The Reality-Based Community

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

  • Home
  • About
  • Cannabis Science & Policy Summit
  • MJ Legalization: The Book
  • BOTEC Analysis
You are here: Home / Is Saddam Hussein dead or badly wounded? If so, is that good for us?

Is Saddam Hussein dead or badly wounded? If so, is that good for us?

March 29, 2003 By Mark Kleiman @markarkleiman

My non-expert answers: (1) Very possibly. (2) Probably not.

If SH is alive and well, surely he could give his supporters a morale boost by proving it. That, in turn, would require no more than a videotape mentioning some current event (and not praising generals who are now out of action). It’s hard to believe that he’s alive and well but so carefully hidden no one can get a video camera to him or a videotape from him to al-Jazeera.

But if he’s dead or too badly hurt to appear on TV, and if the Iraqi machinery of war and political repression is functioning, that suggests a more resilient regime than we’ve been assuming. Here again, it seems to me that our leadership and their media (including blogospheric) cheerleaders didn’t think carefully about the meaning of the term “Stalinist.” The Soviet Union did not collapse, and the Party did not loosen its grip on power, when Stalin died. A party dictatorship can survive an individual.

If SH is dead, then our hope that killing him would make the regime crumble has proven unfounded. That would be bad news.

As always, I’m glad to be corrected by those who know more.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Medicare

Popular Posts of the Week

  • Advice to Alex M
  • Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions
  • The Secret Dubbing of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady
  • Witnessing Violence and Death: What Happens to People and How Can They Be Helped?
  • “I take it the answer is: ‘No comment’?”

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • The Belgravia Dispatch
  • Brad DeLong
  • Cop in the ‘hood
  • Crooked Timber
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Echidne of the Snakes
  • Firedoglake
  • A Fistful of Euros
  • Healthinsurance.org Blog
  • Horizons
  • How Appealing
  • The Incidental Economist
  • Informed Comment — Juan Cole
  • Jonathan Bernstein
  • Kevin Drum
  • Marginal Revolution – Tyler Cowen
  • Marijuana Monitor
  • The Moderate Voice
  • Obsidian Wings
  • Patheos
  • Philosoraptor
  • Plato o Plomo – Alejandro Hope
  • Political Animal
  • Politics Upside Down
  • Progressive Blog Digest
  • Progressive Blue
  • Slacktivist
  • Snopes
  • Strange Doctrines
  • Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • The Volokh Conspiracy (Washington Post)
  • Vox Pop

Recent Posts

  • Television Was Not Always a Vast Wasteland
  • Home
  • “I take it the answer is: ‘No comment’?”
  • There’s ordinary genius. Then there’s this video
  • The libertine’s one-way ticket from Prague

Archives

Topic Areas

Copyright © 2017 The Reality-Based Community  •  Designed & Developed by ReadyMadeWeb LLC