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Hussein was not homeless, he was depressed
According to the Washington Post, Saddam Hussein was not (as we had been previously told) moving from hideout to hideout and rathole to rathole every few hours, but had been living in that hut for seven days prior to his capture. That being the case, there was no reason for him to be looking like a hobo. He had fresh clothes, running water, and plenty of food, even though the conditions in the hut were basic. Therefore the only explanation I can think of for his extremely ramshackle appearance is that he had gotten so depressed that he had stopped taking care of himself. It is the exact opposite of what I had been expecting—a fallen but still game leader spirited away in some high-tech hideout with a band of loyal followers. Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 16, 2003 03:16 AM | Send Comments
The morning after I posted this, I saw Daniel Pipes’s interview which, at least symbolically, helps explain the bizarre fact that Hussein was hiding out completely alone. Pipes observes: “Bin Laden forwards militant Islam, an ideology larger than himself. Saddam forwarded only Saddamism, a cult of personality. This means that whereas Bin Laden can find refuge among tens of millions of like-minded comrades, Saddam in the end was alone.” http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1358 Posted by: Lawrence Auster on December 16, 2003 10:10 AMDaniel Pipes and I agree on that — see my comment yesterday. Moving around from place to place is a great way to avoid airstrikes, but a horrible way to stay hidden from an occupying power. I suspect that someone’s imagination got carried away with them on the hourly movement report. Steve Sailer has a post up on his web page right now quoting from where he said the same thing at the time of the orginal story. Posted by: Thrasymachus on December 16, 2003 10:41 AMDebka suggests that he might have been kidnapped and being held for ransom by his kidnappers—whether that ransom came from the US or from one of Saddam’s bank accounts. Posted by: roach on December 16, 2003 11:42 AMRoach wrote, ” … he might have been kidnapped and held for ransom by his kidnappers, whether that ransom came from the US or from one of Saddam’s bank accounts.” Your smarter kidnappers will get the money from both: from Saddam’s bank accounts first, in return for hiding him, then from the U.S. (the price on his head was something like $50 million, wasn’t it?) once they work out a deal to betray him for the U.S.’s hefty bounty. Whoever was hiding him might have made between fifty and a hundred million dollars on this deal, all told. Posted by: Unadorned on December 16, 2003 12:21 PMA link to the article at Debka would be helpful. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on December 16, 2003 2:16 PMThe Debka theory explains Hussein’s hobo condition as the result of his being kept a prisoner of kidnappers, unfed, uncleaned, and so on. This seems most unlikely, since Hussein was apparently residing in the hut where there was food, running water etc. Unless we are to believe that it was his abductors who were living in the messy hut while he was forcibly kept in the hole for weeks at a time. Again, most unlikely. http://mansizedtarget.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_mansizedtarget_archive.html#107153044886530848 Posted by: Lawrence Auster on December 16, 2003 4:24 PMYeah, he had a loaded pistol for gosh sakes. Posted by: Shrewsbury on December 16, 2003 6:19 PMHe looked like the Unabomber because he was as out of the loop as the Unabomber. He wasn’t running the rebellion. Perhaps the rebellion will collapse now, like the Kurdish and Shining Path uprisings after their leaders were captured. On the other hand, Saddam wasn’t the leader of this uprising. I don’t know who is, and the Army doesn’t seem to know either. Most likely, there isn’t one leader, just a bunch of gangs all trying to demonstrate they deserve to be the leaders of Iraq after the Americans go home. Posted by: Steve Sailer on December 16, 2003 7:37 PM |