Saddam: The Video
I didn't know how I would react to the Saddam video. After all, it is a snuff film. A real live killing. I found I had almost no immediate reaction, except to ask the girlfriend if she wanted to watch it. She didn't.
Perversely perhaps, on reflection, I found the video satisfying. Apparently so too have many other people, as I found just moments ago you could get to the video through Fox News. Drudge is where I found it last night. I was actually quite surprised to see it there, especially so soon after the fact. I wonder how many other outlets are carrying it.
Collectively we've spilled plenty of blood to get to this point, and it's never been a sure thing that this would happen. Through the years we've been taught about monsters, Pol Pot being one of my favorite scary characters. It has always confused me how we, and by 'we' I don't just mean Americans, could stand by and watch things like this. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of at least a million and a half people, and he purportedly died in his sleep. He was definitely not held responsible for his crimes. Saddam: not so lucky.
We threw him out on his ass, killed his perverted sons in a shootout worthy of the O.K. Corral, and finally hung him from a stout rope. In this case America finally lives up to its 'cowboy' image.
I don't feel proud, but I feel no shame either. I feel surprisingly neutral. With past mass murderers in mind I feel like this is a job that needed doing for a very long time. And that's exactly it: it was a job, nothing more.
