Saddam, You Are My Main Man After All

The first thing we gotta do is get that statue of Saddam, the one we pulled down for the TV cameras, and haul it back on its feet. Next we have to jerk the tyrant himself out of his hole in the ground, give him a haircut, a shave, a shampoo, a fresh set of underwear and a new suit.

Then we march him over to the Green Zone, tell him, ”It’s all yours, boy. We’re giving your ugly palace back to you. You are in charge again.” If he asks why, we’ll explain that we may not have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but we did find that he’s the only person around who knows how to run the damn place. So we’re outta here and sell us some oil, will ya?

People will object because Saddam is a mass murderer with or without weapons of mass destruction. To give him his due, his last few years in power he wasn’t murdering as many people, though the lower kill rate wasn’t owing to pangs of remorse. He was running out of enemies to do in and you can’t kill everybody if you want water, electricity and waste treatment.

The Americans don’t mean to kill anybody but for one reason or another Iraqis have been dying at a merry clip since the Yanks arrived with their message of mainstream civility and caring moderation. Whether or not more Iraqis were dying violently prior to their arrival or afterward depends on your party affiliation but we can say that the National Undertakers Society of Iraq, a trade group, reports no dip in business since liberation.

The point is that if the Iraqis are going to get killed anyway, does it matter who kills ‘em? Saddam can do it cheaper and without CNN paying attention. Think of the hand back to the butcher as a budgetary move.

But what about staying the course? Hard to do if you don’t even know where the race track is. As for democracy, in the middle of the war in Vietnam, Senator George Aiken (1892-1984), a Republican from Vermont, suggested that the United States declare victory and go home. Couldn’t we declare democracy and go home?