Open Letter to Saddam Hussein (and His Captors)
Dear Sir:
I am aware that, by the time this letter reaches you, you will be dead and departed to the next world, and that the headlines will be declaring the triumph of your rivals or your martyrdom (depending on where you are). I am also well aware that bringing up your name will incite a lot of anger in yours and my fellow countrymen, for nearly opposite reasons. I accept this, as I am stirring the nest.
But there were too many things which bothered me about your whole situation to just let the story end without saying something. So I write this. I am not expecting answers, as I'm fairly confident they will never come, even to the most informed among us here on Earth. But at least I can discuss this.
As things look from here, you were a symptom-- certainly not blameless, but certainly not the source of the tragedy around you. As powerful as you became, you were never completely in control of your circumstances. Given the way your entire life progressed (CIA-trained assassin, appointed leader of Iraq by the US, punished progressively more and more after the invasion of Kuwait until your murder was a foregone conclusion.), one can't help but feel you were as much subject to the tide of more powerful men's machinations as any of us bystanders.
You dwelled in a vicious, brutal part of the world, and you became more vicious than all of your enemies and neighbours in order to survive. This doesn’t excuse genocide (nothing can). But the irony that the same man who could murder hundreds also gave kindness and fatherly advice to his grandchildren (he read bedtime stories to his chidren and grandchildren, he fed the birds and tended his own garden, even continuing to do both after he was imprisoned) and even his own jailers (he gave relationship advice to a soldier who was guarding him, and when one of his jailers whom he smoked with had to leave because of his brother's funeral, Saddam offered to be his brother.) only highlights the truth that there are no good guys or bad guys in war, only monsters.
Perhaps you became too comfortable, too arrogant. Perhaps you bit the hand of the American government that made you. Or perhaps you had the misfortune of timing to attract your patron’s negative attention when he most needed a red herring (Bush Sr. started the first Iraq war about the same time his son got arrested). What is clear is that your life was testament to the one big rule of power you had seemingly forgotten: all that is given can be taken away.
It’s hard to tell why you made the choices you did. It always is in that part of the world. They say that desert brings madness, after all. But at least your place in the great controversies of history is secure, for all the comfort that may be to you.
I am aware that, by the time this letter reaches you, you will be dead and departed to the next world, and that the headlines will be declaring the triumph of your rivals or your martyrdom (depending on where you are). I am also well aware that bringing up your name will incite a lot of anger in yours and my fellow countrymen, for nearly opposite reasons. I accept this, as I am stirring the nest.
But there were too many things which bothered me about your whole situation to just let the story end without saying something. So I write this. I am not expecting answers, as I'm fairly confident they will never come, even to the most informed among us here on Earth. But at least I can discuss this.
As things look from here, you were a symptom-- certainly not blameless, but certainly not the source of the tragedy around you. As powerful as you became, you were never completely in control of your circumstances. Given the way your entire life progressed (CIA-trained assassin, appointed leader of Iraq by the US, punished progressively more and more after the invasion of Kuwait until your murder was a foregone conclusion.), one can't help but feel you were as much subject to the tide of more powerful men's machinations as any of us bystanders.
You dwelled in a vicious, brutal part of the world, and you became more vicious than all of your enemies and neighbours in order to survive. This doesn’t excuse genocide (nothing can). But the irony that the same man who could murder hundreds also gave kindness and fatherly advice to his grandchildren (he read bedtime stories to his chidren and grandchildren, he fed the birds and tended his own garden, even continuing to do both after he was imprisoned) and even his own jailers (he gave relationship advice to a soldier who was guarding him, and when one of his jailers whom he smoked with had to leave because of his brother's funeral, Saddam offered to be his brother.) only highlights the truth that there are no good guys or bad guys in war, only monsters.
Perhaps you became too comfortable, too arrogant. Perhaps you bit the hand of the American government that made you. Or perhaps you had the misfortune of timing to attract your patron’s negative attention when he most needed a red herring (Bush Sr. started the first Iraq war about the same time his son got arrested). What is clear is that your life was testament to the one big rule of power you had seemingly forgotten: all that is given can be taken away.
It’s hard to tell why you made the choices you did. It always is in that part of the world. They say that desert brings madness, after all. But at least your place in the great controversies of history is secure, for all the comfort that may be to you.