Goodbye to a Bad Guy
December 30th, 2006 by Syd
There’s a weird emptiness when an old enemy finally goes away, not unlike the disbelief and silence that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. I never really believed that the Iraqis would actually convict and execute him. It even occurred to me that he might pull off some sort of judicial miracle, get acquitted, run for president again and win. It didn’t turn out that way. In the end, he was just a defiant old villain who was hung like a common criminal.
I have been hearing about his adventures and atrocities for twenty six years. The first time I recall being conscious of him as a figure on the world stage was when he invaded Iran in 1980. Now, back then, we were considerably more ambivalent, even positive on Saddam because we were so outraged at the Iranians for the embassy takeover and hostage taking they did in 1979. More than a few viewed Saddam as a useful proxy for exacting our revenge against the Iranians, and we used him in just that way. Then, in 1981, the Israelis took out his nuclear reactor at Osirak using American-built F15 and F16 jets. While the US publicly condemned the attack, Saddam became increasingly mistrusting and hostile toward the US from that point onward.
I have always felt that the second gulf war could have been justified entirely on the evil acts of Saddam and his government and the violation of their treaty agreements from the first gulf war. Millions have lost their lives on the altar of his messianic ambitions. Hundreds of thousands more have been forever scarred by torture, rape, terror and brutal oppression. He was a bad guy.
You would think, that after all of this, he would be universally reviled and hated, but for a certain group of people he remains a hero and even a martyr. He stood up to Iraq’s enemies and put the interests of himself and his constituents first. He was brutal but calibrated well to this difficult country and its people. Euripides said, “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad,” and Saddam’s excesses seem to bear that out. He and his sons became monsters, but even now some don’t see him that way.
Now he’s just gone like a thief in the night. So what happens now? Is it finally “mission accomplished”� Can we begin an orderly withdrawal of our forces from Iraq? Will the dead-enders view this as a sign from their god that continuing the struggle is pointless? Will we begin a search for a new bad guy to serve as a foil for our agenda?
We have suffered 25,000 casualties and spent an unimaginable amount of money to depose Saddam. If we allow him to merely slip into that long night and learn nothing from his tragic life, it will be a loss. He was willing to risk everything to maintain the illusion that he still had weapons of mass destruction. He lured us into a costly war. He led his own country to destruction, and I feel that we played right into it. In the end, it seemed all too easy, too clinical and ordinary — a noose, a quick drop, and it was over. Revenge was served. The man was silenced. Emptiness was achieved. Is that all there is to it?
Saddam should be buried in swine offal
Everyone has to die…some just deserve it more than others!
Is that all there is to it…it is if we continue to be selective about which “bad guys” we go after while pretending the others don’t exist. You can fill that emptiness easily by thowing a dart at a map and picking a new one!
I think what we will learn is not from the bad guys. Our learning will come from our decisions of how we deal with them (or the lack thereof).
That war has done enormous damage to the Republican Party on the domestic front. It could be a decade or more before the damage is repaired if ever. When I said, “learn from” I really mean learn how a single madman can draw our government into a damaging and costly conflict that can cripple the party in power for a very long time.
Also, I think the Iraqi’s are so screwed up that they managed to make Saddam look like a sympathetic character in his final hour. There was something really wrong about that hanging. And yeah, he was such a bad guy that he probably does deserve to be “buried in swine offal” but the Malaki government is so incompetent and vicious that they even managed to fuck up the execution.
Lots of bad karma all around.
I think Saddam should not have been hanged. He must have been incarcerated throughout his life. There are are many state leaders who have committed excesses more than what Saddam had with the Iraqis specifically the Kurds and the Kuwaitis.
In the Philippines, we have Ferdinand Marcos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who through their power have killed more people than Saddam had. Marcos was not arrested but “saved” by Washington and brought him to Hawaii and died therelast 1989. Currently, we have Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo, the “Philippine President By All Means”. She had killed many of her opponents. Yet the Washington say nothing, heard nothing and see nothing about Gloria.
Yeah, there are plenty of “son of bitches” like Saddam but they are the “son-of-bitches” of the WhiteHouse and the CIA.
Samir,
Attempting to equate the crimes of Saddam with Ferdinand Marcos is just absurd. The last time I checked, Arroyo hasn’t launched any chemical weapon attacks against Moro villages.
Those who snark about the lack of ‘found’ weapons of mass destruction are opportunistic asses. Having killed Kurds with poison gas, did Hussein say, “Well that was enlightening, let’s stop this madness” and destroy both the weapons and all knowledge of them? Having his nuclear installation destroyed by the Israelis, did he shrug his shoulders and exclaim, “Well they sure taught me a lesson—no more of that for me!”? I believe it all went to Syria, or maybe to Iran and if we relax our vigilance, we’ll rue the day. For a realistic examination of the likely scenario, read “Detroit: Autumn Red”. Then point to any part of it that ‘couldn’t be’.
Ken Sheffer