Saddam Hussein: A Sexy Tyrant

Saddam Hussein: A Sexy Tyrant
The legacy of Josef Stalin is horrendous. “BY his word he could kill them, have them tortured, have them rescued again, have them rewarded. Life and death depended on his whim,” recalls German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm of Stalin’s thirty year reign (Goode, “The World; Stalin to Saddam”). Stalinist terror came to an end, however, once Mikhail S. Gorbachev took office. Forming alliances with Western countries while abolishing several oppressive policies, Gorbachev attempted to reintroduce the once inimical, Communist Russia into the global community as a newly reformed ally. He dubbed Stalin’s actions as “enormous and unforgivable,” and the outlook for world peace in the latter half of the twentieth century seemed

There was a great storm brewing five thousand kilometers south of Russia, however, which intended to destroy such hope; taking form in a man by the name of Saddam Hussein. While Gorbachev and Reagan hashed out a new world order free from Stalinist tyranny, Saddam Hussein intended to do everything in his power to carry the despotic torch well into the turn of a new century. Saddam Hussein, despite being a member of Iraq’s Ba’ath Party and never having officially adopted Communism, was a Marxist-Lennist in practice by every sense of the ideology. Saddam, like Stalin, was an iron-fisted monster who ruled by torture and oppression. Only a few tyrants exist in history that are responsible for the amount of destruction in such a short amount of time as Saddam Hussein. His senselessness and belligerence account for over five million lives in just under 10 years. These senseless acts, namely the Dujail Massacre, Al-Anfal Campaign, Halbja chemical attack, two wars, and systematic oppression of Iraqi citizens Saddam proves

The reason for this being twofold: first, Iraq’s sworn enemy Iran is almost exclusively Shia, and second, the Sunni-Shia divide is an age old Islamic struggle that is often used for political leverage throughout the Middle East. Needless to say, Saddam wanted to create a purely Sunni, Arab Iraq, and in 1982, just three years after becoming president, his unpopularity amongst Iraq’s Shia population became evident as his motorcade was assaulted by several gunmen in the city of Dujail. It is alleged that “at least 15 people were said to have been executed immediately and 143 others were executed after show trials. Some versions put the final death toll as high as 400, including women, children and babies” (Carroll, “Saddam trial to open”). Furthermore, “around 1,500 residents were arrested and many spent years in prison,” settlements were destroyed, as well as vegetation (Carroll, “Saddam trial to open”). Saddam Hussein essentially made an entire city of Shia residents pay for the transgressions of a dozen men. Enraged by the attempt made on his life, Saddam began to realize the threat that some of these ‘infidels’ posed on his regime, and as times evolved so did his oppressive nature and sheer brutality in the latter half of the 1980s. Nothing exemplifies Saddam’s senselessness and austerity as accurately as his Arabization agenda, which persecuted Iraqi Kurds more than any other ethnic group