The war is won, or so they’re telling us. Saddam is likely nothing more than miniscule particles clogging up the locals’ lungs — one last hurrah for the debonair dictator.
 
Even Saddam’s stone and bronze personal monuments are tumbling, but not with nearly the panache of eight thousand pounds of American-made explosives.
 
The war has indeed been won, but I must hesitate to say it’s over. Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed al-Sahhaf will certainly be quick to dismiss a statement so bold. That loon should host a game show now that his tour is complete. Or maybe he should judge top-tier, competitive ice-skating. No man since Ed McMahon was born better suited for the spotlight.
 
But, what have we learned — aside from al-Sahhaf’s eccentric brand of playacting? We’ve learned that the majority of the American people will kick and scream and sit-in until the first tanks roll, but will then turn on a dime into a state of resigned disapproval coupled with undying support for Our Boys.
 
We’ve learned that President Bush comes off like Foghorn Leghorn when sharing a podium with the exceedingly eloquent Tony Blair. But speaking skills aside, Bush just might have done this thing right. Not completely right of course — he loses points on my scorecard for denying the world a down home, kick-ass War Crimes Tribunal. Imagine the spectacle if al-Sahhaf served as Saddam’s defense counsel!
 
We’ve also learned that the strict information control first implemented by Margaret Thatcher in the Falkland Islands fiasco and later perfected in Gulf War I was the biggest mistake in media-government relations. The embedding program has gone beyond expectations in the amount of not only tactical information the world is privy to — but more importantly the personal, human stories. And, to boot, we are seeing live pictures of things we’ve never seen before in a place we never really wanted to see.
 
We’ve learned that even Pentagon experts and Washington witchdoctors can be wrong, or at least a few degrees off. The U.S. military has performed with poise and skill surpassing all expectations. It’s amazing what a few years, a little technology and heaping piles of cash can do for a fighting force. Iraqi forces were given far too much credit early on — especially the Republican Guard. After accidents and friendly fire, coalition forces suffered the most casualties at the hands of guerrilla, paramilitary units — groups that were lumped in with the rag-tag forces that the experts predicted would surrender.
 
Who am I kidding? I imagine someone once said that indoctrination is a bitch. Not that I’m consumed by liberal guilt or patriotic fervor. Maybe I just feed on the Action. Or, I’m naïve to believe that Saddam is dead. This thing is not over. It probably never will be. A merely 200-some-odd-year-old superpower cannot even begin to understand the cultural barometer of a region steeped in thousands of years of tradition and conflict and brutal history. A quarter pound of freedom with a side of Halliburton is a volatile meal for Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

Ding! Dong! The Regime is Dead!
Eight thousand pounds of freedom, dropped on its head!
 
The desert swathed across Iraq and the Middle East is a yellow brick road, long ago worn to dust. We’ve learned some surprising things in a three-week liberation-conquest, but the real lessons have yet been taught.
 
Greg Smith is a journalism major at Cal State Long Beach.

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