Saddam captured – what now?

This was a rather surprising headline to wake up to this morning. Good news, overall &mash; and not only was Saddam captured, but it was done without any loss of life, apparently without troops having to fire a shot.

Of course, me being me, I have to wonder where things are going to go from here. Two things immediately stick out in my mind.

First, I doubt that this is going to suddenly prompt a halt to the violence in Iraq (nice as that would be). From the situation in which Saddam was found, it seems unlikely that he was acting as any sort of major influence over the attacks against the forces of the US and our Allies in Iraq. Will his capture demoralize the Iraqi fighters? Or just give them another reason to want the US (who seems to be perceived as more of an occupying force than a liberating army) out of Iraq, prompting them to start hitting us that much harder?

DHinMI at Daily Kos touches on this question:

And what about the continued attacks on American troops?  It’s hard to imagine Saddam was exerting much operational leadership over the attackers from inside a “spider hole” in which he barely had room to move around.  The people attacking coalition troops don’t appear to need Saddam around to tell them what to do, and their actions don’t appear to be necessarily directed at restoring Baathist control over Iraq as much as evicting the occupying forces from their country.  The biggest positive from Saddam’s capture will probably be in eliminating the fear that he will return to power.  That’s a huge relief for many common Iraqis who may now be more emboldened to assist U.S. forces with intelligence about the resistance forces attacking out troops.  There may also be less acquiescence by the general population to having the resistance forces move as effortlessly through the country.  But it’s too early to tell.

Secondly…wasn’t all this started by the seemingly forgotten Osama bin Laden?

In Sept. of 2001, the US was the victim of a terrifying terrorist attack that hit the Pentagon and New York City, brought down the World Trade Center, and killed thousands. All of this was, apparently, masterminded by Osama bin Laden, head of the al Qaida organization. After the attacks, we were assured that al Qaida would be destroyed and bin Laden would be caputured “dead or alive”, and the War On Terrorism™ was begun.

Then we stopped hearing about bin Laden. Suddenly Saddam Hussein was once again elected “bad guy of the moment”, circumstantial links between al Qaida and Iraq were manufactured, and the Bush Administration’s propaganda machine managed to convince a frightening majority of the American public that Saddam was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. And into Iraq we went.

And now, months later, after losing over four hundred US lives to Iraqi forces (the majority of which were lost after Bush foolishly declared “Mission Accomplished” after we took Baghdad), we’ve finally captured our latest scapegoat. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens from here. With Saddam in custody, who will we hold ultimately responsible if the Iraqi forces don’t stop their attacks? After Saddam’s highly-publicized capture, what will be the reaction of the American public if we continue to lose soldiers to Iraqis determined to regain control over their homeland from the occupying forces of the US? Only time will tell.

And, of course, there are always questions regarding such a high-profile capture as this (sorry, but Bush has pulled too many fast ones during his tenure in office so far for people not to be cynical and suspicious anymore).

CTDem2 at Daily Kos noticed a few possible discrepancies between the before and after shots of Saddam’s medical examination after his capture:

I think it’s very unlikely that Saddam was captured last night, from looking at the photos.

First off, the wound on his forehead has healed over  between the time the “unshaved” photo was taken and the time the “shaved” photo was taken.  Sure, I guess you could say that for some reason they put makeup on it.

But, more difficult to explain – he has more than a little stubble by the time the “shaved” photo was taken.  That’s no 5 o’clock shadow, even if you have a fast-growing beard.  Looks more like at least a couple of days.

My interpretation is that he was captured on Thursday or Friday, but they didn’t want it to hit the weak Friday news circuit.  By announcing it Sunday morning, they made sure it (a) took that talk shows by surprise, (b) dominated the TV news on a day most Americans are home, and (c) will be on the front page of every newspaper on Monday, just in time for watercooler talk.

kaemaril asks in MetaFilter’s discussion thread about the legality of the released footage of Saddam’s medical examination:

How is showing video footage of Saddam undergoing a medical examination not humiliating and degrading, the sort of show footage that the Bush Administration were OUTRAGED about when it was American GIs on Iraqi TV screens?

You’d have thought the head of state of an occupied nation would have at least some protection from the Geneva Convention …

And lastly, on what may (or may not) be a lighter note, WizBangBlog is collecting possible conspiracy theories surrounding the capture. While I get the impression that they’re doing this mostly to poke fun at the “tin foil hat brigade” (which I freely admit I sometimes flirt with joining, if only for the entertainment value), it would be quite entertaining if there were more truth to some of these than might be initially thought…

• WizBangBlog: Saddam’s capture as misdirection from the Haliburton scandal.
• Overtaken by Events: Saddam’s capture as misdirection from either the birth of Dawn Olsen’s baby or the anniversary of Gore capitulating to Bush in 2000.
• The Politburo Diktat: Saddam’s capture remixed to mimic the Private Lynch story.
• Amish Tech Support: Saddam’s capture and Indymedia’s downtime — coincidence?
• Overtaken by Events: Pointing out a post on the DNC Blog positing Saddam’s capture as a distraction from a Dean/Gore foreign policy announcement.