Shock and Awe
Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 08:32:42 PM PDT
At Bush’s stupidity!
Well, he’s finally done it. He’s hung Saddam Hussein on the eve of one of the holiest days in Islam: "Eid al Atha"... the day of sacrifice, and he’s made Saddam into an (unworthy) sacrificial lamb in the eyes of millions of Muslims.
Saddam went to the gallows dignified, with Qur’an in hand, and to the sound of prayers being recited (on the video, before the taunting). He met his destiny as a martyr, or at least that’s the impression that many will get.
What a crock of shit this has turned out to be!
More after the flip...
I mean get real! Saddam Hussein! The Butcher of Baghdad! A bloodthirsty, secular, ruthless, atheist, conniving murderous bastard with virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. A man who quite recently had no more respect for Islam than he had for a piece of dogshit, now by a monstrous act of sheer stupidity, has been rehabilitated into an unlikely religious martyr. This is a clown so bad that probably even Satan himself is ashamed of his excesses... yet the morons running our government shoot themselves in the foot and redeem him in the eyes of millions of believers, both inside Iraq and throughout the world.
This is a guy whom the mullahs hated just a few short years ago. Now they’ll speak of him in hushed and reverential tones... I can already hear the rationalized crap that will be spewed about him a few years hence: "Oh yes, he used harsh methods to be sure, but you know, that is exactly what Iraq needed at the time. He really united the people... something the Americans could never do, and he was a real Iraqi patriot...(ad nauseum)"
Because of the insanely stupid selection of Eid as the best possible day on which to execute him, Saddam will garner a pity, and a sympathy that he did not earn, and does not deserve. He will be larger in death than he was in life, and people’s memories of him will grow rosier with time. Teenagers will sport T-shirts bearing his image, and his name will be remembered as an Iraqi hero and "strongman" who stood up, against all the odds, to a bullying and exploitive West. The blood on his hands will likely be largely forgotten, cleansed as it was by Bush’s vengeful antics, and a Texas Necktie.
Bush on the other hand, will be remembered by most for dumping white phosphorous rounds on the children of Fallujah.
This is a freakin’ P.R. disaster! They couldn’t have thought this through any worse if they tried. Of all the things they could have done to get rid of Saddam Hussein, they had to choose the one frickin’ thing that would guarantee that his image will be rehabilitated... they had to hang his ass on Eid and make a martyr out of him!
I’m not going to address martyrdom in a religious sense, it doesn’t matter, and frankly I don’t give a camel’s shit what happens to Saddam in the Hereafter, that’s between him and the Great Beyond. What I do care about is that he has been lionized in the minds of millions of folks, right here and now... to them he already is a martyr, unjustly killed by the Americans, and these are mostly folks who didn’t have a shred of sympathy for him before. Why the fuck did we do this?
I am a Muslim myself, and I did a quick headcount of those around town... reactions were bad across the board in our community. My friend "E", for example, a liberal, progressive, mostly secular and westernized guy said that he was "extremely saddened" by Saddam’s death, that he felt sorry for him, and why did they have to kill him on Eid?
Shit! What did Saddam ever do to deserve such a reaction? In an amazing upset, the cruel ruthless bastard is suddenly getting pity.
Eid is day of forgiveness, coming together and mending old wounds and rivalries. It’s a day when we stand before God, and are cleansed, renewed, and forgiven. We sacrifice a lamb... it’s a proxy for us, really, in solidarity with the three million souls on Hajj who are performing their sacrifice. To kill Saddam on this particular day, with full photo and video documentation, absolutely ensures his place as a folk hero, and try as they might, they won’t be able to kill his memory, or his image. In killing Saddam, they turned a villain into a hero... turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse, and only made him stronger.
They had a million other options! The Hague, quietly offing him a couple of weeks from now, or throwing him into the same Black Hole where they threw Noriega... plenty of choices... but no, they had to go and hang him on EID for crying out loud! It’s a best-case scenario for Saddam Hussein, considering his meager options.
You know there’s a story in Islam about Ali, the prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law. He is revered as a noble warrior in Islamic lore, and an exemplar of Islamic martial conduct.
It seems Ali was locked in mortal combat with an enemy. After a heated struggle, he got the best of his foe, and was about to dispatch him, when the man spit in his face. At this, Ali sheathed his sword, and told the man to get up. "Why have you spared my life?" the man asked, "I have just spit in your face!". To this, Ali responded "A moment ago, I would have killed you for the sake of righteousness, but once you spit in my face, I was going to kill you in anger, for my own selfish reasons. This is something I won’t let you do to me. Go now, in peace."
Had Ali killed the man, he would have been reduced to his level (and no one would be telling his story). In sparing him, he became larger than life – the "Lion of Islam".
Islamic history is full of images of the honorable warrior. Muhammad himself was arguably a pretty lousy general... his first big battle was more or less a suicide mission, which he only won through divine intervention. The next major battle was a military disaster... his troops were routed and badly mauled, and the final big battle was a draw. 1:1:1 ... hardly a record to be proud of, and not too brilliant generaling by any measure. What finally won over the Meccans (his enemy) was his impeccable personal conduct... his honor. They fell in love with the guy (hearts and minds!) because he was merciful, just, unselfish and kind... everything that their own leaders were not. Muslim soldiers (traditionally) never harmed civilians, never damaged crops or houses, or even so much as a tree. They didn’t steal, and they were merciful to their captives, even when those people were not merciful to them (especially then!). They won over their enemies by being honorable... by being better men than they had to be.
We have lost so many opportunities in Iraq because of our lack of honor. Think of what we could have been gained if we had conducted the Iraq War as Muhammad’s soldiers would have... we would have gained the respect and admiration of the people. It would have required a rigid discipline, and probably would cost a few more American lives in the earliest days, but it’s likely that the bloodshed would have soon ended, had the Iraqis witnessed a firm determination on the part of the Americans to not harm the people, and to respect their property. Instead now the US will be remembered as sponsoring rape, mayhem and butchery... and the violence will continue until the day the last American leaves.
In hanging Saddam on Eid, Bush has only proven that he is as brutal as Saddam was, and is in fact, cut from the same cloth.
He is a barbarian.
We can do better.
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