Digging Saddam

Well, in case you might have been hiding in a hole somewhere - no wait, that was Saddam Hussein. Yup, it is absolutely awesome to hear that Saddam Hussein, evil dictator par excellence, was captured by soldiers of the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division. Yes! Way to go!

Saddam was captured, yes, hiding in a hole that soldiers had to dig him out of, on a farm near the city of Tikrit, Saddam's home town. He was a flea-bitten, unkempt mess when he was captured, which gives me a certain amount of satisfaction (although, as a Christian, it probably shouldn't). He didn't even fire a shot, showing him to be the coward that he is. Here's a picture of him after he was captured (thanks to Instapundit).

This is incredibly good news, especially for the Iraqi people, but also for our soldiers, who have served so admirably under extremely difficult circumstances. It is also great news for the American people. Capturing Saddam is a significant step forward in the War on Terror, as Saddam was a figure that terrorists in the Middle East rallied around. He was especially supportive of Palestinian terrorists that targeted Israeli civilians, contributing $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers.

Capturing Saddam will most likely not end attacks against American soldiers, nor will it stop terror attacks in Israel. However, the process of ending terrorism is a long-term, complex process that will take years to accomplish (and in fact, terrorism may never be completely stopped). Capturing Saddam, thereby ending the contribution that he made to terrorism, certainly will help. Without the financial support and encouragement Saddam gave to the Palestinian terrorists some of those that might have been willing to commit suicide bombings perhaps will not go forward with their evil plans.

In addition, without the threat of Saddam constantly in the background, I believe the success of a democratic government in Iraq is much more assured. The Iraqi people can finally really take a deep breath of relief, and that's truly wonderful. Let's hope that the people of Iran can soon experience the freedom that is rolling forward in Iraq.

I can't add much that is unique to the discussion taking place about Saddam's capture. As you can imagine, there's tons of stuff (visit Instapundit for a good starting point for links) being written about it. Naturally, some on the left are whining and moaning, which is truly sad and pathetic (thanks to HipperCritical). How anyone can see this as an unmitigated success is beyond me. Some people are apparently so blinded by political ideology that they forget that we're all Americans first, and Republicans, Democrats, or what-have-you, much, much later. The capture of Saddam Hussein is a success for all Iraqis, Americans, and citizens of every other nation. It is not a political maneuver to benefit any political party or ideology.

So, a final congratulations and well done to our military personnel for staying the course, for their professionalism and bravery, and for bringing hope and freedom to Iraqis, Afghanis, and people everywhere. You rock!

Hordes of the Underdark™

Speaking of holes in the ground, I just finished playing through the second expansion of the Neverwinter Nights™ game by BioWare and Atari, called Hordes of the Underdark™. I won't spend much time reviewing it here in detail, since I have to go to my son's Christmas program at school, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone else. I will just say that I thought the game was excellent. I enjoyed the storyline, even more than in the original game or in the second expansion. It was a fun game, with challenging battles and challenging puzzles, as well as interesting character development. I found myself completely stumped for some time on a couple of the puzzles. I thought that was really cool, because in most games the puzzles are either completely obvious or completely unsolvable. I found the puzzles in Hordes of the Underdark to be just the right level of difficulty for me.

The battles, on the other hand, I found to be a little too easy. The character I often play is a powerful, high-level paladin, so other characters, especially those less competent in hacking away at enemies, might find the battles quite difficult.

My only complaint is that the game, on my computer, was very unstable. It crashed quite often, necessitating frequent saves. If I didn't save at least every fifteen minutes or so, I would lose significant progress, which was frustrating. My current computer is pretty low-end these days, so that might have been part of it, but speaking as a professional Windows software developer, I think that the game suffers from some serious memory leaks. Hopefully, BioWare will take care of this problem in a patch release soon.

If you enjoy role-playing games, I recommend Neverwinter Nights and both expansions. The Hordes of the Underdark expansion is well worth the price, in my opinion.

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