Are We Gullible?

G: “You know what upsets me about talking to you guys? I lose touch with my immediate reaction.”

C: “I also come home realising I had done a fair amount of thinking. So sad.”

G: “Or we dilute crimes against humanity into sensible acts of humanity. Did you think about that?”

M: “You mean, do we water crimes down to a political misdemeanour by dwelling on what people were thinking when they committed them?”

G: “Yes. Read a history book. Nobody thought Saddam Hussein was sane. Not the Arabs, not the Americans, certainly not Israel and not us either. And yet we are having conversations about how Saddam lead a cult of personality based on socialism and anti-colonialism. Does it matter? He used chemical weapons against other people.”

C: “You have read more history books than we have. Is that the whole story?”

G: “Iraqi use of chemicals were systematic and well documented. Iran ostensibly dabbled a bit as their complaints to the UN Security Council fell on deaf ears. But Saddam? He lavished it over the heads of civilians.”

M: “And there we have the classical exit from all discussions on Iraq. After that burp of outrage what room is left for trying to adopt the Iraqi mindset? However analysis is not sympathy.

But what we do here goes beyond analysis, I will admit as much. We do indeed try to rekindle any fire we can lay our hands on. Why? It speaks volumes as to the popular fronts.

We are looking for ideas that are transferred from the streets to the politicians or the other way around. If the two are in alignment, we have a precondition for legitimacy.

For all your sense of justice you still need to come to grips with the fact that US policy sought cynically to use Saddam as a bulwark against Iranian revolutionary infection which might spread in the region.

Which room for existence does that leave for the concept of justice?”

G: “We can discuss all that we want, but at the end of the day, I need to return home: He used chemical weapons against civilians. Enough said.”

M: “No, enough said is not enough! I am not even looking for an admission to the fact that we only have a convention against chemical weapons because we used them ourselves! Go point your finger at France, they started.

But I still don’t care about that.

If Saddam one day can hold a speech that affects people — or crazy of crazies — one that can even affect himself, then perhaps we are just dealing with a mind that can host contradictory desires.

In fact, let’s look at some of his speeches. We may be surprised to learn that his ideology does not even preclude the use of chemical weapons.”

C: “What?!”

M: “Truly. Why did we think that in the first place? Because it is the natural extrapolation of ‘play nice’, which is what we associate with revolutionaries who shies away from a past they see as rotten. »We hate the sick people that came before. Let’s be nice, healthy and green instead«. It is a mental reflex, not an insight.”

G: “What I won’t be a party to, is to talk myself into being gullible. I don’t want to wake up someday and be the only fool in the world who didn’t see through it.”

M: “Why not? Are you scared of being laughed at? What about standing firm on a method all the way through?”

C: “I’m confounded. Perhaps Gerald is right on this one?”

M: “You mean ’this one’ is a special case? Or that the same analysis on similar data produces different outcomes?

But why confront me with your considerations? Let’s look at a speech by the man himself.”

G: “What? Of course you have read one.”

M: “As soon as his name cropped up last time we talked about him. Would it surprise you to hear that you cannot in the least hear the voice of a psychopath who exposes children to chemicals? And yet he did that. What I am saying is that we need to figure out how to combine those two realities. Here is the speech:”

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S SPEECH ON NATIONAL DAY 1981

The anniversary we celebrate annually on this day, the anniversary of the 17-30 July 1968 Revolution, is not a mere occasion even if it is called great and prominent. To Iraqis it has rightly become the anniversary of the new birth and life, of the dawn of revival and progress and of the start of the course of pride and glory.

M: “Simple start, isn’t it? "

Last year, I said on the same occasion that in the years that followed the Revolution, Iraq had moved decisively and comprehensively from one age to another — from the age of servitude, exploitation, poverty, backwardness and weakness to the age of freedom, justice, prosperity, progress and strength.

This is the essence of the Revolution’s achievement — which is a source of our pride.

M: “Even if we do think like you say, Gerald, that he is insincere and is actively adorning his power regime, then why does he choose those words? Because the people can relate to them.”

G: “What good is that if they come from a Middle Eastern Stalin? He even begun his office with a purge. And like a Baathist Stalin he invokes the embers of a socialism he has already gutted for social content. Vanguard? He’s a common thief.”

M: “And like a Stalin he may very well believe himself to be exactly the ruthless leader that can save the Baathist party. We don’t know yet. But I have asked and searched for hours yesterday and was verily spoon fed the narrative about a man who through brutality, backstabbing and deception outmanoeuvred almost everybody and executed the rest.

