Story by Gregor Stronach – updated by Mike Jones
Gregor wrote this when Saddam Hussain was tried and executed- 20 December 2006, but with a bit of tinkering, it works well for Osama Bin Laden and it will still work when Muammar Gaddafi takes the big step into the unknown.
“To Hell with you!”, he screamed.
I, personally, would have gone with something more along the lines of “To hell with this!”, as I scarpered out the front door of the court / compound. Yes, he was shackled, and yes, he was wearing a 90 pound beard (seriously – that beard is a masterwork, and will probably go down in history as one of the Greatest Beards of All Time). But that shouldn’t have stopped him from making a break for it. It would have been a more dignified death than being hanged / drilled by US Navy Seals / bazooka’d into the next world by Libyan rebels / freedom fighters / detergents.
I speak, of course, about Saddam Hussein / Osama Bin Laden / Muammar Gaddafi, horrible tyrant, brutal dictator and any one of the hundreds of two-word epithets he’s been assigned by the world’s media. He’s the world’s biggest bad guy, the troll under the bridge of Freedom and Democracy, the bogeyman America uses to make sure the rest of the world eats its veggies and goes to bed by 10pm. And he’s been condemned to death. Many believe that this is perhaps the most prosaic ending for the man responsible for the untimely demise of millions of people. He was killing his own people, along with the countless thousands of men, women and children who died as a direct result of his paranoid ravings and rash decisions. Make no mistake – the man was a cunt nasty piece of work.
However, the judgement handed down by Abdel Rahman has prompted a range of different responses from around the world, and – as horrified as I am to say this – I actually agree with Europe’s two surrender monkey nations in their wet outlook on the penalty. Both France and Italy have come out simpering, calling for the execution of Saddam not to go ahead. It can easily be argued that they are merely taking the moral high ground (as I like to do whenever I can…) – after all, they have little to lose by calling for a reprieve from the noose for Saddam. Were they spokespeople for the United States, such a statement would be tantamount to strapping an explosive vest to their political careers and wandering into an opposition convention.
I have been extremely concerned by the reactions of Australia’s Prime Ministers, John Howard / Kevin Rudd /Julia Gillard. You can see the delight at the verdict writ large across the sizeable chunk of vacant real estate around his/her forehead region. But… and here’s the rub… (s)he speaks of this verdict out both sides of the mouth. On the one hand, (s)he’s vehemently opposed to the death sentence. Look at the hand-wringing and crocodile tears at the impending fate of the Bali Nine – a group of Australian twenty-somethings that have found themselves on the wrong end of the death penalty for smuggling heroin out off Indonesia. But on the other hand, when it suits our PM, (s)he’s all for it. Whether it be Saddam Hussein or Amrozi (one of the Bali bombing masterminds, for those of you playing at home), if it suits the political ends, our PM doesn’t mind if people are put to the drop, or in front of a firing squad. At least Tony Blair had the nuts to stand up and say he was against the death penalty… he won’t do anything about it, but he’s against it. So… erm… go Tony. I guess… but he didn’t have the nuts to say no to Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng when they asked him to be godfather to their daughter……
Further afield, the reactions are predictable at best. The United States has wriggled into an orgy of high-fiving, as the judgement became common knowledge amongst a populace due in the polling booth just a couple of days later. The timing of the death penalty decision and the assassinations – a major talking point – will forever be criticised by many as a transparent attempt to boost votes for an ailing administration. But dead dictators win votes, and GWB and BO’B have had this little apple land right in their laps. Down in the polls and steadfastly refusing to withdraw from an increasingly unpopular war, Bush has claimed the verdict as vindication of his decision to invade Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and for B O’B it was to swat Bin Laden … or rather SEAL his fate. Or get rid of Muammar Gaddafi. Or free the Libyan people. Or whatever reason it is this week – I’ve honestly lost track.
But the main places that the verdicts will have effect is in Iraq / Afghanistan / Libya. And it doesn’t take a geopolitical genius to see that Iraq / Afghanistan / Libya / Syria / Yemen / Egypt / etc’s are in desperate trouble at the moment, and that things will only get worse when Saddam et al do meet their makers at the gallows or in their own bedrooms. The already fractured Islamic world will have yet more massive wedges driven between the sparring factions. The Sunni loyalists are even still lining up behind their deceased leader’s party. Fighting between them and the Shia, who now have control of the legislative process in Iraq, continues to escalate. And the Taliban against everyone else in Afghanistan and the pro and anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya and the pro- and anti-Assad people in Syria ….. And stuck in the mix are western troops.
I fear for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Southern Sudan ……. Yes, they’re getting themselves a “Democracy™”, but they’re each just another government born of violence and baptised in the blood of their former leaders. The sectarian violence doesn’t need another excuse to continue – but the bloodthirsty shouts of the elected leaders of the western world won’t go unnoticed.
George Bush was smiling when he announced that Saddam Hussein will be executed. He was glad that a man is going to die. Obama was less overt with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden…… but who in the West will not quietly cheer the demise of Gaddafi and Assad ? The message sent is painfully clear… You are bad men, Saddam, Bin Laden, Assad, Gaddafi. You killed people, and killing people is Very Wrong. Ergo, we will show you the error of your ways by killing you. And we’ll be thrilled at the prospect of seeing you die.
No matter which way this debacle falls, the people of of these middle-eastern countries are in some deep, deep shit. Their world will be one of violence for many, many years to come and there’s not a damn thing 99 percent of them can do about it. If Saddam or Bin Laden or Gaddafi had copped a reprieve, the outcry would have been heard for all eternity. And with their deaths will come fires in the Middle East so huge that they will turn the desert sands to glass, stained red with the blood of the many that have died at the hands of the powerful few.
But that red glass will offer the world one thing – the perfect material to fashion the rose-coloured glasses the western world will need to wear when we look back on these events in 20 years, and try to convince ourselves that we did the Right and Noble Thing.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 