March 24, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:The Corner makes a good argument that the tapes of Saddaam that are being aired were taped before the war, and thus that Saddaam must be in very bad shape.
Posted by Jane Galt at March 24, 2003 7:52 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksGot in very late last night (or early in the morning, I guess), saw the Iraqi dog and pony show, and the immediate TV pundit reaction, and the verdict is in: Christiane Ammanpour is an imbecile. She starts yapping about how Hussein's references to cities, military units, and commanders proves Hussein is healthy, while ignoring that any dunce knew that the major cities near the southern border would be fought over, and that Hussein referred to a northern city which has yet to see significant action. More stupidly, Ammanpour failed to notice that Hussein was praising units and commanders who had surrendered 2 days prior. I don't know if Hussein is alive or not, but that speech last night was made prior to hostilities. Is there any profession, outside of acting and professional sports, in which stupidity is rewarded with huge sums of money, as it is in television "journalism"? That may be harsh; I think the average offensive lineman in the NFL has more intellectual capacity than the average lamebrain who broadcast the news to us. Geez, don't these people even listen to their own reports?
Anyone remember that old Star Trek episode where the ambassador has set up his own little Nazi regime and Kirk and Spock et al go to investigate and find out he's just all drugged up as he's delivering his speech?
Yep, that's what I saw last night. This is laughable. And then I turned on late night talk radio in LA and heard about how it was real because he referenced the battle in the town of Umm Whatever. That was a hard one to guess...
Will -- I saw the same thing -- and you're right, Ammanpour is a total idiot. Did you see her interview of Chirac a few weeks ago on 60 minutes?
The only thing that concerns me is: WHY did Saddam prepare speeches for later release?
Was he planning on getting blown up? Or was he planning on hiding/running away? Did he figure that any live broadcast, or even taping session, could result in the Americans finding him? And if the later is true, maybe everything is going according to his plan?
Patrick, I think the worst case scenario is that Saddam pre-taped these to provide cover as he runs away and collects his overseas bank accounts. If that works, he picks the right country to take refuge in, AND DOESN'T STIR UP ANY TROUBLE FOR THEM, he's got some chance of living a normal lifespan - assuming his guards are good enough to handle daily assassination attempts by the relatives of his Iraqi victims. But I don't see Saddam as being a threat from exile - for any longer than it takes us to either talk his hosts into throwing him out, or to give up on diplomacy and target a cruise missile... No one is going to let him have a dozen different mansions so we can't figure out which one to blow up (and if they did, we've got a dozen missiles).
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