So it's [Iraq] a place full of contradictions - sometimes within the same people.
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Human behavior is, I hope all would agree, characterized by a non-trivial amount of complexity and strangeness. Much is unfathomable.
Nevertheless, I think it's possible to fruitfully use our imaginations.
Saddam was a monster but he was THEIR monster. He came from one of the oldest towns, knew, it seems, all the currents and cross currents of the culture. He knew who to buy off, who to intimidate and who to kill. Americans read that Saddam was a "madman" and a "tyrant" and assume that violence and only violence was the glue that held the regime together. But there was skill of other sorts too.
Clearly, he was ruthlessly efficient at his high wire act of brutality.
Sometimes, people are admired as adepts even if they excel at deeds of negative daring.
Remember the reported comments we read after the deaths of Uday and Qusay? In nearly the same breath, many decried both their tyranny and Caligua-esque bizareness while lauding the blaze-of-glory manner in which they left this mortal coil.
'They died like Iraqis' I remember one older man as being quoted as saying.
If Saddam dies in a similar way, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that people celebrated both his death and his going out like a lion.
I imagine that one of the reasons many people are disillusioned with the Americans, in addition to the obvious daily indignities, is their apparent ineptitude compared to Saddam.
Where is the reliable power, the trash collection, the basic security? These people who can launch missiles from Kansas that strike the west side of a building as planned cannot do these simple things?
DRM
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