| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Busted!
Allah Sometimes Works In Mysterious Ways
"I'm Saddam Hussein, I'm the president of Iraq and I'm
willing to negotiate." --- Iraqi dictator to American forces upon
his capture.
Call it the mother of all comeuppances. He was one of the
world's most feared and powerful dictators. He was sitting on
top of some of the world's richest oil reserves. He was
surrounded by sycophants and yes men. He raped, tortured
and murdered thousands of subjects at will. He invaded
neighboring countries. He had fantasies of pan-Arab greatness.
And while he was prone to severe miscalculations, he somehow
always managed to maintain power, even after the humiliation
of the Kuwait debacle.
Then he played a cat and mouse game for twelve years,
playing the U.N. and all the peaceniks for fools. Kofi Annan,
UN secretary general, came to him in '98 for a personal meeting
and went back saying that he was a man with whom he could
"do business." All he had to do was bide his time and one day
he might still triumph.
And then the son of a formerly nettlesome president became
president himself in a disputed election. It could have been Al
Gore--it was so close--and if it had been, he would still be
sitting pretty, even now. But Allah is inscrutable and his will is
often incomprehensible to mortals.
And then came 11 September 2001, the day that changed
everything and sealed his fate. After toppling the medieval
Taliban, America insisted on his compliance with all the UN
resolutions to which he had agreed. Seeing the usual lack of
conviction on the part of the international community, he
again miscalculated and after months of the usual nonsense,
America finally came down on him like a ton of bricks.
He narrowly escaped a missile attack and went on the lam
for months while the dead-enders who were loyal to him waged
a campaign designed to wear down the patience of the
American people. He knew that if Americans got fed up with
the body count and elected a Democratic president, the whole
Iraq mess would likely be turned over to the United Nations, an
ineffectual debating society, and that would give him another
shot at returning to power. If only he could stay out of sight for
another year or so . . .
But apparently Allah wasn't willing and he ended up instead
being dragged out of a hole in the ground, lice-infested and
filthy, looking so pathetic and grungy that even the Unabomber
watching from his cell must have said, "How could someone
live like that?"
The immediate result has been that freedom-starved Iraqis
are dancing in the streets. They realize difficult times still lie
ahead, but this is huge and bodes well for a better future. In
Detroit, which has a significant Arab population, they too were
celebrating in the streets. They understand what this means,
they get it. What they don't understand is why so much of the
civilized world seems congenitally incapable of getting it.
Speaking of congenitally incapable, watching the
Democratic presidential candidates from here on out is going
to be more fun than a barrel of Baathists. Howard Dean has
already declared that "the capture of Saddam has not made
America safer." One might beg to differ on these grounds:
Dean's presidential chances just went up in smoke; therefore,
America is indeed safer.
You could almost feel sorry for Dean, if he wasn't so
obnoxious and shrill--not to mention wrong about everything
that matters. He was only able to bask in the warmth of Al
Gore's spirited endorsement for a few precious days. As usual,
Gore's timing was impeccably bad. No sooner had he declared
Iraq to be the worst foreign policy mistake in all of American
history, than Saddam was captured. Had Dean been
superstitious it might have crossed his mind that a Gore
endorsement could be the kiss of death.
Anyway, it's pretty safe to say that as the leading
antiwar/quagmire drone, Dean's goose is cooked, seared,
charred. He might as well go crawl in the hole they pulled
Saddam out of. His "Survivor"-like campaign of Bush-bashing,
appeasement and worn out left-wing pabulum is now in its
next-to-the-last episode. The final, must-see episode will
feature him getting laughed off the world stage and sent back to
the Vermontian obscurity from which he came.
Nor does Saddam's capture bode well for any of the other
Dems. True, Liebermann is fully on board with what America is
trying to accomplish in Iraq, but his is the lone voice of reason
in the otherwise unalterable quagmire of post-Vietnam
Democratic thought. The rest of the Demoratchiks running for
president are simply clueless. To steal a line from Zell Miller,
they know about as much about geopolitical realities as a hog
knows about Sunday.
The significance of this war on terror and all the dazzling
successes so far, up to and including Saddam's capture, will
continue to roll off them like water off a duck's back. Their
talking points will continue to be of standard issue
vacuousness and will go something like this: "Of course we're
glad Saddam has been captured. He was a really bad guy. But
that doesn't change the fact that this was an illegal war, that we
are the world's bully and most of the world still hates us for
good reason."
Such is the immutable mindset of the hard left, but the
majority of Americans ain't buying it, especially now.