Did he? I content that the question is meaningless without the ideological dimension. Listen:”

You have proved yourselves brave and courageous, with no weaknesses or wavering. Throughout all this, and from a position of power and pride, you held the banner of peace, offering your enemy [Iran] the return of its territory once it recognized your rights and accepted to live as an honest and peaceful neighbour.

M: “This is a complete reality, a house ready to move into. Remember that by 1980 the world had changed a lot. Egypt had reversed course from being the leading anti-imperialist country to signing a peace deal with Israel. Who would take up the reins from Nasser? Who still believed in the old ideals and dreams? Those people listening to this speech? They all had an awareness that the old dream had changed face, the struggle itself had changed. The imperialist forces had regrouped and figured out how to stay in power, exploiting all the weak points in the Ba’ath party’s structure and in the Arab revolution as a whole. They fractured it.

That cleansing he did? It was framed as stopping a Syrian plot to topple the Iraqi Ba’ath party.

If Saddam hadn’t made sense in 1981 why would the State Department bet on him as their man in the Middle East after the fall of the Shah?”

G: “Please don’t make the mistake of confounding me with the State Department. Unlike them, I would have had scruples once the first reports of chemical attacks came in.”

M: “And let Iran win and redefine the Middle East? That is exactly my point! Nobody ever backs down! We are all forced into a position of ruthlessness, at least in a country where coups are not unprecedented.”

C: “But that thing about escaping servitude, how is that different from Iran’s constitution?”

M: “Logically? It isn’t.”

Throughout eras of decline, you, your fathers and grandfathers lived for centuries under oppression, tyranny, backwardness and poverty. Your enemies thought that you had lost your historical opportunity for ever. But — despite all that you suffered during those dark stages of your history — you have proved that you are a living people, that you are the sons of a living and vigorous nation, and that you are the descendants of those great ancestors, the well-known historical leaders, constructors, originators of civilization and Message-bearers.

[…]

I am not saying something new, but rather confirming a fact, when I say that we will not submit to Persian aggression and that we will continue fighting it, as we have been doing valiantly, patiently and efficiently over the past ten months. We will maintain this attitude until the tyrant clique in Iran comes to see reason and gives up its rancour and ambitions.

From a position of power and ability, we will sincerely continue our appeal for peace, as we have been doing since the start of the war. We shall co-operate sincerely with the Islamic Conference Organization, the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations in their peaceful efforts to achieve a just and honourable solution, ensuring the rights of Iraq and the Arab nation, and based on the renunciation of tendencies of aggression and expansion, and on the respect for the sovereignty and dignity of all peoples in the region.

C: “I’m not saying Iraq is any different from Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, England or any other country, but isn’t that just the eternal regurgitation of socialist values rubber stamped on old strife? Probably Iraq and Iran has always been fighting - Arabs vs Persians.”

M: “Sure. It’s also just rhetoric. Are you asking me what Saddam really was thinking? I don’t know. Perhaps he thought: »Those damn Persians! If they want to play tough, they found their man. But our Arab Nation will prevail« I think it is worth investigating at the very least.

After all, if he can say this, he certainly hasn’t read very much Ali Shariati or even worse, Khomeini:”

The Persian aggression against Iraq was a result of the arrogant, racialist and evil attitudes of the ruling clique in Iran.

At the same time, it was a Zionist and imperialist conspiracy aimed at liquidating Iraq’s revival and checking its development for decades. It tried to strip you of your shining mind and heart, in the same way as it tried to destroy the scientific, cultural and technical bases of your new revival. But you, with courage, patience and efficiency — thanks to the Revolution’s achievements — have been able to meet a challenge which many peoples in the world may fail to meet, and which some countries in the Arab homeland have indeed failed to meet.

G: “Zionist as a slur! Ain’t that nice. The Iranians are Zionists and in cahoots with the American imperialists. And I who thought that Saddam was crazy.

Miranda, if you put it like that, you are also toying with another blasphemy: The heretical belief that Saddam was not looting the riches of his country for his own personal gain.”

M: “Gerald, I don’t want to go there. I lack the proper insight. Then again, can you base yours on anything but Western propaganda? Can you even begin to imagine how easy it would be to concoct assemblages of poor and rich in America? Run those images 24/7 on state sponsored TV and even America looks rotten.”

C: “But it is rotten. The only reason those images aren’t run is that the media are segregated into ideological camps and they only show material usable in the war against the other camp.”

M: “Even someone as potentially rotten as Saddam seems to worry about something deeper:”

The Arab nation expresses the right and the forward movement of history while the Zionist entity expresses aggression, crime and racialist and expansionist theories which the free peoples have renounced as part of the hated colonial past, and which has to end despite all resources at its disposal and the efforts by imperialism to keep it alive.

