| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Go Ahead, Make My Uday
"It is difficult being in the family of Hussein. People want to
kill us." --- Uday Hussein, son of former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, in a letter to an uncle.
Yeah, that does tend to put a damper on dictatorialness,
doesn't it? It must be positively exasperating when you're just
trying to go about your daily business of being the powerfully
malevolent son of an absolute dictator of an oil-rich country
and you're forced to worry about such things. It's that age old
problem of how when your only tools of governance are rape,
torture and murder, there will always be the odd assortment of
malcontents who find it off-putting enough to want to take you
out.
But was Uday trying to tug at his uncle's heartstrings by
suggesting that the only reason people want to kill him is
because he is related to a hated dictator and is therefore guilty
by association? While it is profound understatement to say
that Saddam was something less than benevolent in his
insanely tyrannical rule, by all accounts Uday made his dad
look like Ward Cleaver.
It has been no particular secret that Uday had a lifestyle of
such wretched excess and cruelty that it would have
embarrassed the worst Roman emperors and most
contemporary rock stars. A tour of one of Uday's compounds
recently bombed in Baghdad revealed an abundance of lavishly
hedonistic delights and accouterments: a storehouse with $1
million worth of wine, liquor and heroin; fine Cuban cigars
imprinted with Uday's name; downloaded pornography galore;
pills and medicines everywhere, including ginseng sexual
fortifiers, Prozac and an HIV test kit.
Within the compound was also a cheesy
couch-and-pillow-filled house for women, presumably
concubines, and his own personal zoo with lions, cheetahs and
bears. Besides all that, he owned hundreds of cars, including
Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces, he had a solid gold watch with
54 full-cut fine diamonds and he often lit cigars with $100 bills.
So much for the wretched excess; what about the cruelty?
Well, simply put, if you crossed or displeased Uday in any
way, you could end up tortured and/or dead--and it didn't take
much to set him off. Nothing so unusual there. The world is
full of powerful, controlling people with sadistic leanings. But
here's where it gets weird.
At some point a number of years ago, Uday became
president of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee. This was
not a stellar day for sportsmanship in Iraq because torture and
imprisonment have never been known to be prime motivating
techniques for getting the most out of athletes. But to Uday it
all seemed perfectly natural. If the guys aren't giving it their
all, you gotta use some serious drama to get their attention.
So, according to various reports, Uday would sometimes
have guys imprisoned for days or even months at a time. Some
were beaten with iron bars. Some had the soles of their feet
beaten with canes. Some were chained to walls in contorted
positions and left for days. Some were dragged on pavement
until their backs were bloody and then dipped in sewage to
ensure the wounds would become infected. Sometimes he
would urinate on an imprisoned athlete's bowed, shaven head
just to humiliate him.
In other words, Uday was Woody Hayes to the tenth power.
So how does a human person, who began his mortal existence,
like all of us, as an innocent newborn babe, grow up to become
the wanton and sadistic monster, Uday Hussein? You don't
need an explication from Dr. Phil to understand that Uday is
the worst case scenario of what can go wrong when a
mass-murdering dictator father spoils his kid rotten.
Interestingly, though, one person's monster is another
person's tender lover, as evidenced by a love letter to Uday that
was found in his compound: "Remember me when you listen to
Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata . . .' Whenever anyone asks me
about the best days in my life I will tell him it was eight months
with the best human in the world."
Well, they say it's all in the eye of the beholder, but this is
ridiculous. Talk about star-struck. Either this little missy was
stupefyingly naive or she was the Iraqi version of Eva Braun.
Of course, we don't yet know for certain the status of Uday's
mortality, nor that of his irresponsibly permissive parent, but
we can glean from another of Uday's discovered writings that
there was no love lost between them: "There is nothing in my
heart towards my father, not any love or kindness. In the end I
ask God to keep this house safe."
To God's credit, His answer to Uday's request, apparently,
was "Forget about it!"
