February 27, 2003

As simple as decapitation  

Dick Morris sees the coming conflict as more of a coup d'etat than a war:

By using aerial bombardment to disrupt the regime's communications with its minions and employing e-bombs to overload their computers, American strategists are enhancing their chances of killing or capturing Saddam without having to damage all of Iraq. Even if the dictator escapes alive to hide out somewhere in a cave near Osama's, his regime will be toppled and the coup will have succeeded.

[...] In a sense, we are returning to the polite notions of war of the 18th and early 19th centuries. When the British captured Philadelphia, they figured the American Revolution would collapse. When they burned Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812, they felt they had won the war. Union generals were forever trying to capture Richmond to end the Civil War. Then generals like Ulysses Grant realized that the key was to destroy the other side's army - and the modern meat-grinder war was born.

By focusing on capturing the instruments of power in Baghdad, we are returning to the earlier idea - but in a different context.

This is interesting, but it seems unlikely that we will be able to kill or capture Saddam so easily. If we knew where he was, wouldn't we have assassinated him already? This is a man who has multiple body doubles and has been in power for 23 years... he even survived a war with the mighty United States of America. I think he knows how to take care of himself.

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