Should the US have taken Uday and Qusay alive, even if it meant losing more US soldiers?

As the US seems to have a habit of doctoring info to suit its own purposes (Watergate, anyone?), the public can't be blamed for being skeptical. At this point, the only proof we'll believe is actually seeing the bodies up close and personal.

If we had been able to capture them alive, what would the guarantee have been that either of Hussein's sons would have given accurate information, anyway? You could argue that they would tell truth to save themselves. However, there is no way that their cred would have survived if they had (somehow) been able to return to the Hussein camp.

Forget the US public! The Iraqi public, and the Arab world in general, should be what's being cared about.

All too true.

"Well, when Dick Cheney visited my dad back in the eighties..."

Look carefully, Ned. I wasn't specifying the US public. When I said "we", I was speaking of the rest of the world, as well.

Sure it would. But then, I assume a live witness would be necessary to verify that they did commit suicide.

The Vicar's reasons are what I was thinking of - "rule of law" and all that nonsense that the US is supposedly bringing to Iraq.

Conversely, the nytimes reports that many iraqis are disappointed that those two won't have to suffer the shame and indignity of captivity—i.e. not enough comeuppance; and the comeuppance that WAS meted out was frustratingly witheld from the people who deserved to dish it out the most.

And then on a basic level the lovely Emma B asked me: "why are they still killing people if the war is over?"

I'm interested about precedents, tho - US Civil War, WWII, things like that: extremely powerful honchos who it was good to keep alive for whatever reason: does the mission immediately change as soon as one of your own is killed?

Ned: haha!!

Unfortunately, tis what usually happens: even when the evil suffer, they (of course) never suffer enough. I can understand their bloodlust for revenge, as the oppression would have been hell to endure.

However, shouldn't we also be on the lookout for other Hussein members? Surely, it wasn't only Saddam and his sons within the organisation?

I can only wonder myself: when will the Iraqis be left to govern themselves? As far as I can see, the US still prefers to see the Arab nation as children that need to be lead by the hand. (*dry tone* This apparently justifies the need to keep soldiers there, even after the immediate danger is over.)

another case of poor imagination it seems to me. the US would never give these guys to the Hague, but capture + interrogation + show trial in Iraq = PR boost there and probably in Europe as well.

...but it's easier to just kill them, especially if you don't give a fuck abt yr pr to begin with, and you know you won't find any wmd's anyway.

and the whole thing has a strong whiff of racism abt it; not the killing necessarily but the patronizing attitude toward the populace, that it would pacify fears and stabilize US authority: "we have slain the bad men for you, bask in our glory"

You aren't expecting the US government to change its attitude now, after 250 + years, are you?

I think the idea that Iraqi resistance will subside as a result of their being dead is a convenient fiction; it implies that the resistance is mostly due to remnants of Baathism, Saddam loyalists. When in actuality--as an Arab reporter said on CNN last night, to the anchor's visible discomfort--the resistance is not as much pro-Saddam as it is anti-occupation.

Reminds me a bit of how initially the Vietnamese resistance was characterized as Soviet pawns, which was a nice way of denying the culpability of the US in the resulting violence.

From the NY Daily News, "A rampaging bull escaped from an illegal rodeo in Queens yesterday and led carloads of pistol-firing cops through crowded streets on a terrifying Wild West chase that ended with the animal's death.

Witnesses said officers fired as many as 40 bullets at the stampeding one-ton beast named Narco before he collapsed in a bloody heap at the Ravenswood Houses."

If it meant losing the lives of US Troops though, then I guess this may have been the only way - but we'll never know.

The idea of Saddam and sons just driving under the Americans noses in a normal car - insane!