"It is difficult being in the family of Hussein. People want to
kill us." --- Uday Hussein, son of former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, in a letter to an uncle.
Yeah, that does tend to put a damper on dictatorialness,
doesn't it? It must be positively exasperating when you're just
trying to go about your daily business of being the powerfully
malevolent son of an absolute dictator of an oil-rich country
and you're forced to worry about such things. It's that age old
problem of how when your only tools of governance are rape,
torture and murder, there will always be the odd assortment of
malcontents who find it off-putting enough to want to take you
out.
But was Uday trying to tug at his uncle's heartstrings by
suggesting that the only reason people want to kill him is
because he is related to a hated dictator and is therefore guilty
by association? While it is profound understatement to say
that Saddam was something less than benevolent in his
insanely tyrannical rule, by all accounts Uday made his dad
look like Ward Cleaver.
It has been no particular secret that Uday had a lifestyle of
such wretched excess and cruelty that it would have
embarrassed the worst Roman emperors and most
contemporary rock stars. A tour of one of Uday's compounds
recently bombed in Baghdad revealed an abundance of lavishly
hedonistic delights and accouterments: a storehouse with $1
million worth of wine, liquor and heroin; fine Cuban cigars
imprinted with Uday's name; downloaded pornography galore;
pills and medicines everywhere, including ginseng sexual
fortifiers, Prozac and an HIV test kit.
Within the compound was also a cheesy
couch-and-pillow-filled house for women, presumably
concubines, and his own personal zoo with lions, cheetahs and
bears. Besides all that, he owned hundreds of cars, including
Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces, he had a solid gold watch with
54 full-cut fine diamonds and he often lit cigars with $100 bills.
So much for the wretched excess; what about the cruelty?
Well, simply put, if you crossed or displeased Uday in any
way, you could end up tortured and/or dead--and it didn't take
much to set him off. Nothing so unusual there. The world is
full of powerful, controlling people with sadistic leanings. But
here's where it gets weird.
At some point a number of years ago, Uday became
president of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee. This was
not a stellar day for sportsmanship in Iraq because torture and
imprisonment have never been known to be prime motivating
techniques for getting the most out of athletes. But to Uday it
all seemed perfectly natural. If the guys aren't giving it their
all, you gotta use some serious drama to get their attention.
So, according to various reports, Uday would sometimes
have guys imprisoned for days or even months at a time. Some
were beaten with iron bars. Some had the soles of their feet
beaten with canes. Some were chained to walls in contorted
positions and left for days. Some were dragged on pavement
until their backs were bloody and then dipped in sewage to
ensure the wounds would become infected. Sometimes he
would urinate on an imprisoned athlete's bowed, shaven head
just to humiliate him.
In other words, Uday was Woody Hayes to the tenth power.
So how does a human person, who began his mortal existence,
like all of us, as an innocent newborn babe, grow up to become
the wanton and sadistic monster, Uday Hussein? You don't
need an explication from Dr. Phil to understand that Uday is
the worst case scenario of what can go wrong when a
mass-murdering dictator father spoils his kid rotten.
Interestingly, though, one person's monster is another
person's tender lover, as evidenced by a love letter to Uday that
was found in his compound: "Remember me when you listen to
Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata . . .' Whenever anyone asks me
about the best days in my life I will tell him it was eight months
with the best human in the world."
Well, they say it's all in the eye of the beholder, but this is
ridiculous. Talk about star-struck. Either this little missy was
stupefyingly naive or she was the Iraqi version of Eva Braun.
Of course, we don't yet know for certain the status of Uday's
mortality, nor that of his irresponsibly permissive parent, but
we can glean from another of Uday's discovered writings that
there was no love lost between them: "There is nothing in my
heart towards my father, not any love or kindness. In the end I
ask God to keep this house safe."
To God's credit, His answer to Uday's request, apparently,
was "Forget about it!"