The View From The Third Edge: Saddam and The Tower of Babble

December 15, 2003

Saddam and The Tower of Babble

Saddam Hussein has been captured alive. More than thirteen years after he and his bloody invasion laid waste to our Kuwaiti stability, the evil dictator was caught hiding out in a subterranean cavity. The mighty and rich one looked like a train wreck - filthy, emaciated, utterly contemptuous, and held in the searching hands of a US military doctor. What a turn of life for one of the most "powerful" men on earth.

My father is overjoyed - the leader of his captors is now a hostage himself. A nice twist of fate, don't you think? Yes, dad, you can now enjoy your sweet revenge. I cannot, however, feel peace over this moment in time. After listening to the self-congratulatory pats on the back and Attaboys of the so-called liberal news media, I had to turn of the television and play some jazz to clear my head. "It's a new day for America." Really? Now that he is in custody, is Saddam going to put our economy back in order, bring about corporate accountability, stop the barrage of stupid laws being passed, and revive our jobs? His capture cannot even stop the violent threat of Al Qaeda activities the world over, which is what started this whole thing. Yet, people dance in the streets as if their problems are solved. What they don't see is that this may be just the starting point for that which cages us. No matter how many Saddams are caught and "brought to justice," the matter still remains that this country can easily suffer the same fate as the nation we now purport to rescue from the throes of an evil dictatorship. While the Iraqi people cowered and died at the hands of misused power by one man, the collective arm of the ruling few may oppress us. An oligarchy by any other name is just as foul. This is why I feel sick while the rest of the world parties over finding a man whose time is over.

Any country that places more importance and funds on building up a military than an educational base is headed towards irrational jingoism, the kind that can fuel holocausts. If that country also finds its devil in one group of people to single out and hate, watch out! It starts like this and rolls down a slippery slope towards all out censorship and military rule. Call me paranoid, but if a large segment of the American population can overwhelmingly approve of its president just because his forces succeeded in fishing Saddam Hussein out of his hole, which has absolutely nothing to do with the happenings of 9/11 and the state of our economy, this country is in deep trouble. How many more wrong trees do we go bark up, take down, and cheer over before we feel good about ourselves again? Exactly what purpose does this serve? Tell me that because of this, Al Qaeda will quit terrorizing our nationals at home and abroad. Go ahead, tell me that all of these wars will fill up our treasury and that companies here at home will start caring about their employees and creating American value while our leaders are away, after having given free range for the mice to play. I dare you to explain to me how the public-school children of this country are going to thrive and be educated first-world citizens of tomorrow, when more and more of their money goes towards the "democracy" of Arab nations that they cannot even find on a map. Someone please, please show me why we use war as a method to export democratic principles to foreign lands, when we do not even wish to practice them at home.

Fascism attains power by military might, and more importantly, the blessing of the people. Inadequacy and nationalistic self-righteousness brought more than just Saddam Hussein to the throne - there were Mussolini, Idi Amin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin ... the list goes on. Social will granted these beasts the authority to lay waste to human ideas, dreams, lives, and hopes. In celebrating our modernity, we forget that our kind is as capable of sanctioning this kind of behavior in our leaders, if not more so. We are a people of physical stuff; we surround ourselves with things rather than concepts and deeds. Civilization and the abstract are lost on those of us who crave validation by identity with things. (Is ladder-climbing the highest subtlety we can achieve?) When we don't get these things, there are always the ambitious who point out to us that that is not our own doing, but certainly the fault of some other party. "Our economy is in shambles because of those Jews ... Jobs are being stripped away by those foreign immigrants ... I can't find work because of offshore outsourcing ... My life sucks because of the Arabs." Don't tell me that Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein emptied our treasury, left us in debt, and made an economy of unemployment. Our own political and corporate heads did that.

Again, did we really capture Saddam Hussein? We are going to turn him over to the Iraqis for them to do as they see fit. According to them, he is to get a trial next summer that may or may not be internationally televised. Welcome back to the Bush Catch and Release show! On today's program, our forces go through the trouble of pulling the snake out of its hole, and our government turns around and hands it back to a chance for escape and freedom. Everywhere I look in this affair, I see shades of Noriega, Marcos, and Duvalier. (For a fascinating rundown of the fates of ex-dictators, see the Where Are They Now? website.) I hope whatever small shred of victory the Iraqi and American people see in this occasion does not turn into a travesty. Unfortunately, history and bad habits do have a tendency of repeating themselves.

It's time to quit falling over our tongues in small talk and to use them in asking sharp questions about the fate of our nation. If the government infused as much time and care into the future of its own populace, Americans wouldn't need the capture of a two-bit tyrant to distract us from what is really important: reclaiming the United States of America from the infection within. Be gone, Saddam, and take your nation's woes with you; our country needs all the help it can get. I wish it were as simple as that.

Posted by maitri at December 15, 2003 10:12 AM

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