{"id":28,"date":"2003-12-15T11:55:03","date_gmt":"2003-12-15T16:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/wp\/?p=28"},"modified":"2003-12-15T11:55:03","modified_gmt":"2003-12-15T16:55:03","slug":"prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"Prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Capturing Saddam is a great moment for our troops in Iraq.  It vindicates them as &#8220;the best of the best&#8221; and I hope will provide a morale boost to those brave and deserving women and men.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/slate.msn.com\/id\/2092520\/\">Conjecture<\/a> has already begun on whether this will or won&#8217;t assure Bush&#8217;s reelection.<br \/>\nI predict that come November, this won&#8217;t be a major factor, and that the capture of Saddam will be largely symbolic in the long run.<\/p><p><!--more--><br \/>\nFor one thing, Saddam could turn into another publicity-hungry pain in the rear like Slobodan Milosevic, who continues to remain unrepentant and defiant while using the International Criminal Tribunal as a bully pulpit.<br \/>\nSecond, no one is going to be able to coerce information out of Saddam as they did with the lesser Baathists who &#8220;cooperated&#8221; in providing that &#8220;actionable intelligence&#8221;.  Saddam has too much visibility and, videos of tongue depressors aside, he will be accorded a certain dignity.  After all, he was a head of state and it could offend other Arab heads of state if he&#8217;s treated like street rabble.<br \/>\nHe might end up like Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, cutting deals, maybe involving assets rather than people, to ensure a comfortable retirement in a nice prison somewhere.<br \/>\nAnyway, it sounded like Saddam was pretty well toast by the time our soldiers found him.  Al Qaeda and the rest of the terrorists will regroup, assuming they haven&#8217;t already, so whatever Saddam knows or knew will be as useful as yesterday&#8217;s kitty litter.<br \/>\nThen again, I could be wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Capturing Saddam is a great moment for our troops in Iraq. It vindicates them as &#8220;the best of the best&#8221; and I hope will provide a morale boost to those brave and deserving women and men. Conjecture has already begun &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=28\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}