The tyrant is dead, long live the tyrant!

"Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men?"
- Brutus, Julius Caesar

In 2003 we were told that it was of vital importance that we invade that tiny insignificant backwater of a country, Iraq. Though the population was all but starved after a decade of foreign embargo, they were apparently developing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. We had to hurry.

Oops. There goes that argument.

Not to worry, Dubya had excuse number 2 at the ready, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant that kidnapped and brutalized his own people. Regardless of whatever WMD programs actually existed, it's a good thing that we saved the poor Iraqis from this sort of violence. Don't worry about those pesky civilian deaths (somewhere on the order of 90,000), I'm sure they are happier dead than living without democracy.

A funny thing about invading a country and decimating its infrastructure though, it tends to destabilize the country, leaving an environment very favorable to tyrannical rule. Ever notice that those little revolutions in third world countries always seem to end up with a government that even less people are happy with than the previous one? Violence rarely brings democracy, most often it just brings more violence.

The question that then must be asked is: how can you control an unstable country without resorting to the same sort of violence that you had sought to end?

Answer: you can't

It's not much of a surprise that an Iraqi journalist that has been kidnapped, detained, and arrested in the preceding years is a little angry at Dubya for causing all this instability in his home country. It's not so much of a surprise that he decided to toss a couple shoes at his antagonist. And it should not be much of a surprise that after being taken into custody he is beaten severely.

A broken arm, broken ribs, and internal bleeding, for throwing a shoe. For throwing a shoe that didn't even hit its target. So much for Dubya's argument number 2. We have killed Caesar, but now Brutus and Antony are fighting over the spoils with the same tactics as their predecessor.