Sympathy for the Devil? (Death of a Hired Man)

"Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness, and brotherly co-existence...I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair; it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking; it keeps you away from balanced thinking and from making the right choices." Probably doesn't sound familiar, does it? It was said by an important politician not too long ago...does that help any? No? Read it carefully and think about it. Here's another hint-he died recently. Have it yet? No, it's not Gerald Ford-in fact, it's a quote from none other than Saddam Hussein. He said that in his farewell address to Iraq after being sentenced to death. He even went on to say, "I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and peoples."

I know what you're thinking. "What the-? A Saddam Hussein quote?" Sure, he may be full of crap, and the guy behind the gassing of 15,000 people based on their race isn't in a good position to speak out against hate, but hey, that's still a pretty good message for Iraq, if you ask me. In fact, I wish our president was that good with words. Sure, he directly references God, a move which never fails to bug the crap outta liberalcores (especially when it's a conservativecore who pulls it...hm...I wonder if there's a connection there...), but still; I wish Bush would let Americans in on the top-secret difference between a country's denizens and it's decisioners. (Note: I know that decisioner is not a word.)

You'd be surprised how many Americans just don't get it-Islam is not a religion based on hatred and killing. As has often happened throughout history, though, a few extremists with power are using the religion as a tool to promote a collective hate. Still, I dare you to find something wrong with the quote above. Forget about who said it, forget about the tons of people he killed, forget all your judgements about what a bad person he was. Just read it and think about it.

If only Saddam practiced what he preached, huh? That can be applied to all politicians, of course. As far as I'm concerned, any politician who can wade through all the red tape and red-handedness it takes to become a major public figure doesn't deserve to be trusted any farther than they can be thrown; and the farthest I've ever thrown one was 15 meters (but he was only 5'3"). It takes so much disingenuousness to even become a presidential candidate that by the time they are a candidate, chances are high they aren't a good candidate anymore. That's why politicians often get caught lying, cheating, stealing, and shooting old men in the face on accident-that's exactly how they got into power in the first place. (Especially by shooting old men in the face on accident.) Democratic elections should not revolve around the "lesser of two evils" reasoning, but with the people that run it seems that they often do.

So from capture to execution, Saddam lasted for a staggering two and a half years (democracy works, eh?) in psuedo-Iraq, with his trial sporadically on and off of the news based on the ratings system (democracy works, eh?). And after all of the underwear photo shoots and subsequent Victoria's Secret ads, we ended up killing him off anyway. The underlying irony, of course, is that the US made Saddam as powerful as he was to begin with-we were glad when he originally came to power; we even hired him to fight a war against Iran for us. Now we've overseen his execution. (And when I say overseen, I mean over-seen-do a YouTube search of "Saddam execution," pick any of the 2,000+ search results, and note the 800,000+ views on some of them. Speaks volumes, doesn't it?) Good job, guys; now the insurgents in Iraq have a death to avenge. Unless of course, they listen to Saddam's advice-which is, ironically enough, quite possibly the only thing that could save the country at the moment. It's a paradox, really-Saddam probably didn't mean what he said (unless he "saw the light" or some other cliché phrase...maybe he just uses some kind of fuzzy logic that works around the Kurds) and the people fighting US forces in Iraq will undoubtedly fight harder with the death of their great leader; yet it is what he said that could potentially lead the entire world to peace if followed.In other words-politics suck.

I'm going to cut to the chase, and by "the chase" I mean "my opinion"-Saddam Hussein didn't deserve to be executed; and contrary to how it may sound, I'm not hinging this on his farewell letter. His farewell letter could have said, "Quick, everybody, blow up some Yanks to get back at them!" and I still wouldn't think he deserved execution. Capital punishment is an anachronism in so-called modern free societies-the Code of Hammurabi predates Democracy by somewhere around a millennium. So why do we still employ it, and why are we passing it on to the hostage-held-democracy of Iraq? Because it's what the people want? Sure, that's the basis of democracy, but if what the people want is death, does that make it OK? If 95% of the US voted for infanticide (which would be quite a trick, since less than 32% of the voting-eligible population in DC voted in the elections last year), would that make it OK? Of course not. So does the death toll really make a difference as long as death is involved at all? Saddam deserved to sit in a corner for the rest of his life to think about what he had done-for us to end his life as he ended plenty of others' just screams 1700 BC. Either way, though, he's dead now, and there's obviously nothing that can be done. I just thought that Saddam's farewell address was worth a read. It doesn't matter if he meant it. He's right.