SADDAM GONE, NOW WHAT?

So another vicious dictator bites the dust. Few people realize that the Baath Party headed up by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, was actually formed upon the principles and organizational structure of the Nazi party. Iraq, because of its oil and hatred of Jews, was an important battleground between the Axis and Allied powers in World War II.

Nazi propaganda was broadcast throughout Baghdad, and Iraqis often went on rampages against Jews throughout the war. One of the most ardent Nazi supporters during WWII was named Khairallah Talfah. Talfah was Saddam's uncle. After the war, many of the key Iraqi Nazi supporters, all of whom evaded prosecution, wound up involved in Saddam's rise to power. This special examines the key individuals of the Iraqi-Nazi connection, the little-known battle for Iraq in WWII, and the strange link to Saddam Hussein.

Let me state again for those who haven't followed my foreign policy murmurings with keen attention to detail—I was vigorously against both the original invasion of Iraq by American forces in 1990, and even more adamantly so, again in 2003. But eventually, I too, reluctantly acquiesced to the idea that after getting ourselves into this mess, as honorable stewards of the peace, we should be equally committed to rectifying the situation as opposed to abandoning Iraq to its own devices.

My patriotic duty as a free-thinking citizen has never been easy, cut and dried, or rubber stamped by any political prize fight or dog tag. I am a self-confessed news junkie. I soak up every break neck opinion I can find, and of course, this approach not only makes my task of informed patriotism more difficult, it makes my task nearly impossible. In these particular times when the country is nearly evenly divided, yes, polarized, listening to partial truths tortured and hair-split bu so-called pundits who usually are no more than well-paid shamans spinning spells that everyone can detect as ridiculous but few will ever reject as the norm.

The history of politics shows us all too often how the politics of history is nothing short of a shameful game sold to the public as the reality of inclusiveness.

So during this phase of inner struggle in trying to nail down my own position on Iraq, what I required was my own sense of clarity, separate from any preconceived notions of who deserved to declare what brand of victory in an overwrought war where democracy as we know it will not be shown to grow on the sandy soils and rock cliffs of hardened tribal and religious differences just because a few dancing neo-cons happen to think Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson were decent fellows with a right good idea, and wouldn't it be great if we could invent a little friend, a sidekick really, in the Greater Middle East to help bring financial stability, fledgling peace, and of course, let's not forget to keep that black gold flowing at a fair price too, without all this other unimportant religious nonsense getting in the way...

Which distilled as usual to my biggest complaint. My biggest complaint this time is that as usual (since WWII), the American invaders—let's not be coy—were not truly fighting to win, but were instead warring by ridiculous rules of engagement that left our troops with a distinct disadvantage. It seemed as if we were merely babysitting the Iraqi commoner, bribing the Iraqi elite with promises and booty, hpoing to win, show or place in some unfounded popularity contest to win "hearts and minds" while losing many or as few lives and much treasure as the American taxpayer can squeeze out of a consumer economy for the pleasure of doing so.

Bottom line. Why START a war if you're not PREPARED to FIGHT? And this lapse in strategy wasn't all Rumsfeld's fault. The West clearly has no stomach for war. And the enemy is observing this and preparing for their strategies to meet THEIR needs until it is their time to strike. The enemy is learning that we just don't like to fight back. And we call them cowards.

Yes, the Bush objectives shifted with the sand dunes. No weapons of mass destruction found. So America gritted its teeth while the President squinted and declared that it was a good thing to hunt for and knock off this vicious dictator and murderer of his own people, Saddam Hussein. Even though I never muttered the thought publically, I must admit that it had crossed my mind that this man of affectations and airs many despots tend to adopt, might have been just the iron rod Iraq needed to keep the peace there. After all, hadn't we all seen photos of a shorter toothed Don Rumsfeld shaking hands with this same dictator. Didn't the US sell Hussein arms, even the chemicals he used to make his chemical weapons he fired on Iran in his war with them, a war that cost millions of lives and ended in a stalemate after ten years?



