Peggy Noonan has an absolutely wonderful editorial on the capture of the Butcher of Baghdad.
This is a great day in modern history. A terrible man whose existence had been for decades actively harmful of humanity was forcibly removed from power, run to ground, and has been captured living in a hole. As I write, the television is showing videotape of his hair being checked for lice and his mouth being inspected with a pencil light for signs of disease. The white plastic pinpoint light illuminates his throat and gums. It looks like the mouth of hell. He has been utterly defeated and quelled. He can’t kill anybody now. He cannot gas women and children with chemicals that kill them; he cannot personally torture dissidents, or imprison them. He cannot tell his soldiers to throw opponents off the tops of buildings. He can’t impose his sickness and sadism on the world. The children of Baghdad dance in the streets. A nightmare is over.
America did this. American troops did this. The American people, by supporting those troops and this effort, did it. And a particular group of soldiers led by a particular U.S. army officer did it. As Dana Priest of the Washington Post has just reported on NBC, he is a big, tall, bearlike guy who loves his job and whose attitude toward his mission was, apparently, a natural and constitutional optimism. We don’t yet know his name, but he’ll be famous by tomorrow morning.
Indeed, a hearty congratulation is in order for the Fourth ID who captured Saddam and all the coalition soldiers operating in Iraq. This is a major moment in this war, and the people of Iraq deserve to see their tormentor brought to justice in their courts.
