Strange plants in the Middle East Terrarium
The following info is quoted from the BBC news site today.
"Libya to build statue of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq from 1979 until 2003
Libya has said it will build a statue of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, executed in Baghdad on Saturday. It would show him standing on the gallows with a Libyan resistance leader who fought Italian occupation, executed in 1931, Libya's Jana news agency said. Libya declared three days of mourning after Saddam Hussein's death and cancelled public celebrations around the Eid religious holiday."
I am astonished. That's about all I can say. The same President Qaddafi who was heralded by the Bush folks not very long ago for having come back from the Dark Side and abandoning support of terrorism and the possession of WMDs is now announcing his moral support for Saddam Hussein, fellow tyrant with maniacal history. Hussein, who might as well have born the mark of Cain, may be safer to honor in memoriam than to support in life. Qaddafi's decision to enshrine the Iraqi as if he were a freedom fighter and to honor him by mourning his death speaks to a mind that works much differently than yours or mine.
I guess perhaps I'm not really astonished. It's easy for us to ignore Qaddafi's actions as meaningless posturing since Hussein is dead. And it's easy to imagine that Qaddafi feels a need to position himself more as the "Lion of Libya" since many in the Mediterranean basin may see him more as the "cowardly lion" following his kowtowing to Washington. Regardless, his actions in this situation still illuminate the bizarre truth that politics makes strange bedfellows.
As for Hussein and the hoopla over the circumstances of his hanging, I find myself thinking disparate thoughts. I'm opposed to capital punishment as a moral choice; I think it would have been much more fitting to put Hussein to cleaning every toilet in Kurdish Iraq for the rest of his life, though the logistics of keeping him alive would have been challenging. That being said, I am struck by his evident immense self-absorption. Facing death he still throws disdainful comments back at his executioners. His world view was apparently unshaken. And the Keystone Kops hubbub about the camera phone video of his execution interests me. I assume that there was immense motivation across the entire spectrum of Iraqi leadership to be able to prove Saddam was dead. So I am not surprised there was video nor that it was immediately released. The "say not so" position of the government may well be disingenuous.
What interests me more is that the immediacy of today's media has an unprecedented uncertainty factor. Who would have expected that the hanging sequence would be less-commented upon than the verbal exchanges between the noosed dictator and the crowd? And so the metaphorical ball bounces with unprojected spin and leads to unforeseen consequences. Sadly, the tone of the video snippet may give Hussein more longevity as a martyr in many quarters. And he may continue to bedevil us as much in death as he did in life, at least in the near term.
The plains watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates were considered to be the cradle of civilization in some quarters, the putative site of the Garden of Eden. I think strange plants are sprouting forth there today. Strange plants with unknown fruit.
"Libya to build statue of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq from 1979 until 2003
Libya has said it will build a statue of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, executed in Baghdad on Saturday. It would show him standing on the gallows with a Libyan resistance leader who fought Italian occupation, executed in 1931, Libya's Jana news agency said. Libya declared three days of mourning after Saddam Hussein's death and cancelled public celebrations around the Eid religious holiday."
I am astonished. That's about all I can say. The same President Qaddafi who was heralded by the Bush folks not very long ago for having come back from the Dark Side and abandoning support of terrorism and the possession of WMDs is now announcing his moral support for Saddam Hussein, fellow tyrant with maniacal history. Hussein, who might as well have born the mark of Cain, may be safer to honor in memoriam than to support in life. Qaddafi's decision to enshrine the Iraqi as if he were a freedom fighter and to honor him by mourning his death speaks to a mind that works much differently than yours or mine.
I guess perhaps I'm not really astonished. It's easy for us to ignore Qaddafi's actions as meaningless posturing since Hussein is dead. And it's easy to imagine that Qaddafi feels a need to position himself more as the "Lion of Libya" since many in the Mediterranean basin may see him more as the "cowardly lion" following his kowtowing to Washington. Regardless, his actions in this situation still illuminate the bizarre truth that politics makes strange bedfellows.
As for Hussein and the hoopla over the circumstances of his hanging, I find myself thinking disparate thoughts. I'm opposed to capital punishment as a moral choice; I think it would have been much more fitting to put Hussein to cleaning every toilet in Kurdish Iraq for the rest of his life, though the logistics of keeping him alive would have been challenging. That being said, I am struck by his evident immense self-absorption. Facing death he still throws disdainful comments back at his executioners. His world view was apparently unshaken. And the Keystone Kops hubbub about the camera phone video of his execution interests me. I assume that there was immense motivation across the entire spectrum of Iraqi leadership to be able to prove Saddam was dead. So I am not surprised there was video nor that it was immediately released. The "say not so" position of the government may well be disingenuous.
What interests me more is that the immediacy of today's media has an unprecedented uncertainty factor. Who would have expected that the hanging sequence would be less-commented upon than the verbal exchanges between the noosed dictator and the crowd? And so the metaphorical ball bounces with unprojected spin and leads to unforeseen consequences. Sadly, the tone of the video snippet may give Hussein more longevity as a martyr in many quarters. And he may continue to bedevil us as much in death as he did in life, at least in the near term.
The plains watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates were considered to be the cradle of civilization in some quarters, the putative site of the Garden of Eden. I think strange plants are sprouting forth there today. Strange plants with unknown fruit.
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