I have just read that Saddam Hussein is dead. Hung by the neck until dead – isn’t that the phrase they always use on television? And I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. Everybody has to start by saying that it isn’t bad that Saddam Hussein is dead – he was an evil man. But what is evil? It is a religious denunciation, a way to set a person apart from humanity. We need to do this I suppose. And if we say that Saddam Hussein is an evil man, don’t we then have to say that other men are good? Who is good I wonder? Where do we find these men of goodness? To say Saddam Hussein was evil is too easy, it lets us off the hook. Saddam Hussein was a cruel man, a selfish man, a desperate man, a sad man.
He was a bully I think. He was a man who never knew happiness I think. He rationalized his actions I’m sure by saying that he did what had to be done. He called his own enemies evil, and tortured them completely. Saddam Hussein was all too human. He walked among us. In this moment of spiritual limbo between Christmas and the start of a new year I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.
I feel sadness because we repaid cruelty with cruelty. We did it because we allowed an emotionally disturbed man to lead us, to direct our actions. We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s life. This was perhaps justified. Do we destroy every cruel man’s life? Is it our duty to destroy every cruel man’s life? Still, it was not less than he deserved. Take away his livelihood. What will we do to the war profiteers who had a hand in murdering our own children for a few dollars? Will we be as angry, as cruel?
We killed his children while he was still alive. We hunted them down like animals and slaughtered them without dignity. As a father I will say no human deserves this. Once we have reached this level of cruelty it has gone beyond repayment. It has become something visceral, something deep within our souls that we usually try to hide, even from ourselves. But we felt no shame. We celebrated this cruelty, cheered it and broadcast it to the world. Who gave us this lisence I wonder? Now that this Pandora's box is open, will we be able to close it?
We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s history. We went in to his village, his tribe, and we wiped away the footsteps of his lineage. We made sure that Saddam Hussein knows that everything about him, who he was, where he came from has ended. We turned him around and made him watch his footsteps in the sand, watch them disappear as the ocean washed over them. As a man who has reached middle age I feel an emptiness inside of me when I think of this – to watch yourself slowly disappear. It was an insane, almost psychotic cruelty. It was my society that not only did this, but cheered this – we were beating a dog over and over again because he bit us, making him yelp, humiliating him so he no longer had an identity, so that he was an empty shell. And when we knew he was an empty shell, we kept beating, our eyes on fire, snot dripping from our nose, wheezing under the strain of our constant blows. The dog had bitten somebody – he must be made to pay. Nobody regrets what we are doing – because he was a junkyard dog who attacked others.
We put Saddam Hussein on trial and we jeered him, and we could not even mention his name without saying he deserved what he gets. We stood him up for mockery before the world. We took a bully and showed the world that he is weak and that we are strong. We made fun of him, jabbed with sticks through the bars of his cage. There was nothing left of him, but we kept jabbing anyway, at that empty shell. The snarling junkyard dog was gone and what was left was the frightened, desperate inner core. And yet we kept jabbing at it. He had bitten others you know. He had shown cruelty. We couldn’t stop, we would put the jabbing on the morning news for our viewing pleasure. There was nothing human left – his eyes were empty. He was confused, no longer able to comprehend what was happening to him. We all could see it – it was impossible not to. He was like a hospice patient we were propping up and kicking and slapping because - we had long since lost any sense of reason for this. We didn’t even ask ourselves why anymore. It had become a bizarre habit, a fetish of sorts. I would pour my corn flakes, and turn on CNN, and get my daily dose of jabbing what was once Saddam Hussein with a stick. I couldn’t even really remember who he was.
And I come in here tonight and surf on my computer and the first information I get is that Saddam Hussein was hung by the neck until dead. I don’t think we put him out of his misery. I believe he left misery behind long ago. We had taken it from him, because misery was too good for this man – we wanted something more. But he was human – he had dreams, he had aspirations, I am sure. He did kind things sometimes, I am sure. But yes he was a cruel man – funny I felt obligated to say that. I am wondering if Saddam Hussein’s execution will put me out of my misery. Not tonight – because tonight I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.