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Saddam Hussein - R.I.P.
By David Caputo (about the author) Page 3 of 4 page(s)
Cross Saddam, and you were screwed. Otherwise, it wasn't so bad for a third-world Arab country, at least for most people.
I live in a relativist world, it's true. But I can hardly imagine that most Iraqis prefer the unholy carnage, social disintegration, environmental devastation and infrastructural paralysis that is today's grand orgy of violence in their country to the relative peace and tranquility of the Hussein Administration.
It's twisted when you think of it. We've gone in and FUBAR'ed the place so bad that Saddam Freakin' Hussein looks like a Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning. Between false flag covert ops and kick-in-the-door raids and the strafing and bombing of civilian targets and the raiding of hospitals we've completely destroyed any possible credibility we might have had in prosecuting Saddam for the many crimes of unspeakable cruelty he undoubtedly committed.
But I can count.
The Lancet estimated earlier this year that as many as six hundred and fifty thousand "surplus deaths" were caused by the effects of the war since the US invasion. This causal relationship is reinforced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of these surplus deaths were caused by gunshot wounds or other effects of combat or munitions. Even if the report is hugely overblown by a factor of five hundred percent, that still means that US actions in Iraq have directly caused the deaths of a hundred and thirty THOUSAND people, minimum.
People who didn't have to die so soon. People who wanted to live in their homes, raise their children, and pursue their dreams, no matter how hard that must have been in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
They didn't pick him. It was the CIA that picked Saddam to run Iraq for them. They're the ones who gave him the extra help he needed to hold that famous convocation of the Baath Party where he read off a list of names and those who were named were lead outside to holding cells. The party members who remained were told that the ones who had been escorted out were traitors, and the people remaining were the ones he knew were loyal to him. Then he said that those who were certified for the Saddam inner circle would get a chance to show their loyalty the next morning when they made up the firing squad for the guys now waiting outside the hall in cells.
Trust me, the CIA loved this guy. The more ruthless and brutal, the better. Especially in a country where the ground below contained the sweetest and easiest-to-get-at black gold on the planet.
So they waited, and helped, and worked with him, and made sure he had plenty of weapons, especially when he'd swap them for some Soviet models he'd managed to buy from the Russians. Saddam was their boy, and he served many useful functions for American empire, not all of them witting.
But sometimes you just outlive your usefulness. Saddam's role as cooperative thug morphed beautifully into his slayer-of-the-peace-dividend costume and then ultimately into schemer-to-nuke-us-all (or at least Israel). This ultimately was held up as the raison-de-etre for the current disaster we're quick-sanding down to the absolute nub.
Now what do we do?
Saddam Hussein is dead, along with another sixty six other Iraqis, six American GIs, and a Brit from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. And that's just today.
What do we do tomorrow?
I've got a suggestion...
Leave.
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
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