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This is a good thing. The fact that we had no business being there takes nothing away from it. HOWEVER! this is not the be all and end all of US foreign policy as it is, let alone as it ought to be.
I went to buy smokes this evening and they had a TV on in the Sleven. IT was showing what I assume was some back story on how our troops missed him last time. They cut to a shot of Hussien looking rough and wearing bottleglass glasses and saying how he'd fight on and on and on etc. So I turn to the clerk and say "So have we got him or not?" He tells me that we do indeed (from which I infer they were watching filler) and the woman standing at the counter says, "I sleep safer tonight." I left before I could laugh, because 1) He was never a threat to Americans, just Iraquis, and, indirectly through payments to families of "martyred" terrorists, Israelis, and 2) Short term, holding Hussein actually makes us less secure. Don't misread that: It is a worthwhile risk, but the crazies will start coming out of the woodwork because whe have had a success they cannot afford to let go unpunished. With a little luck, this will lead to the fanatics (their fanatics, not ours) making mistakes and getting caught before they blow up anything else significant. If it shakes out that way, then long term our security will improve incrementally.
Course, capturing bin-Laden would be more effective (and more dangerous), and rolling up and playing back al-Quaida would be the very thing, but I begin to digress more than I had intended to.
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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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