Allah Sometimes Works In Mysterious Ways
"I'm Saddam Hussein, I'm the president of Iraq and I'm
willing to negotiate." --- Iraqi dictator to American forces upon
his capture.
Call it the mother of all comeuppances. He was one of the
world's most feared and powerful dictators. He was sitting on
top of some of the world's richest oil reserves. He was
surrounded by sycophants and yes men. He raped, tortured
and murdered thousands of subjects at will. He invaded
neighboring countries. He had fantasies of pan-Arab greatness.
And while he was prone to severe miscalculations, he somehow
always managed to maintain power, even after the humiliation
of the Kuwait debacle.
Then he played a cat and mouse game for twelve years,
playing the U.N. and all the peaceniks for fools. Kofi Annan,
UN secretary general, came to him in '98 for a personal meeting
and went back saying that he was a man with whom he could
"do business." All he had to do was bide his time and one day
he might still triumph.
And then the son of a formerly nettlesome president became
president himself in a disputed election. It could have been Al
Gore--it was so close--and if it had been, he would still be
sitting pretty, even now. But Allah is inscrutable and his will is
often incomprehensible to mortals.
And then came 11 September 2001, the day that changed
everything and sealed his fate. After toppling the medieval
Taliban, America insisted on his compliance with all the UN
resolutions to which he had agreed. Seeing the usual lack of
conviction on the part of the international community, he
again miscalculated and after months of the usual nonsense,
America finally came down on him like a ton of bricks.
He narrowly escaped a missile attack and went on the lam
for months while the dead-enders who were loyal to him waged
a campaign designed to wear down the patience of the
American people. He knew that if Americans got fed up with
the body count and elected a Democratic president, the whole
Iraq mess would likely be turned over to the United Nations, an
ineffectual debating society, and that would give him another
shot at returning to power. If only he could stay out of sight for
another year or so . . .
But apparently Allah wasn't willing and he ended up instead
being dragged out of a hole in the ground, lice-infested and
filthy, looking so pathetic and grungy that even the Unabomber
watching from his cell must have said, "How could someone
live like that?"
The immediate result has been that freedom-starved Iraqis
are dancing in the streets. They realize difficult times still lie
ahead, but this is huge and bodes well for a better future. In
Detroit, which has a significant Arab population, they too were
celebrating in the streets. They understand what this means,
they get it. What they don't understand is why so much of the
civilized world seems congenitally incapable of getting it.
Speaking of congenitally incapable, watching the
Democratic presidential candidates from here on out is going
to be more fun than a barrel of Baathists. Howard Dean has
already declared that "the capture of Saddam has not made
America safer." One might beg to differ on these grounds:
Dean's presidential chances just went up in smoke; therefore,
America is indeed safer.
You could almost feel sorry for Dean, if he wasn't so
obnoxious and shrill--not to mention wrong about everything
that matters. He was only able to bask in the warmth of Al
Gore's spirited endorsement for a few precious days. As usual,
Gore's timing was impeccably bad. No sooner had he declared
Iraq to be the worst foreign policy mistake in all of American
history, than Saddam was captured. Had Dean been
superstitious it might have crossed his mind that a Gore
endorsement could be the kiss of death.
Anyway, it's pretty safe to say that as the leading
antiwar/quagmire drone, Dean's goose is cooked, seared,
charred. He might as well go crawl in the hole they pulled
Saddam out of. His "Survivor"-like campaign of Bush-bashing,
appeasement and worn out left-wing pabulum is now in its
next-to-the-last episode. The final, must-see episode will
feature him getting laughed off the world stage and sent back to
the Vermontian obscurity from which he came.
Nor does Saddam's capture bode well for any of the other
Dems. True, Liebermann is fully on board with what America is
trying to accomplish in Iraq, but his is the lone voice of reason
in the otherwise unalterable quagmire of post-Vietnam
Democratic thought. The rest of the Demoratchiks running for
president are simply clueless. To steal a line from Zell Miller,
they know about as much about geopolitical realities as a hog
knows about Sunday.
The significance of this war on terror and all the dazzling
successes so far, up to and including Saddam's capture, will
continue to roll off them like water off a duck's back. Their
talking points will continue to be of standard issue
vacuousness and will go something like this: "Of course we're
glad Saddam has been captured. He was a really bad guy. But
that doesn't change the fact that this was an illegal war, that we
are the world's bully and most of the world still hates us for
good reason."
Such is the immutable mindset of the hard left, but the
majority of Americans ain't buying it, especially now.