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The pain of years past

3 comments on The pain of years past

The pain of years past
: Zeyad has another thoughtful post about his sadness these last few days. It confuses him; seeing Saddam humiliated, he expected to be celebrating. But, it seems to me, this instead only bring back the pain and suffering and needless torture of the Saddam years:

I still haven’t been able to get rid of this deep sadness that has overcome me the last two days. People have been emailing asking me to explain. I wish I could, but I simply can’t….

The images were shocking. I couldn’t make myself believe this was the same Saddam that slaughtered hundreds of thousands and plundered my country’s wealth for decades. The humiliation I experienced was not out of nationalistic pride or Islamic notions of superiority or anything like that as some readers suggested. It was out of a feeling of impotence and helplessness. This was just one old disturbed man yet the whole country couldn’t dispose of him. We needed a superpower from the other side of the ocean to come here and ‘get him’ for us….

And I’m still wondering why? Why did he have to put himself into this? Why did he have to destroy Iraq? What did he gain from all of this?

3 responses to “The pain of years past”

  1. Sgt. Mom Avatar
    Sgt. Mom

    I looked at this diminished old man, being checked out by a medic… and thought “THIS is what did all these things, terrorised three countries and counting, commanded that he be worshiped by his countrymen, held all this power… and he is just this pathetic, powerless, dirty vagrant.” He is stripped of all that power, and hard it is see how he once could have held the mideast in thrall.

  2. JorgXMcKie Avatar
    JorgXMcKie

    Sometimes what we believe is stronger than truth.

  3. AST Avatar
    AST

    This is one of the most poignant comments I’ve read about this so far. My first reaction to the video of Saddam being examined by the medic was to recall the lines from Isaiah 14, “How art thoy fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, . . . They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms . . .?”
    I can certainly share Zeyad’s feeling of sadness that a great people and nation could allow a single man, whose weakness is now so plain, to seize the reins and harm so many people. Why couldn’t an Arab nation rise up and overthrow such a man, or destroy him before he could gain such power?
    I don’t know the answer, but I’m sure that it’s a human phenomenon, not limited to one people or nation. Evil is real and it’s always ready to exploit any opportunity.