Saddam As Summer Reading - "The Insider: Trapped in Saddam’s Brutal Regime" (bio of brutality)

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE ONLINE.COM ^ | JULY 12, 2005 | Marni Soupcoff

[CHARLITE]

If last week’s Daily Telegraph article by Samantha Grice is anything to go by, this summer’s must-read is not a piece of pulp fiction one can happily devour on a sun-drenched beach. Rather, it’s a disturbing true-life portrait of a vain and superstitious psychopath—a book that will likely leave you chilled and upset, rather than amused or titillated. But by all accounts, it is a must-read just the same.

For two decades, Iraqi Dr. Ala Bashir served (through no choice of his own, he says) as plastic surgeon to then-dictator Saddam Hussein and his family. During that time, Dr. Bashir witnessed so many horrors and contradictions that he was able to write a book about the period that, from Ms. Grice’s telling (the book will not be released until the end of this month), sounds not only compelling but also downright educational.

From the details so far revealed, The Insider: Trapped in Saddam’s Brutal Regime promises to be a commanding reminder of the reasons why Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power and why Iraqis never had a chance at a peaceful or secure existence until that day. Dr. Bashir describes the ways he had to cater to the narcissistic whims of the Hussein family (Saddam apparently was more worried about corns on his feet than the Americans bombing Baghdad, while the women of the family were too caught up booking their nose jobs to much notice their people dying around them). He also describes the extreme fear that he and others had of Saddam, and of the ruthless insanity that characterized Saddam’s son Uday’s every move.

This is important to know. It’s not that Dr. Bashir is exposing a side of the Husseins that no one ever saw or realized existed. Except for a few highly deluded Michael Moore types, most of the world has come to recognize that brutality and pettiness were the defining traits of the Hussein regime. But Dr. Bashir provides an invaluable tool for truly comprehending the depths of Saddam’s evil: anecdotes. For, as Ms. Grice puts it, “the devil is in the detail.”

We can be told a thousand times that Saddam was a callous and vain man, or that Uday was a violent misogynist, but it isn’t until we read Dr. Bashir recounting his memories— of Saddam torching Uday’s cars as punishment for Uday murdering a valet, or of having to treat women for knife-wounds and cigarette burns they obtained courtesy of a drunken Uday—that it all really sinks in. The personal details (Saddam smoking a cigar as Uday’s cars burned, Saddam’s mentally ill aunt having two servants killed on a suspicion they had stolen something) are what helps us to understand on a human level what life in Iraq was like before Saddam’s fall.

It is easy to steer clear of a book like Dr. Bashir’s for many reasons. We already know Saddam is a bad guy, so why bother? If he’s caught now, what’s the difference? But in truth, it is more important now than ever that people read about and get a realistic picture of Saddam Hussein’s twisted priorities and sadism.

As Americans grow justifiably frustrated with watching fellow Americans die in Iraq, it is easy for them to forget what motivated the United States to intervene in the first place: a brutal man who terrorized his people. If it does nothing else, Dr. Bashir’s book should at least set the record straight that whatever one may think of the war, there is no debating that in ousting Hussein, it delivered an extremely positive consequence. And there is no overestimating the importance of such a reminder.

With Uday long dead and Saddam now being portrayed as a weak and insufficiently pampered prisoner, people are too likely to brush off their atrocities and start viewing them as victims. It won’t be enough to have a chorus of Bush supporters insisting this isn’t the case. It will take the first-person account of someone who witnessed what things were really like to convey the Husseins’ destructiveness.

Dr. Bashir’s book is an incredibly strong candidate for being that account. Which is why this summer, the detective stories and bubbly romances can wait. This season, the tale of an egomaniacal ruler who spurred a war and nearly destroyed a people sits atop this summer’s pile of must-reads.

Marni Soupcoff is a regular columnist for TAE Online.

[CHARLITE]

"Except for a few highly deluded Michael Moore types, most of the world has come to recognize that brutality and pettiness were the defining traits of the Hussein regime."

[CHARLITE]

Saddam ping

This book should be required reading for all blathering anti-Iraq war liberals.

Char :)

[WOSG]

PING for Saddam brutality accounts.

[B4Ranch]

>>As Americans grow justifiably frustrated with watching fellow Americans die in Iraq, it is easy for them to forget what motivated the United States to intervene in the first place: a brutal man who terrorized his people. <<

If that was just one of the reasons why we are in Iraq, it certainly isn't anywhere close to the top of the list. If it was, we would be in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and the others where the meltdown of democratic accountability and respect for human rights and the rule of law has and is occurring.

[Valin]

This book should be required reading for all blathering anti-Iraq war liberals.


If it doesn't have lots of pictures and small words they'll be lost.

[Valin]

If that was just one of the reasons why we are in Iraq, it certainly isn't anywhere close to the top of the list. If it was, we would be in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and the others where the meltdown of democratic accountability and respect for human rights and the rule of law has and is occurring.


I had a...disscusion with some people a while ago on this. My reply, "Just because we're not doing A..B...or C does that mean we shouldn't do D?"

[Critical Bill]

Outstanding link ..again Char..!

[goldstategop]

Exactly. Saddam was a psychopath who's ultimate loyalty was to himself. The true nature of his regime was evident in a lot things, but its signature moment was defined when Saddam formally assumed power in 1979 and shortly after becoming President, announced the discovery of a plot within the Ba'ath Party. He convened a party court and had it proceedings filmed in which judgment was pronounced upon the condemned men. For a grisly touch, he had his own lieutenants execute the party's enemies to cement their allegiance and to implicate them in his crimes. As Kenan Makiya documented it in his book that has since become famous, Saddam's Iraq became known as the "Republic Of Fear." That was the regime's and by extension, Saddam's watchword. Iraq was totalitarian rule of a reach and extent that went further than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia under Stalin.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

All of these other countries are despotisms... we can only do so much. North Korea is far the most dangerous due to its possession of nuclear weapons. After that, Iran can be added to that list for its desire to export Islamofascism by any means abroad.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Allegra]

I've heard so many personal stories from Iraqis that are just spine-chilling.

I imagine this is more of the same...

I keep thinking I've heard the worst about the guy, and then I hear something even more shocking.

His execution can't come soon enough.