Posted on 12/15/2003 5:28:19 AM PST by Tolik
There is a famous scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy's little dog, Toto, pulls the curtain back, and the illusionary wizard is revealed to be a small and insignificant human being, whose power came solely from the fear he was able to engender in the imagination of those he held in thrall. I thought of this scene Sunday morning when, alerted by a friend's phone call at 7:30, I turned on my TV and saw the unforgettable video of the former dictator of Iraq.
It was not the first time that I had seen his face, of course. Who on our planet had not seen it before? And yet now, how different it looked to me. There was something, shockingly enough, almost pitiable about it. An English correspondent on FOX compared his bearded and disheveled visage to that of King Lear, and the comparison seemed almost apt, until you realized that Lear's worst offense had been the vanity of second childhood, while Saddam's had been the systematic murder and torture of thousands of his own people.
I watched the video of anonymous hands feeling underneath the scruffy beard, probing the way a doctor probes a patient, and I saw that Saddam was saying something to his examiner, and it seemed perfectly possible that his words might have been along the lines of it, "Yes, doc, I've been having sharp pains here for some time." And I thought, how natural. He is in the hands of Americans, and it isn't our style to withhold medical care even from a monster. If he needs dental care, we will no doubt give that to him, too.
As fallen dictators go, Saddam is lucky. He was not strung up and spat upon by the mob, as Mussolini was, but taken out of his squalid little hole, cleaned up and shaved, and is now, no doubt, sitting somewhere quite warm and safe, and most of all, alive.
Thank God.
I say this, not because I have a soft spot in my heart for ruthless tyrants, but because only a living, breathing Saddam Hussein has the power to destroy the illusionary Saddam Hussein that, like The Wizard of Oz, seemed so vastly greater than life size to those whom he had so long terrorized. Just as Dorothy and her friends needed to see the small and insignificant little man feverishly manipulating the switches and pulleys behind curtain, in order to free their minds once and for all of the image of the omnipotent and angry Oz, so the Iraqi people needed to see the small and insignificant little man who had haunted their collective psyche, and who would have continued to haunt it for as long as it was possible for the Iraqis to imagine that, one day, he would return. That fantasy is now dead, once and for all.
But there is another reason to be thankful that Saddam Hussein is alive. The man who called upon his countrymen and fellow Muslims to sacrifice their own lives in suicide attacks, to blow themselves to bits in order to glorify his name, failed to follow his own instructions. He refused the grand opportunity of a martyr's death, or even that of the hardened Hollywood gangster, determined that the cops would never take him alive. Instead, Saddam Hussein surrendered meekly and was, according to the reports, even cooperative.
We took Saddam Hussein alive, and, in doing this, we have done a great deal more than simply knock down a statue of a dictator -- we have vanquished a collective nightmare. We have turned the light on a bogey-man, and revealed him to be a broken old man, hiding fearfully in a six by eight hole.
We can see now how foolish we were to regret not rubbing him out that first night, when we dropped the bunker-piercing bomb on what we had been told was his hide-out. Had we pulverized him then, he might well have returned to claim a permanent place in the Iraqi imagination, like a kind of Mesopotamian Freddy Krueger. But, luckily, we missed him, and now we can see that there was a providence in our failure -- as so often there is in our ordinary lives as well.
That is the problem of living through history, rather than reading about it when it is over. What at first appears a triumph may be just a prelude to disaster; what at first seems a failure may prove to be merely a necessary step toward a final success. The capture of Saddam Hussein may not prove to be the turning point when, decades from now, we look back on this period; but, for right now, it certainly feels like it.
As fallen dictators go, Saddam is lucky. He was not strung up and spat upon by the mob, as Mussolini was, but taken out of his squalid little hole, cleaned up and shaved, and is now, no doubt, sitting somewhere quite warm and safe, and most of all, alive.
Thank God.
I say this, not because I have a soft spot in my heart for ruthless tyrants, but because only a living, breathing Saddam Hussein has the power to destroy the illusionary Saddam Hussein that, like The Wizard of Oz, seemed so vastly greater than life size to those whom he had so long terrorized. Just as Dorothy and her friends needed to see the small and insignificant little man feverishly manipulating the switches and pulleys behind curtain, in order to free their minds once and for all of the image of the omnipotent and angry Oz, so the Iraqi people needed to see the small and insignificant little man who had haunted their collective psyche, and who would have continued to haunt it for as long as it was possible for the Iraqis to imagine that, one day, he would return. That fantasy is now dead, once and for all.
But there is another reason to be thankful that Saddam Hussein is alive. The man who called upon his countrymen and fellow Muslims to sacrifice their own lives in suicide attacks, to blow themselves to bits in order to glorify his name, failed to follow his own instructions. He refused the grand opportunity of a martyr's death, or even that of the hardened Hollywood gangster, determined that the cops would never take him alive. Instead, Saddam Hussein surrendered meekly and was, according to the reports, even cooperative.
We took Saddam Hussein alive, and, in doing this, we have done a great deal more than simply knock down a statue of a dictator -- we have vanquished a collective nightmare. We have turned the light on a bogey-man, and revealed him to be a broken old man, hiding fearfully in a six by eight hole.
Lee Harris clear thoughts PING. Please, let me know if you want or don't want to pinged to Lee Harris articles.
His articles at the TechCentralStation are archived here: http://www2.techcentralstation.com/1051/searchauthor.jsp?Bioid=BIOHARRISLEE
If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-leeharris/browse
If you have time, read these articles:
essay Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology By Lee Harris (FR post) "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology," (original)
The Clausewitz Curse (FR post) The Clausewitz Curse (original)
Given our uncertainty, what alternative does this, or any, administration have?Our World-Historical Gamble (FR post) Our World-Historical Gamble (original)
The collapse of the liberal order and the end of classical sovereignty.
His new book is to be released in February of 2004: 
Civilization and Its Enemies : The Next Stage of History
It's reassuring, after September 11th, our justifiable action against the Taliban, and subsequent challenge to Hussein, to have him toppled from power and then captured.
As frightening as September 11th and the war on terror has been for us, and sometimes we find it difficult to absorb the entire world picture of terrorism, it is GOOD to have things reduced to familiar images.
I have always believed that President Bush was trying to protect the citizens of our nation. I have always believed that he takes his responsibilites as Commander in Chief seriously, not only because America must be defended, but because his responding with force puts our men and women in the military in danger.
So, today, seeing a diminished Saddam Hussein brings a chuckle, but also the believe that we are fortunate that he is a MADMAN. In March of 2003, I remember being so very fearful that our soldiers would encounter WMD, and that the deaths of American soldiers would come in droves. Remember the DoD order for thousands of body bags?
We have yet to learn how weakened his command and control were, and how impotent he really was. And at the same time, we can give thanks that Bush was strong enough to rise to the occasion, once and for all.
Bush has forever earned my respect, and will be remembered favorably by history. I'm so proud that I could witness this!
They learned from the mistakes of the WWII Japanese.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed
And on the pedestal these words appear --
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
So well said that I wanted to highlight your entire post again! Thanks for expressing my feelings as well!
They are all the same. Somewhere Osama bin-Laden is still alive in a cave with his sheep girlfriends while the terrorist killers that gave their God-forsaken lives on 9-11 to murder the innocent thousands are burning in hell!
Jihad for you SUCKERS while the Saudi princes laugh and count their oil money and sleep safely in their beds every night!
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