What is American friendship worth these days? Of course, now that the Iraqi despot has finally smoked his last cigar, Saddam apologists are crawling out of the woodwork.

But after watching the History Channel's program last night on Hussein and his Ba'ath party's connection to Hitler and the Nazis in WWII, I was completely transformed in my opinion. Assessing the Kurd situation properly, it is clear that there was no reason on earth to spare Hussein. Would I, as an American, have initiated a war with Iraq to simply depose the ruthless Saddam Hussein—no! Once in a war I can not escape, having captured him, would I have convicted him for crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death—absolutely.

Is America safer without Hussein? Probably not. Is Israel safer without Hussein? Probably. Hussein was a cold, reckoning, secular fascist with nationalist and regionalist aspirations, who sometimes it is said fancied himself as the second coming of ancient Babylonian King Nebucannezar. He wanted to control ALL of the Middle East in building the new Arab man. If that was all he wanted to do, we might could have lived with him, just as we have lived with and even supported many other cruel regimes. Saddam had several consolidating wars yet to fight to strengthen and lengthen his powers but Israel, and America's defense of her, would have become factors soon enough. While many may believe that Hussein might have achieved his Arab objectives without bothering the West or Israel, I suspect that inciting global anxiety and puppeteering the destabilization of world markets, particularly oil, would have been a weapon in his arsenal he would have certainly threatened and eventually used to thwart interceders like American or Great Britain, if he'd been given the chance. He more than likely would have taken out Israel first as a short-cut to fighting those other wars with the Saudis, or Iranians, depending on the anti-Israel sentiment to annoint his consolidated new role as kingpin of the entire New Middle East.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, continue to be the covert threat they've always been in funding Wahhabi mosques and university halls for Muslim studies all over American and the West, while maintaining a ruthless culture of religious intolerance on their own soil, also buy up politicians on both sides of the aisle and media outlets of every stripe to further their stealth invasion of the West. Wahhabism is a particularly militant form of Sunnism, and is being taught to Muslim children across the globe.

Yet American leaders still insist in calling the Saudis, friends of America.

As hardcore Sunnis the Saudis fear the hardcore Iranian Shi'ites, who as we all know are probably closer to nuclearization than any of us would hope. As greedy overlords the Saudis are in danger of overthrow from within their own sect, as Osama bin Laden has been quite critical of Saudi royals in the past. Saudi Arabia when not raiding Africa for slaves, imports most of its workers from around the Muslim region and elsewhere while the bulk of its own citizens live a life of gaudy elitism, and thus they would prefer to toss back a handful of their billions of petrodollars to have American troops face down Iran, to have America do the Saudi's own dirty work.

So as my president makes plands to announce his own new approach to the Iraq crisis, here is my updated position on Iraq. We should seriously consider leaving Iraq. We have failed in our objectives. The exploratory police action is finished. No weapons of mass destruction found. No democracy to be had, despite any number of purple fingers waved back at us. America must either fight like soldiers and not peacekeepers and American forces must leave this land to its own civil strife. No real news there, right? Leftists have been shouting this from day one. However, I now believe that the war is coming here to American shores. Bush and company even stated something along these lines years ago, so let's get prepared here, street by street. We as a nation are not in fighting form. We are in breach. This is an outrage to our heritage and our future.

As our leadership continues to waffle on security, shuffling its feet while ignoring the American people's sustained call for a revamped immigration policy, more and more of us are becoming painfully aware of what the US, Europe, India, and scattered other global fronts are facing with this "moderate" Muslim menace, which when observed with an informed clear mind unclouded by misplaced empathy and grotesque paternalism is nothing less than watching the relentless passive-aggressive trojan horse that will one day shriek out its war cry sealing its name—Islam—which of course does not mean peace, but is translated, submission, like the bloody beast it is.

I am not alone in fearing that America will wait until we lose a city or two on our own shores before we muster up the courage to wage all out war against this most vicious and untraditional enemy.