Certain images sear themselves into the brain, and seep into the collective consciousness. Nixon's victory signs as he walked into the helicopter, no longer president. The execution at point blank range of a young Vietnamese soldier. The young girl running naked in the street in Vietnam (who, if my memory is right, had been badly burned). The image of a young girl screaming in horror with her hand on a student who'd fallen to the ground at Kent state. Lyndie England smiling and pointing in the Abu Graib photos. The face of the dead and battered Zarqawi and Hussein brothers, pushed out there for the world to see. These images don't go away.
Today, I turned on my computer to read the news, and I see, assaulting me, the image of Saddam Hussein. I couldn't escape it, it was on the front page of the Times, on the Huffington post. I hear it is on video loop at Fox.
One of my relatives, a firm Bush supporter, said to me on the phone this morning - 'did you see it? its like thug justice.' There was disbelief in his voice.
Mr. Bush, you have your porn. More below.
Saddam Hussein just stares into the distance. I have not seen the video as I write this, and have mixed feelings on whether of not I will choose to, if it is not foisted on me by the media as this image was. To see it for the trauma, to understand the trauma. But if I see it or not, I will know it is obscene. It is terror porn.
We have seen a lot of this. These images are evidence. They are often put forward to show evidence that these figures killed by the United States will not come back. And yet, their images don't stop coming back. They will stay with us.
As I watched him staring into the distance, about to 'meet his maker,'as some say, I couldn't help to think, what if I were in his shoes? What would I think, knowing that in a moment I wouldn't think any more? We all deserve to die for some reason or another. And also, none of us do. But some are much, much more guilty than others. But who are we to play god like this?
Who is the president to execute his enemies, like in Roman times, when you paraded your enemy in chains for the city to see? Today it is on video. But this trial was not Nuremberg. There was no international consensus. This was thug justice, and the world knows it. And so do we.
As you look at the two men on either side of him, they wear no uniform, and black masks. One is in what seems to be a trenchcoat or cloth jacket, the other wears a worn-out leather jacket. This is like when Mussolini was hung by his feet. If these men had been wearing anything but these random clothes, there would at least be a sense of dignity. But no, the leather on the jacket isn't even new or clean. The men were not in suits, were not in any sort of ceremonial or ritual or official garb to show they represent a principle rather than themselves. And this is because they do not. They represent pure force. That is all.
The one phrase I could not get out of my head is that which ends Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'. After a senseless mock-trial, during which he can find out neither what he is charged with or who accuses him, two men accost Josef K to execute him. They take him to the outskirts of town, and when he won't do it for them, they kill him with a knife. And K thinks to himself, 'like a dog'.
One thug has killed another. Would I feel better if it were Mr. Bush standing there, with an oversize knot in that noose, just as everything in this war has been too big, 'shock and awe'? The animal in me would feel a cheap thrill, the better parts of me disgust at the animal parts. We are perhaps condemmed to have both, but at least some of us try to keep the two parts separate.
As I look at Mr. Hussein's face, I don't see evil. His evil is long gone. No, I see evil in his face in a video clip I saw the other day, when he is smiling, patting a child on the head, I believe an American who he has taken hostage as 'collateral' in case he is invaded for his actions in Kuwait. There is video footage, which has been colorized, of Hitler smiling and enjoying himself in his mountain home. To me, it is the Hitler who was a vegetarian, the one who liked to give cake to children, who married Eva Braun - that's the Hitler who is evil.
Bush was on tv the other day, almost crying, trying to hold it back, as he came out of one of his few trips to Walter Reade visitin the wounded. Did he realized he caused this? Those tears, those genuine tears, are maybe more evil than anything I've seen recently. Who are you to cry for them? You do not deserve it. Those tears are perhaps as evil as the smile on the face of Saddam who pats the clearly terrified child sitting on his knee on the head. And with a smile.
Are we as bad as them when we hate these people? Or is the fact that we hate, but do not act on our hate like they do, the difference? What if we had the power to? As a famous philosopher said, 'everybody wants to be a fascist.' We all have the beast within. Is the only difference between us and them that we are aware of that, and work to keep it in check? But can we say we would if we had their power? Let us only pray we are not as bad as they, because we can't know until we have a life in our hands. Let us pray, at least, that we are not as they are.
The image of Mr. Hussein provided us by the Bush administration is obscene. It is traumatic. It is a representation of justice destroyed. Whatever Mr. Hussein may have deserved, this was a mistrial, a travesty.
Will Mr. Bush stand trial for his crimes? Will we be forced to bear with the tragedy of the mistrial of justice which will be a lack of prosectution of Mr. Bush? We know that he murdered Mr. Hussein. He may as well have used his own hands. He is not brave enough to take that responsibility.
On the front page of yesterday's New York Times was a photo of a medic who was shot in the face a few days ago. He was profiled a week previous in the Times. His was in one piece then, and he was interviewed extensively, grieving over his former roomate from training, who had gotten hit in the head, who was in critical condition, but the bullet had entered his brain, I believe. The medic was 22, his friend was 19. These are children you are killing, Mr. Bush. Have they had a chance to live yet? What have you done?
And yet the cable news play President Ford and James Brown. Two other deaths. But they blanket the news. This is also obscene.
Riverbend's last diary listed an account of her cousin who was killed for no reason, as he was about to marry the woman he'd been with for the last six years. Just like the young man in queens was killed on the night before his wedding by fifty one bullets fired by new york city cops. What have we become. And how can we make this stop?
The fact that we do not see the deaths, the death of americans, even less the massive number of deaths or Iraqis, so often civilians, this is also obscene. We see instead the media-porn of the paris hiltons and kevin federlines. Shame. Shame on all of us. But can you imagine not knowing each time you go out for groceries if you'll come back? Or worse, if your mother, or brother, or partner would? To live with that terror. I know that I can't concieve of it, but I remain damn helpless to know what to do about it. What has our country done.
Have we done enough? Everyday I wake up wondering why there haven't been mass uprisings in the streets years ago to stop Mr.Bush. I know if I go into the streets today, no one will listen. These things take time. They should not. Evil does not wait for elections to stop its work. If we had all said with one voice 'no' years ago, this could've never happened. And many of us tried, though none of us will ever know if there might not have been a way to do more. But it may not have mattered if we gave up our lives to camp on Mr.Bush's lawn like Cindy Sheehan did. Unless everyone was there with her, it wouldn't be enough. No matter how much we abhorr all this, we cannot make it stop by ourselves.
All I know right now is that Mr.Bush has his porn. Let us pray there be less of this terror porn. Let us hope that our national nightmare turned international nightmare will soon come to an end. I'm not sure how. I can only hope that January fifth Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can start, start, the process. But will we take anywhere near the steps needed to start the processes of healing for what can never be made right?
Will we never learn? Will we have another Vietnam in another thirty years? When will our country stop being so fucked up that every few years it has somebody do its dirty work for it, and then wonders how those bad apples got elected in the first place? Is this damned to happen again? Will we ever learn? I even feel odd writing this. But I guess somebody has to say things. I know I feel better when someone else articulates what I feel needs to be said. But it is odd to say it, because you know you don't deserve to. All you know is that it needs to stop, whatever you or anyone else says, whatever blogs come and go, whatever bullshit happens.
Let us pray that at least the beginning of the end of all this current evil has begun. Let us pray that that is at least the case.
May god help us fix this mess.