Talofa lava, gidday from my bedroom to the world of Zorpia...

I have been trying to keep abreast with the world's problems and considered the solutions or the resolutions to these trying times, alas, what can one mere man do heh?

The war on terror seems to be coming along quite nicely, like some telethon tally, now there is over 2000 American soldiers officially culled by so-called insurgents in Iraq. It is now merely economentric numbers and statistics and the American dead is ticking over day in and ay out, it is likened to a road toll, you know that it is tragic but you just want to keep up with the latest number of a toll, any toll, so it is the Iraq war for the rest of us not personally affected by these statistics, they are still merely impersonalised numbers. Apart from the official death toll, the anguish and scars are deep for thsoe who are affected, these are the emotional scars embedded in the hearts and minds of the fighting men, and women, and their families, for the rest of their lives. Some tens of thousands of men, women and whatever, will be adversely affected by the inhumanity of what imperfect creatures of nature can inflict upon one another in the name of their god, nation, ideology, and whatever. Then, of course, there is the question of avarice expansion and OIL. But, in truth man has always found something to fight and to kill for. It is in his nature to find the differences in others and in so doing to either envy, covet, revile, need, yearn for, or want to destroy it, whatever the veritable "MY Precious" happens to be..... 

I am just an ordinary bloke with ordinary desires and so I have my own "precious" thing that I covet... I just haven't put a finger on it as yet thats all. I think that it is alays something that you do not have which one would always covet... hence in some "Lord of the Rings" creature of licentious desire one would covet something that would seem so inocuously useless and dysfunctional and yet one would kill for to possess it. Some airy fairy Islamic would perhaps covet the afterlife and would strap ten or so kilograms of C4 with detonator and fuse and would depart the world of the living and to enlighten all others he kills, maims, and render dysfunctional by the emotional scars of a suicide bombing, as part of his yearning for the precious after life that their Allah had promised them. It stands to reason that what one covets is another's anguish and torture. War for the hawkish policy formulator will view the territory of his neighbour as desirable and would consider taking it and would cause untold miseries for the vanquished until some externalised liberator will liberate the oppressed.

Then I thought about the American Army's pride in their Special forces and the paradoxical motto of "De Oppresso Liber" a dictim of extreme honour for noble warriors who would liberate the oppressed peoples of Iraq from themselves by freeing them from a autocratic dictator who had devekoped a highly sophistocated Iraqi infrastructure and wealth generation of his people, even to the extent of arrogantly stepping on his neighbours toes in this Machiavellian of Empire building, but would be snapped into submission by the overwhelming hegemonic powers of the western democratic forces which would thrash the Iraqi nation back to the dark ages in economic and social development. So well has the ravages of war punished the descendents of ancient Persian Empires and Babylonia that these ancient peoples are now nothing more than third world starving people completely indignant at their loss of face as the vanquished. The Nebucanazzer of nowadays is now being arraigned by his own people and is on trial, for crimes against humanity. As ignoble as he was found he shares an ignoble and humiliating legacy as Nebucanazzer having a King Lear fall from the throne and eating grass, Saddam Hussein's disgrace was even more humiliating, he was found in a pit more than six feet under ground by American soldiers. He was not a warrior King in the mould of a Adolf Hitler and his glorious Bunker suicide, this "King" would face the indignity of public humiliation. He wanted his "precious" back, his dignity, he would be denied this honour and would be stripped, quartered, and dare I suggest, will be swinging from a public pole, in absolute shame. He will never be called a "President" as he demands as his right to his "precious" dignity, to be restored, he is a broken man. This is consistent to an American script, Saddam Hussein could not have done an irreparable damage to himself than what he did to himself by allowing himself to be caught so ingloriously by the Americans themselves.

The annals of history will not only record the glory that was the Bathist King, but will remember the indignant fall of a broken man. The rest is merely after shock tremers from so called ignoble Republican Guards and their seperated units trying to resort to some futile attempt at patriot insurgency against the foreign invaders. To restore Iraqi military pride is no longer a luxury reserved for desperate and broken people. The dogs of war had descended upon the Iraqi people and have refused to let go.

What of the legacy of a dictator? He had given his people stability, decisive and functional government, and an expansive visionary government with its military might as a show of true regional leadership during Saddam Hussein's leadership. His infrastructural development programs seemed fully functional and stimulated their economy to a level of being amongst the richest middle eastern nation, until the Iran war, then the first Gulf War. But, his personal crimes would be noted with his biological and chemical bombing of the Kurdish people which would be Saddam Husseins ultimate downfall. Similarly to Joseph Stalin's Pogrom's, Saddam's pogroms to the north, would indict him to death. Unlike Saddam Hussein, Stalin would be forgiven for his pogroms, for fighting on the winning side, and would be venerated as a war hero, at least amongst the Stalinist supporters within the Communist world. What would a fallen hero be remembered for then, being executed by his own people? likened to a Mussolini and being hanged at a village square like a common criminal? His dignity may be rstored somehow if and say his people are able to spare his life and have him imprisoned for the natural term of his life? This may be very difficult for a world whereby not even sealed walls in a prison cell could reassure the free world of the spectre of a Saddam Hussein, his influence is much too pervasive and enduring for any American President to endure. But, perhaps hs martyrdom would make his legacy more lasting for Iraqi people who would ince again recall a time when the entire middle east, and even the world, feared the name, and the man, Saddam Hussein. To execute or not to execute? Ask a Texan governor this question and he'd flick a switch and microwave any half suspected felon in his state, as a President, however, there is a blank cheque he can look at and see whether he could consider something called the Geneva conventions and may be he might not choose to eliminate a Supreme Court Justice and to to replace her with a rightwing Neo-Con toadie. But, there has been a replacement for a loudmouth Justice who has crossed a President and she is now enjoying her retirement. Then there was the replacement a Harriet Miers and a hastened exit for her was only a honourable thing for her to do. But American politics is as duplicitous and politically captured as any indignant Iraqi President may feel in dismissing his insubordinates, and ordering their executions outside. The US President only has to coercively advise his dissenting Justices to step down, and, bar from being executed outside the capital hill streets, they can enjoy a pinkslip payout and maybe a nice goldenhandshake in their retirement, a Presidential pen may be a bonus as well. No melodramatic coup de grace though, that is something an Iraqi may do.

So what of the closing bits of the year that was 2005? More natural disasters to get even with Americans by Allah worshipping Mullahs and may be and just may be there might be a peaceful christmas for the sorely battered and bruised.

Tim Tufuga, 9th November, 2005.