December 19, 2003
Saddam video sends wrong message
After watching the videotape of her father’s physical by U.S. troops, Saddam Hussein’s daughter said the tape was intended to “break the spirit of Arabs.” Last Wednesday, a senior official to the pope said he felt pity for the deposed dictator after viewing the same video played the world over. These two have something in common: they agree that the tape showed by the U.S. Defense Department was not the best of ideas. I agree.
Showing the tyrant in a humble and menial light may have been what he deserved, but as far as convincing anyone of anything it does very little except show that we had him, a task easily accomplished through other means. Although most did not sympathize with Hussein during his moment of capture, it showed him in a very human way. You could see the fear in his eyes, and the tape associates human characteristics with a most unhuman beast. Better would have been to show video of Saddam’s torture victims, not images that give the anti-Bushies out there reason to criticize.
Personally, I have no problems with the video. But for those that do, it’s too easy a criticism of the administration, and something that could have been easily avoided.
Posted by Deleted Author at December 19, 2003 05:34 PMA great part of how a tyrant rules has to do with image. A projection. A feeling that he is omnipotent.
To break that image in Iraqis’ minds, it was important to show him as he was —- broken, tired, resigned to his fate, and powerless before someone poking a stick in his mouth and checking his scalp for lice.
Posted by: Vivek at December 19, 2003 05:59 PMI agree with you Vivek, no doubt or suspicion could remain over the veracity of reports of his capture. That is essential to demoralizing his followers.
Dustin’s point is a valid one however, the video rendered him a failed human being. And for those who are compassionate by nature, a failed human being evokes empathy, if not sympathy, for the failure of one is at least in some small measure, a failure for all.
Some months ago, I saw a documentary on the life of Saddam. The story of his life, the beatings, the rejection, the poverty, was sad indeed. Feeling compassion for a failed and brutalized human being is not to excuse the brutality and failure that same individual may cause others.
But in feeling compassion for Hussein, one preserves one’s own humanity, even as one condones or administers justice upon the crimes of such a brutal and failed person.
Posted by: David R. Remer at December 20, 2003 03:37 AMYou guys forget the kind of machismo that is common in the middle east. I think that is an effective challenge to the cult of personality that depended on the fear and awe of this man. He is a prisoner, an old man, with grey in his beard and clouds in his eyes.
Whether or not people sympathize, they no longer worship, or tremble. They no longer see the perpetual survivor, the man who could wriggle out of any situation. They see a defeated man, and there is nothing more pathetic in the culture than such an emasculated figure.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at December 20, 2003 02:16 PMI suspect it is telling the pity quote came from a high placed Vatican official while the ‘break the spirit of Arabs’ quote came from an actual Arab. I think the latter is more correct. The target audience was most definitely not the Vatican. I don’t think the tapes aroused pity in the target audience. I heard a large number of Arabs calling Saddam a coward for not fighting or killing himself. That is the image that we wanted to portray. That is the image that was portrayed. In my opinion showing Saddam in that light wasn’t a mistake at all.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at December 22, 2003 04:54 PMAnd people wonder why anti-americanism is rising dangerously throughout the world?
Posted by: Pavlos N at December 22, 2003 05:56 PMI agree this sends the wrong message.
Bush looks like a hypocrite to the world.
First he says it is against the Geneva Convention to display prisoners of war when Al Jazeera displayed American POW.
But for Bush it is great when the U.S. military releases tapes to the press of Sadam having his teeth examined like some old horse up for sale.
Posted by: Toronto Tenants at January 17, 2004 12:26 PM
