You with your deep-furrowed brow

1. Saddam is captured.
2. There’s much rejoicing. Yay! Yay!
3. Then less then 10 days later we go to Orange Alert — “high risk of terrorist attacks.” Yikes.
They’re planning something even bigger than 9/11, we’re told. And Osama OKd this attack personally. All while Saddam sits in a small room somewhere, after spending the better part part of the last 9 months on the run.
Which might make you think:
– “Hey — maybe the guy we captured isn’t necessarily the guy who’s out there actively trying to kill us.”
– And “perhaps Dean isn’t entirely off-the-ball when he says that Saddam’s capture doesn’t make the US appreciably safer.”
– And “could be that Clark has a point when he argues that attacking other nations won’t make the US safer, our focus needs to be on attacking terrorist organizations.”
At least, that’s what it makes me think.
That and [insert soon-to-be-neologed-word for the thumping background stress caused by Orange Alert here].
Iraq may be a safer place with Saddam in prison. The Middle East may be a safer place with Saddam in prison. The world may even be a safer place overall with Saddam in prison…
(though like a lot of folks, I would argue that all three would be much safer if we’d opted to move multilaterally, but fine. Whatever. We could debate this issue for years, you with your deep-furrowed brow and your mule-like proposensity to eat hay, me with my gigantic forehead and bulbous, unblinking left eye. So let’s just drop it and move on, OK? OK?! Thanks.)
…but America? Safer now? Safer this week? With administration officials suddenly chiming the Big Bell in Town Square in fear of what might be right around the corner?
Safer than what?