[…]

We have never said that the fight against the Iranian aggression and against the expansionist Persian tendencies (which have been demonstrated by various means under successive regimes in Iran) is the decisive battle for the Arabs. What we have said, and still say, is that the fight against Zionism is the main decisive battle for the Arabs.

C: “He stole his brother Khomeini’s speech!”

M: “Is it relevant that the words are worn out and hackneyed? Show me a speech on liberalism, socialism, communism that can utilise old phrases without sounding like a cliché.

But to contradict myself, it is relevant that the words are old. It means Saddam delivers his old songs like a crooner and once the microphone is switched off, he is somewhere else.

But where? That is something we can only reconstruct through other means.”

C: “And you are saying that he really means those words, well, not those words because they are as you say a repertoire. He arrives at the stage, says his piece and gets the pay check. But the idea behind the words could very well live on.”

G: “So in short, you suspect that he is falsely espousing ideas he in his soul is actually true about? He has lost his ability to speak honestly?”

M: “Yes. I’m willing to entertain that possibility, yes. After the speech, he goes back to his chessboard and ponders his next move. But the grand strategy remains the same.

Why did Israel after all bomb the Osiraq reactor, if not for the fear that Saddam’s false words at their core still contained a resolve, a faithfulness towards old struggles?”

The Baghdad Summit [1978] established historic grounds for serious Arab solidarity against any deviation from sound Arab policy. It drew up general lines for Arab policy towards Zionist and imperialist designs, particularly against the Camp David conspiracy.

There is now a great need to adhere to the political line drawn up by this Summit, to develop it and to have a coherent and strong Arab stance, whether in the international community or in meeting hostile and harmful plans and policies. We do not want to say that there is a direct, public retreat from the line of the Baghdad Summit. However, the Arab situation is developing in a manner indicative of a gradual drift towards disintegration.

M: “What a strange thing to lecture his countrymen about in a speech that is supposed to be cliché. The disintegration of the spirit of the Baghdad Summit 1978.

I think his lamentation is genuine.

I also think his speech is rife with genuine concerns over broader lines in the Arab struggle for independence:”

The oil is a gift bestowed by God on the Arab nation, to use — after centuries of poverty, backwardness and servitude — in raising its living standards, developing its economic, social and cultural conditions, and building up its own power to meet the challenges and conspiracies besetting it.

[…]

The oil revenue of the oil-producing Arab countries is still their main revenue for meeting their basic needs and the requirements of their development plans.

[…]

The Arab nation’s struggle for Palestine obviously requires great resources. We can in no way omit this means [oil wealth] from our calculations.

G: “And that would explain his violent reaction to dumping prices in a bid for customers. It violates the solidarity he needs to keep revenue flowing. It would even explain the desperation he felt for a speedy conclusion of the Iran war which made him take the ill-fated decision to use chemical weapons.”

C: “He is one of a dwindling set of statesmen still talking about Palestinians as an urgent problem. Hence Arafat and PLO sided with him in the Gulf War. They also payed a price for that in that they felt obligated to participate in the Madrid 1991 negotiations side by side with Jordan in a joint delegation arrangement. Palestinians have always tried to wiggle their way out of the shadow of Jordan.”

G: “And Jordan also payed a price by not joining the Gulf War coalition in the against Iraq. They felt they had to repair their image.”

M: “Help me classify this sentence:”

We may level a brotherly, though sharp, criticism at certain Arab brothers whose policies of production and marketing have created a big surplus in the oil market. We can in no way find a convincing justification for this policy and its ends. The harm it has caused to the Arab oil-producing countries and to others is very clear. The existence of such an oil surplus in the international market greatly weakens the Arab influence on the international situation — we seek such influence only to defend our own rights and interests against aggression and expansion, and to realize legitimate objectives in development and construction.

M: “Genuine? This is the part of the speech where I think we really do get an insight into what is on his mind after the lights are turned off.”

Gerald looked thoughtful.

M: “Also, how about this segment on inflation?”

Our oil policies should take into consideration the legitimate interests of Third World developing countries which have been hit by inflation.

[…]

The industrial countries — and not the oil-producers — are primarily responsible for exporting inflation to Third World countries. Hence, on various occasions — and especially at the Sixth Summit Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana in September 1979 — we have called for the establishment of a long-term international fund to help the developing countries meet the effects of inflation.

M: “Which Saddam is this then?

The brain is a myriad of voices. One voice can easily be occupied with contemplating chemical attacks, the voice next door in the brain is reliving moments in the struggle against imperialism.

Conflicted soul? Have you ever listened to the radio waves of your own brain at night?”

/ПРИЗРАК