Saddam's Brain The ideology behind the thuggery.

The Weekly Standard ^ | 11/11/02 | David Brooks

[copycat]

WHEN FACULTY MEMBERS at the Sorbonne gather to discuss who should get the prize for most evil alumnus, they probably rehash all the familiar names--Pol Pot, mastermind of the Cambodian genocide; Abimael Guzman, leader of Peru's Shining Path guerrilla movement; and Ali Shariat, the intellectual godfather of the Iranian revolution. But they really should give serious consideration to Michel Aflaq.

It was Aflaq, a Syrian intellectual and political organizer, who founded the Syrian and Iraqi Baath parties. It was Aflaq, too, who in 1963 elevated Saddam Hussein to the Regional Command in Iraq's Baath party, and so set him on his course to dictatorship. And it was Aflaq who laid down the ideology that continues to dominate Saddam's thinking today. Saddam Hussein, after all, isn't a general who took over a government by means of a military coup. He's not only a thug, a ruthless tribal leader, a Don Corleone-style Godfather, a power-mad dictator. He is first and foremost a political activist, a party man.

Saddam grew up as a cadre in the highly ideological and dogmatic Baath party structure. His speeches, from the time he entered government in 1968 until today, have had a consistent ideological, pseudo-intellectual character, even if in the past decade a layer of Islamist rhetoric has been added. From his first declarations to his last, he has always presented the Arabs as the master race, whose history and accomplishments are glorious. He has always had a mystical belief in self-purification through violence, the notion that the soul is elevated through warfare and killing. And most important, he has always been committed to the life of relentless struggle, of ever-widening wars and confrontations, of perpetual revolution, which undermines all objective truth, all stability, all possibility of rest and peace. He has believed all this in the name of some final and transcendent conquest for himself and the Arab nation.

These beliefs and habits of mind he absorbed from the Baath party, and ultimately from its founder-leader. "It is Michel Aflaq who created the party and not I," Saddam told an interviewer in 1980. "How can I forget what Michel Aflaq has done for me? Had it not been for him, I would not be in this position." It was Aflaq whom Saddam installed in a top party post once he became dictator. It is Aflaq whom Saddam cites when he insists, as he does frequently, that the Baath party is not like other parties. Instead, he says, it is a believer's creed, similar in faith and purpose to early Islam, which offers "spiritual ascendance in the process of the nation's uplift" through "great deeds in conquest, liberation, justice, altruism, and flexibility."

In their statements, the Iraqi opposition forces refer to the government of Iraq as the "Aflaqite regime," emphasizing that the regime is not just one evil man; it is a party structure organized around a transcendent ideology, an ideology that produced the monster Saddam, but that is bigger than any individual.

[copycat]

Then the industrialist was taken outside, where Saddam confronted him with two security guards, and demanded that he ID the one who gave him the info. The shaken industrialist did so, whereupon the guard was immediately executed.

Peaceniks march in support of this...

[copycat]

This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature and of the gospel; and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come.

There is something to how giving in to the use of lies and deception in politics aligns one with dark forces that seem to coalesce and fester, and have a power all their own.

[copycat]

bttt...

[Restorer]

Second thought, when he described the post-modernist rejection of 'objective truth' a cornerstone of marxism and other leftist ideologies. It struck me that Iraq today is living under the bad ideologies of 1950.

There doesn't seem to be much that is particularly leftist about the Baath ideology. Seems much more fascistic. There is something very patronizing about the way the media ignores Baath ideology. Apparently Nazi ideas are bad when held by Germans, but not by Arabs.

Actually, they have a point. Germans had a quite decent chance of conquering the world. Arabs don't.

[copycat]

bttt

[livius]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting this.

I knew that Saddam was not a regular old Islamic fanatic, and I knew that he wasn't a classic Marxist - although he has features of both - but I wasn't sure how he could be described overall. I must admit that I didn't realize that the Baathist ideology was so purely Hitlerian in its emphasis on the "Master Race." Unfortunately, it's remarkable how well this dovetails with the Islamic lust for conquest that's always been active in the Middle East, combined with the left-over bits of extreme Marxist statist ideology that are still floating about in the world.

I hope Brooks gets the word out, because I think it's something most of us - well, most Americans, at least - do not understand very well.

[HumanaeVitae]

There's always someone around to put lipstick on one of these pigs...

[copycat]

I hope Brooks gets the word out, because I think it's something most of us - well, most Americans, at least - do not understand very well.

I hope we'll all do our part to educate our fellow citizens about what Saddam really is.

[WOSG]

Read Hayek's "Raod to serfdom" and you would understand that national socialism (nazism) and intrenational socialism (communism) are twin ideologies.

I thoroughly reject the Communists' use of the term "Rightist" to refer to fascist ideology. Even the fascist Mussolini was a Socialist originally, who merely adapted socilistic ideals to a nationalist/Roman ideology ... THIS IS THE SAME THAT HITLER DID WITH ARYAN NATIONALISM AND THE BA"ATH WITH ARAB NATIONALISM.

So while I AGREE that Ba'ath ideology is quite fascistic, I place it on the Left with its kin of other Socialistic/Collectivist ideologies.

IF Hitler and the Nazi Party were alive today, I would call them LEFTISTS too. National Socialism is still Socialism. It is what they really were and are.

[fortress]

How about the "human shields"? Saddam must really have a good laugh seeing these fools come to the aid of his government.

This article is a MUST READ for all of those seeking the truth.
Thanks Copycat for posting this

[copycat]

IF Hitler and the Nazi Party were alive today, I would call them LEFTISTS too. National Socialism is still Socialism. It is what they really were and are.

Roger that ... Nazis were socialists.

[null and void]

Saddam likes to call himself The Struggler

Mein Kampf = My Struggle...

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The spectres of the Religious Left are most curious aren't they?

[copycat]

The Struggler...Bump.

[Restorer]

I'm not sure that left/right terminology is particularly useful when talking about fascism (or for that matter any other political movement).

For instance, in many countries "conservatives" are attempting to conserve traditional values of God, country, class, hierarchy, etc. OTOH, in America most conservatives are trying to conserve the Declaration of Independence values that are diametrically opposed to this.

International Socialism is theoretically at root an attempt by one group, the workers of the world, to take over society and dominate the world, remaking it as they seet fit.

National Socialism is the same thing, only with the group that's taking over composed of all members of one nation or "race." It divides people vertically rather than horizontally.

If the term socialism means anything at all, it is the takeover of the means of production by the working classes. Hitler indeed used this as a propaganda tool in his rise to power. Once in power, the true "national socialists" in his party became a problem for him, and he killed most of them. He never really implemented any truly "socialist" policies, being perfectly content to leave the capitalists in control of industry as long as they followed his orders.

Italian fascism was a weird amalgam which did indeed include elements of truly national socialism.

The Spanish, Portugese and most other "fascist" societies of the time were really traditionalist parties, but with newly risen thugs in power rather than the old aristocracy.

[copycat]

bttt

[tiki]

When Saddam came to power he convened a meeting with the officials of the Baath party and then had an informer relating the supposed crimes of about half of them. As each person was outed they were arrested and those wwho were left got the reward of executing the "criminals"

[visualops]

bttt

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!