I made a post on the Democratic Underground forum awhile back, when Saddam Hussein first went to trial, stating that despite having been the target of tons of lethal firepower Hussein was thin, wearing a nice searsucker sportcoat and a hip beard, and looked as though he was on his way to a Jazz in the Park concert. Our soldiers, however, were without arms, without legs, and sometimes without their lives. The irony seemed to bypass everyone else, and I can only recall one poster responding, "You sound as though you don't think he deserves to be dressed nicely for his day in court."
That particular remark really boggled my mind, until I "got it." Saddam Hussein, you see, is a Peoples of Color. Anyone darker than toupe belongs to this very special group who are, by virtue of melanin, incapable of doing any real wrong or being critiqued. Therefore if I mention that it's ironic that a man who by any logic would have been crushed by a bomb months earlier is instead smartly dressed, I'm guilty of being racist because he is a Peoples of Color*.
Maybe instead what I was saying was that if you're at the top of the pecking order like Saddam you'll always emerge unscathed while the rank-and-file, like our soldiers, get the short end of the stick.
But it looks like Saddam may be scathed after all. Sentenced to death! Isn't that wonderful?! Well, I dunno...is it?
Over on Rankin' Rob's blog a poster known as Bitterman eloquently makes the point that whatever government we prop up in Iraq will be swinging by it's neck from a bridge within a month's time. It's true, don't ya think? And Rob himself says perhaps we should reconsider and re-install Saddam with James Carville's help. (After all, we did give him the key to the city of Detroit back in about 1980.)
I never gave much credence to the "people thrown in paper shredders" stories, and no matter how vicious Saddam may have seemed...look at the situation he was keeping a lid on. He was in a place where if you weren't vigilant and didn't crush anyone you even barely suspected of turning on you, you would wind up on the 6 o'clock news having your head sawn off. Extreme times call for extreme measures, etc.
So go over to Rankin' Blog and open your mind to the possibilites of a new Iraq.
* "The same people who say 'peoples of color' will not say 'colored people.'" -- George Carlin
