Saddam In His Underwear

Will Superman Be Next?

I wouldn’t want to get too heated up about this topic because it’s half-comical and yet more than serious, but… The recently released photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear and other boring circumstances of his imprisonment really ought not to have happened. It has again invited the most wildassed among us to rave about essentially irrelevant issues. Among the irrelevant items is the nonsense proclaimed by the crybaby hatemongers on TV who seem to think the only issue is that Saddam was so mean that nothing that happens to him would be too terrible or should be regretted. Of course he was mean, shitheads! And he was vicious, and a murderer! He is accused of genocide and nearly the whole planet agrees he’s guilty! But he’s caught now and we failed to announce that he was, ahem, "shot while attempting to escape". So here we are. We have boxed Satan, and now it is our responsibility to keep him safe from every danger except justice and isolated from innocent persons (because we SAID we would) and it turns out that we can’t even do that.

It may not matter whether Saddam is a victim, as seems most likely, of security photos never meant to be seen being stolen or if there’s other photos of Saddam laughing as he smear feces from the bottom of his shoe across a photo of George Bush’s face! The major thing that has happened is that America has been caught once again with their pants down and their hat brims pulled down over their eyes. We are unable to provide security for the most evil of living transgressors, too incompetent to maintain control of the situation even in a high-visibility military prison environment where having any more control can hardly be imagined, we would have thought. THAT’S what we should be embarrassed about that everybody can see! It’s not Saddam’s dirty underwear so much, but ours, peeking out from under our Superman suit. You think our government will blame it on outsourcing? They'll blame somebody; it won't be their fault. They're the same dickless bastards that they ever were. I guess it was the most uncontrollable force on the planet: Computer Crime!!!

If I were a Muslim terrorist who hates America, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate enough to riot and kill again just yet, I’d still be on the floor, laughing my guts out! I’d be calling American strategists names like "numbskull" and remarking how all they can do is spend big money because they are otherwise feckless monkeys! It appears that we can’t guard what we love OR what we hate! Our prisoners escape us, one way or the other.

It isn’t Saddam’s pride that’ll get the most damage out of this, but ours. America is going to lose another big chunk of the illusion we have about ourselves as the good guy who does no intentional wrong. Our 18 and 19 year olds aren’t miscreants or nutcrushers, as Bush assured us during the onset of the Abu Ghraib scandal. They couldn’t be, could they—who would have taught them such behavior in America? Uh, the Tough Guys down the street and the Capitalists up the street the other way? American entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for a good opportunity.

Which would be more shameful, now that I think of it? If the American military have to admit that it was one of their own who pulled this stunt, is that worse than finding that some smart Arab with sand in his pockets broke into military film archives via the Internet? We may have to pin it on some bohunk mercenary—uh, I mean, contract worker!—just to keep a little pride in the matter!

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in favor of treating Saddam Hussein with honor or kid gloves. Maybe his human rights have been violated a little, but I do not weep for it. Violation of one’s privacy takes place pretty constantly around the world—first of all by poverty and after that, by our own governments, who feel they have the "right to know". Nearly anybody who gets a chance will violate your damn privacy. In fact, most countries not in the Western sphere of influence give little thought to human rights, much less privacy, year in and year out.

If America’s "credibility" wasn’t destroyed by the Abu Ghraib tortures, Saddam in his underwear may not be worse for us than, say, catching the common cold twice in a season. I do heartily wish it hadn’t happened, though, for it opens the door for us to have to see the rest of the world’s damnably unattractive leaders paraded half-dressed across the TV screen stages and the headline photos of newspaper pages. Each time there’s another one, the news media will dance out the previous one(s) until we’re spending half the newsday staring at older men with wrinkled underwear and hairy pot bellies! Who’s next, Bob Dole or Teddy Kennedy? Will just being French make Jacques Chirac seem sexy or more presentable? Will he be wearing a bikini or a Speedo? Oo la la! I'll bet Henry Kissinger is a boxers man.

Ugh! Now I really feel violated.

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