I know this is old news, but after recovering from the holiday seasonal blitz I had to recap this because it’s important.
Saddam is dead. Good. Iraqi justice for an Iraqi tyrant and butcher. Some would say that he will now go to the happy Islamic hunting grounds with his bazillion virgins… but methinks he is in a more “toasty” climate.
Saddam’s execution illustrates a glaring and tragic flaw in modern Western society… our near infantile resolve. There are lab rats pumped with half their weight in glucose and sexual endorphins who have a greater attention span than most Americans. I mean… how long did we keep our resolve to fight back against the blood-lusting terrorists after 9-11? Two weeks or so?
The point is, once the bad guys are caught and rendered powerless then people with a weak resolve and an Alzheimer memory quickly forget that the bad guys are actually bad. In fact, in displays of idiocy saved usually for skinny-dipping with piranhas, people actually start to feel SORRY for the “poor, helpless, bullied” bad guys?! The same bad guys who’ve tortured the elderly and raped young girls.
Even Saddam exemplifies this example somewhat. People started to see Saddam as helpless and pitiful rather than an evil man about to be punished for his great evils… testimony to our inability to maintain a truthful perspective of justice despite our emotional moods.
And here’s my proof positive… can you think of any movies you’ve seen recently where at the end, after an epic fight, the good guy kills the bad guy? Now, the reason why the bad guy usually has to die is because he deserves it (based on his horrific acts during the story) and it is the only just end that resolves properly for the audience. BUT (and here’s the kicker), 9 times out of 10 the good guy must slay the bad guy in such a way that he had no choice. It is cliché to the max, but most assuredly either the good guy will be on the ropes – a breath away from defeat – when he lands a lucky blow of the sword, or a lucky shot of the pistol, and the bad guy falls dead. OR, after being disarmed and left at the mercy of the good guy, the bad guy will pull a concealed weapon in a last desperate effort to win only to THEN be killed by the good guy.
Fortunately the current Iraqi judicial system is not squeamish about its resolve or its duty to uphold justice and actually punish the guilty (what a novel thought).
Mr. Saddam, roast in hell.