(in)humanity

This image has been getting under my skin for days now. Saddam, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin... dictators have such iconic public personas, but when you see them in a state such as Saddam's, haggard and weary, the aura evaporates and it becomes all too clear that this thing, this monster, is human.

At one level this sets off a "Darth Vader" reaction in me, at once both terrifying and pitying. What path did this person's life take, both through external molding and personal decision, to become an embodied harbinger of death, destruction, and misery? And what good still remains? It certainly puts Christian notions of humanity and forgiveness to an extreme test.

At another level, there is a greater hope in that image. No matter what evil men might unleash, they are ultimately still merely men, with all the trappings and weaknesses that entails... and can be defeated, made accountable, and, unlikely as it may be, can still repent.

That being said, the real reasons for releasing these particular images of Saddam seem pretty straightforward - (a) attempt to weaken his image and hold on the Iraqi people by showing him as a defeated fugitive, (b) the visual similarity between a haggard Saddam and Osama bin Laden may quite well be the closest the administration will ever get to proving a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.