Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	12/18/2003

"Don't worry. They only arrest the guilty."

...Quoted by many but most recently by Rhino journo Scott Yost (tongue in cheek) in response to concerns I voiced a few months back on the Patriot Act.

I remembered this quote while watching the "examination" pictures of Mr. Hussein after his capture. My wife expressed what I was thinking, "He looks like just a regular person. How could he be so evil? Poor man."

These images of Saddam Hussein the captive are disturbing to me. They are an unsettling reminder of the utter helplessness of the individual (any individual) before the all powerful State. I am forced to consider the fate of anyone (guilty or innocent) that finds themselves at the total mercy of people who are CERTAIN they are rational, justified and unchallengeable in their actions. I worry that I may be watching the real life version of the Winston Smith interrogation...to the extent that we can trust what is real and what is not real in this packaged programming.

While there is comfort in accepting at face value that the "heroic" Saddam allowed himself to be meekly captured alive as a coward, as opposed to having been taken captive while asleep or unconscious, I have the nagging fear that press releases detailing Saddam's timidity during capture may have been developed by the same news team that depicted Jessica Lynch's valor during capture.

We are still at War in Iraq and truth is still hostage.

12:22:17 AM

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