Posted on 04/25/2006 4:58:06 AM PDT by aculeus
It's a shame that Joseph Heller, author of "Catch-22," is no longer alive and laughing at human folly because he'd love "Saddam's Delusions," an amazing article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. Heller's masterpiece is a darkly comic story of absurdity, brutality and insane military bureaucracy. So is "Saddam's Delusions."
"Catch-22" is fiction, of course, but "Saddam's Delusions" is all too true. It's a 25-page distillation of a 230-page Pentagon study of the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime, based on thousands of secret Iraqi government documents and interviews with dozens of captured Iraqi officials. Written by military analysts Kevin Woods and James Lacey and historian Williamson Murray -- all of whom worked on the Pentagon study -- it's a deadpan account of madness, paranoia and idiocy in high places.
"A close associate once described Saddam as a deep thinker who lay awake at night pondering problems at length before inspiration came to him in dreams," the authors write. "These dreams became dictates the next morning, and invariably all those around Saddam would praise his great intuition."
Many of Saddam's dream-inspired ideas were ludicrous, but none of his lackeys had the guts to say so. They all remembered what happened in 1982, when Saddam asked his aides for candid advice about his war with Iran, which wasn't going well. Riyadh Ibrahim, the minister of health, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down and resume his presidency when the war ended. The next day, pieces of Ibrahim's chopped-up body were delivered to his wife.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85301/kevin-woods-james-lacey-williamson-murray/saddam-s-delusions-the-view-from-the-inside.html
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If you stop reading after the first page of the Web article, it's interesting. Reminds me a lot of the inner circle around Hitler, particularly as the war drug on.
And besides, if you only read the first page, you miss the second page where the author(s) draw direct parallels between Saddam Hussein and the Bush administration. And that keeps your blood pressure down, which is good. Consider it my public service for the day.
}:-)4
Retired generals, active legislators, and the general public are allowed to criticize our president freely. Under Saddam, you're turned into mulch. Any media sympathy for this POS is ludicrous.
BUMP!
To read later
But if you only read the first page you miss the funny article about buttocks exercises on the lower half of the second page.
The slam on the Bush Admin at the end of this makes the barf reflex inevitable.
"The evidence now clearly shows," the authors conclude, "that Saddam and those around him believed virtually every word issued by their own propaganda machine."
We all get different things out of an article but I read this as a reference to the liberals.
Ping
Thanks. It's very long but I will try it later.
You're right. And the media seems to love the guy.
I've heard some chilling personal stories about what Saddam has done to families and I've seen marks on people's bodies as testaments to that scumbag as well. And I was here early enough after the fall of Saddam to see the fear in Iraqis of expressing opinions. (They have completely recovered from that now.)
I hope I'm still here when he swings.
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