Geez, I thought I had heard a nutball theory the other day when some clown on the radio said there's no way Saddam could have grown that beard in 200 some-odd days. Where does that square with the kook August capture theory?

If we caught him in August we'd probably have known about it in August. Too much of a troop morale boost to keep it quiet for one thing.

Besides, didn't you read that the Kurds captured him, drugged him, left him, and told us where to find him? Sure did, they sought no revenge for Saddam's murder of 1000s of them. None whatsoever. Them Kurds are one forgiving bunch!

Hey, AbsenseofLogic couldn't print it if it wasn't true.

But, even if it is, what's the big deal? The timing of the telling does nothing to help Bush in '04.

Don't believe me?

Did it change your mind?

If he wanted '04 help, Bush would have waited until the d-rats picked a candidate, let that candidate wail and nash his (...or her...) teeth about how bad it is we can't find one single bad guy in all of a desert the size of California. Bush would let this build until just the right time and then say "pssst, you know, we've had Saddam since August '03..."

And interestingly, the amount of anthrax we're looking for in Iraq is just enough to fill the spider hole we got him out of...

 

Unojo:

Just a couple of thoughts.

I am a card carrying beard grower and I can assure you it does not take all that long to end up with what we saw on TV. I do that on a regular basis although I do wash myself once in a while.

I fully realize that I am going to get trashed for what I am about to write, but it has been my experience that our government as well as every other government that I have had experience with is pretty damn callous when it comes to casualties.

I don't have any links available but I have read a lot of official histories of particularly WW II, Korea and VietNam wherein you can see what the people making the decisions have had to deal with very high estimated casualties and even more sad to deal with the prospect of wrong decisions, plans gone wrong and friendly fire aspects of combat.

While you may not agree with me and I respect that you may not, it is my belief that our commanders in theater would accept a few more potential casualties if maintaining silence on, in this case an earlier capture of Saddam, would in the end potentially shorten the conflict or as I sort of alluded to earlier, keep the peace with some folks we needed to keep in our camp in the long run.

Again, we are all speculating here but I think my theory is at least reasonably close to what could have happened either now or in the future.
Bill

 

Bill Murray,

I can respect and even agree with your logic and theories on the prior post about possible WMD’s having a known whereabouts. You offer a very valid theory and logic on why it is possible and could be the case. So I took your post correctly and not the wrong way.

As a matter of fact it was an excellent post and thought provoking. Anything to do in the international “games” is indeed possible and I agree to a point we must attempt to do some things, most things by the “rules of the game” or possibly find ourselves left to ourselves.

However, I find it hard to ever imagine that we would ever be left to ourselves because we are needed much more then we need others but the fact remains we all need each other to exist.

Where I think it is ok to go outside the rules of the game is if one “truly” believes they are in danger. I would use an example that if my daughter and I were home a lone and someone broke in, in the middle of the night and had a gun and I was able to get my shotgun I would tell the invader to haut or I would shoot him. He ignores my order and continues to come toward my daughter and I with his gun in plain site.

Now I would feel as though I was in immediate danger and most likely act outside the “rules of the game” by actually shooting the person. Now I may find out later that his gun was never loaded, or was a fake plastic one that looked real, but the fact would remain I would have to make a decision based on the facts that were present (man in my house with a gun, my daughter is here and the man does not listen to my orders to stop and leave), now man is dead and my neighborhood is safer.

 

Bill,

I about had a wreck when I heard the clown say that one the radio. Takes my buddy Paul about 3 days to grow a Saddam size beard--if he walked down the street without a shirt, PETA would be there to throw red paint on him.

I don't disagree that the commanders would keep Saddam's capture a secret if they believed it would ultimatelt provide a tactical advantage later on. I wouldn't disagree with a comander that made that call. I just think in this case Saddam's capture would be a secret that's too big to keep.

Also--and I could be dead wrong on this--I believe we know where the WMDs are. We may have already found them in Iraq, or they may be in another country. Either way, I believe that we've got somebody watching them to make sure they're not falling into the wrong hands, and for whatever reason they're waiting to tell us. Could be they're in another country and we're looking for a way to ease them out so the leaders of that country could save face. On the other hand the country might be hostile to us and may require a more delicate--or forceful--approach. Could be they're in an area of Iraq and we don't want to let out where they are to prevent an attack on that area and release (or maybe destroy) them.

 

I actually forwarded all this info to the contact on the axisoflogic website. The guy was cool and responded that this information may discredit that article. He continued on to ask if I would like to write an article for the website about this.

I declined the offer. I don't think we would've approved of my commentary anyway.

I never expected to hear anything back, but apparently some people still want to acknowledge they might be wrong and keep some integrity.

 

While sharing this little topic with a coworker, I was amazed to learn that the soldier that was fixin' to toss the grenade in the spider hole where Saddam was hiding in December, is the older brother of a friend of his son.