By Christopher Orlet on 12.11.06 @ 12:06AM
Remember when Stalin was known as Uncle Joe?
And now the award for the "Most Irresponsible Statement by a
World Leader" goes to...Kofi Annan. (Applause.) Accepting the award
for Mr. Annan is My Name Is Earl's Jason Lee.
This week the United Nations Secretary General had this to say
about the ongoing sectarian violence (or is it civil war?) in Iraq:
"They had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets:
they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back
without a mother or father worrying 'Am I going to see my child
again?'"
A lot of pundits have been saying similar things, but they have
been said mostly tongue in cheek. At least, I hope so. In late
November the New Republic's Jonathan Chait called for
bringing back the former Iraqi dictator:
Yes, I know. Saddam is a psychotic mass murderer. Under
his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear.
Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the
fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a
wider scale.
Leaving aside the fact that Saddam's regime murdered 300,000 Iraqis
-- twice as many as Iraqi health minister estimates have died due
to sectarian violence -- one cannot help wonder if Mr. Chait is not
bucking to be the next Jon Stewart? Perhaps this is his attempt at
a little Swiftian satire. Anyway, no one takes his modest proposal
seriously. Or do they?
Columnist Ilana Mercer was apparently dead serious when she
wrote that "Saddam's reign was one of the more peaceful periods in
the history of this fractious people. What a shame it's too late to
dust Saddam off, give him a sponge bath, and beg him to restore law
and order to Iraq. Secretly, that's what anyone with a head and a
heart would want."
Ms. Mercer was only repeating what knuckleheads like radio host
Michael Savage have been saying. Mr. Savage recently told his
audience of mouth-breathers that "we should bring back Saddam, a
Sunni, because he knows how to control the Shia....You can laugh
all you want. He knew how to control them; he knew how to keep
these maniacs under control. And he was also a counterbalance to
Iran."
Not to be outdone, Fox's Bill O'Reilly said that if he were
president of Iraq he would run the country "just like Saddam ran
it," by establishing curfews and shooting violators "right between
the eyes." In June, O'Reilly suggested that "if we wage the war the
way Saddam handled Iraq, then we would have already won."
It is not hard to find Iraqis to interview who will
enthusiastically call for Saddam's return. Just go to any Sunni
neighborhood of Baghdad or to any Baathist enclave. "Maybe Saddam
did oppress those who opposed him," one Sunni told the AP. "But for
every Iraqi, deep inside, he looks like the strongman we need." Did
you hear that? Need a strongman? Forget about Uncle Sam. Call Uncle
Saddam.
Indeed one need not go all the way to Baghdad to find such
sentiments. Just go to any Democrat party stronghold. Remember that
Fox News Opinion poll (PDF) from a year ago in which 43 percent of
Democrats said the Iraqis would be better off with the Butcher of
Baghdad still in power?
Doubtless some Iraqis were better off. The Sunnis, in
particular. Or those Sunnis who supported the Baathist regime. But
God help you if you were a Shiite or Kurd.
Yes, dictators do make for a seemingly stable society. The
opposition evaporates. Troublemakers disappear. Sectarian
differences are smothered. It has often been remarked that
Srebrenica could not have happened under Tito. But just because the
murders are going on behind the scenes does not make boost a
nation's quality of life index. Bringing back Saddam would indeed
restore order, if your idea of order is "focused, systematic, and
orderly massacres in freshly dug pits," writes National
Review's James Robbins.
To even suggest bringing back Saddam is an insult to the memory
of the 300,000 Iraqis that he murdered and their families and the
thousands of coalition troops that have given their lives to remove
his regime. The Iraqis do not need Swiftian satire or Kofi Annan's
silly reminiscences of a benign dictatorship, and they sure as hell
do not need Saddam Hussein's rape rooms and meat grinders. Iraqis
need law and order, and, as John McCain and Lindsey Graham have
been saying, that means more police, more boots on the ground. Then
perhaps Iraqis will have their streets again.
topics:
John McCain, Satire, Law, Iraq, Iran, United Nations
