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Saddam’s Killing

Charles Hayes

    “He died standing there, saying a prayer, and looked like he was just waiting for a train.”
    That’s what my friend said after the world watched us hang Saddam Hussein. Oh, I know, we pretended that it was an Iraqi killing but it was in fact no more than a kangaroo court led by us to avenge a personal grudge. Of course it was well disguised and all the right journalists were brought on board to make sure the right word got out. Even Saddam, when addressed by this court had to ask, “Who are you?”
    One of the most interesting parts of this absurd theater was the oft talking point of “killing one’s own people”. While we were in our shock and awe of killing someone else’s people we were trying a man for killing people as well. He simply had the misfortune of owning the people that had been killed and not enough clout to buck the absurdity of this distinction. Even today this little ditty is a favorite American phrase. That is not to say that fear of the boogie man didn’t play a part as well. But, come on, boogie men are usually reserved for children’s stories. And if 9-11 is to be brought into the picture, Saddam was not any part of our boogie men to begin with. Our boogie men were people that had been run over by our trains before and had developed a lethal hatred for us. Their leader well knew that we would fire up the boilers on our train like never before as a result of 9-11 and, no different then Atta and the others, he would die as a result. And we did, he did.......and it continues, as we scream BOOGIE MAN every time it seems that rational and ethical behavior has a chance to prevail. But now, since the boogie man has become so ingrained into our political culture, it is even more difficult to see it for what it is. I mean it is how we elect people and since children and criminals can not vote we sort of paint this cultural trick whatever color we want. And it reinforces the hate that is spreading throughout the world and takes another notch out of our standing. I simply call it the death wish like the Viennese philosophers of old labeled similar insanities. It is the great raison d’etre of American culture, born of men who wanted a monopoly on truth.
    Many years ago when I stood at the foot of the big black slab with my buddy’s name on it I was overcome ......to say the least. Wet blurry visions of the past jerked about and the caretakers looked at me like I had two heads, concerned though they were. Not far to my left was the beginning of that polished black granite wall and the beginning names of those many thousands who were inscribed along its reach. There were just a few for each year back at the beginning of the wall. They were all advisors killed trying to prevent the boogie man and his domino effect. The wall stretched a long way from them to its end. All because of a hate born from our refusal to just listen to a man named Ho Chi Minh before we gave back his country to the French after World War Two. Letter after letter from him to Truman went unanswered and most likely unread before this man brought about Dien Bien Phu and the ouster of the French. But this hardly kept us from chasing the boogie man anyway, and you know, to some extent, the result.
    We continue to send more decedents of those green beret names on the first panels of that granite wall to Iraq. And it is for the same reason as Vietnam...ALMOST. What is different now and what was different when those men honchoed the truth and started perpetual war, however, is that we can not pretend that we don’t know that this is just the wanton and stupid spilling of blood. And we can not pretend that we are not doing it for the oil and the pedigree of those born of those truth honchos. And we can not pretend that this will not be another notch that we will fall. And we can not pretend that there will not be an increase in the hatred that our death wish requires.
    Not too long ago, when we stayed out of Syria, I mentioned that the fictional Dr. Pangloss had said not to worry for many adventures lay ahead, that it was still the best of all possible worlds. Today he confirmed that that time is at hand.

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