[wp:nuke]] or other [[wp:Weapon_of_mass_destruction|WMD]] as last gesture of defiance. The mix of soldiers and foreign fanatics who have made their way into Iraq to fight will simply not be able to stop us. They are going to try though, it sure looks like they are planning to dig in and make isolated last stands wherever they can.<\/p>\n

At this point, the real danger is from the surrounding nations political concerns and fears as the world tries to accomodate a new balance of power in the [[wp:Middle_East|Middle East]]. This will be shifting a lot as the other dictators adjust to the reality that they are vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Anyway, they is a huge thread over at Metafilter<\/a> about all this, and I put up a few posts… they are below but you should also go see them in context. I have formatted them here a bit and fixed the spelling. The ‘net is pretty heavy with discussion of all this, some stark<\/a>, some cautious<\/a> and some apprehensive<\/a>… in the end though it seems obviously good that the guy is gone.<\/p>\n

While I was working on these, I made some changes to the [[wp:Saddam_Hussein|Saddam]] entry at [[wp:Wikipedia]]. Needless to say his entry is in rapid flux. Before my changes it looked like this<\/a>, my changes brought about this version<\/a> and were incorporated into this<\/a>… almost certainly further change is happening so keep an eye on those versions<\/a> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

ed. note: updated on 04.10.2003 16:12:21<\/em><\/p>\n

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posted by soulhuntre<\/a> at 2:54 PM<\/a> PST on April 9<\/h1>\n
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“Could any amount of liberation and jubilation compensate for those casualties?”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yes, of course it can.<\/p>\n

Liberty is an incredibly valuable thing. A free nation, a free people is something that is worth an enormous amount of bloodshed if necessary.<\/p>\n

Freedom is good. Democracy is good. Not living under a government that will torture and murder you for speaking up is good.<\/p>\n

Those good things will cost lives in the future, just like they have in the past. That sucks, and it is unfortunate… but it is worth it.<\/p>\n

And it is certainly worth it to liberate an entire nation from a man who killed 100’s of thousands at the cost of less than 2,000 civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

This is the most successful, least bloody national liberation in history as far as I can tell. The national infrastructure in Iraq is mostly intact, their industry is preserved and we killed very, very few of their citizens.<\/p>\n

You don’t think the war was a good Idea? Fine. But it is amazing how many people simply are so prideful or set in their dissent that they won’t admit the obvious…<\/p>\n

A Iraq free from Saddam control is better off.<\/p>\n

posted by soulhuntre<\/a> at 1:02 AM<\/a> PST on April 10<\/h1>\n
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“None of the reasons used to justify this war have panned out, and your side has a lot of explaining to do if they do not come out soon. Pointing to happy faces is not going to cut it, and the end does not justify the means.”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In fact every single reason >I< supported this war have panned out. My reasons do not depend, for instance, on the actual presence of WMDs in Iraq… the issue was never absolute surety that they existed; the issue was the fact that the risk was too big to take given the best information we had at the time.<\/p>\n

If there aren’t any there then we STILL did the right thing – the possibility and threat had to be neutralized and the inspections were clearly useless in this regard.<\/p>\n

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“Why should we feel good about this? And why should we use this “victory” as an excuse to stroke our superiority complex?”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’ll tell you why >I< feel good about it – because I am damn happy that we have overwhelming military force when we need it. That superiority did some really good things like keeping the number of US and Iraqi casualties to a minimum and keeping a potentially regionally inflammatory conflict contained.<\/p>\n