Eulogy for a Tyrant

At 6:00 pm on December 30, 2006 Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in the gallows of Camp Banzai, the same used by his own intelligence services throughout the tenure of his regime in Iraq. His death brought to a close, not just a chapter in Iraqi history, but a bloodstained metaphor for the continued failings of US foreign policy throughout the middle east. In Saddam Hussein's life and death are reflected the meddleings of western powers in the tribal struggles of the middle east -- an arrogance of power, wealth, and morality that have contributed to untold human misery and suffering in the name of political expediency and ephemeral alliances. The United States deserves no laud, no glory, no praise for righting - too late -- a wrong of her own creation, shortsightedness, and disregard.

Historians will write, not to praise Saddam Hussein, but to bury him -- to document in fact and figure the lifetime of a despot, a tyrant, and a murderer. In so doing they must, unavoidably, document the jagged blade of American Foreign Policy held too long against the necks of countless pivotal states in the struggle for global supremacy against the Soviet Union.