maybe i watch the news too much

from an interview with an iraqi refugee in syria...

"I once knew a man that said if Saddam (Hussein) were taken from power, he'd sacrifice a sheep. Now, he says that if Saddam were brought back, he'd sacrifice a bull."

It's not easy. Nothing about this issue is easy. Despot murderous dictators should have no place in society, but all too often they do, and all too often, they are not acting alone. The respect for human life, the dignity and sovereignity of an individual, the platform we all share as brothers and sisters that have come from one common seed... These are not the concerns of tyrants. (I pause to ask, how often are the aforementioned our concerns? Just a thought...)

But this is where I come back to the original quote. As I wrote, these tyrants are not working alone, and it is the potential inaction of people like the man in the quote that provides support. I am led to believe that if this man's desired situation were to return, that is, theoretically, a Saddam-like dictator taking control of Iraq, his support of this man for the sake of his own comfort would make him implicitly culpable of any mass crime possibly committed by the dictator. Simply put, with Saddam Hussein in charge, the possibility of a high degree of freedom was very low, while without him, the potentiality of freedom is high. Conversely, under Saddam, order was maintained, but at the cost of human rights violations, mass government sanctioned murders and restricted daily freedoms for the majority of the population.
However, as someone once said (read: Spidey's uncle), with great power comes great responsibilty. In this area, all have failed. The United States ignored centuries of power centralized under one ruler in an area where the idea of democracy is equated to whoever can amass the most power. Moreover, the stories of rape and murder, the photos of Abu Ghraib inmates and indiscriminate and/or accidental bombings are also equated with the idea of democracy. No public relations campaign can correct those errors, as they create personal wounds that will scar for years. And so to, the Iraqis have failed. They have been given great power, and they have not been responsible with it. The nation is divided, and it will only truly be fixed with confession, humility and repentence...

I wanted to make a parallel to include the recent passing of Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, a polemic figure himself, but it is late and I'm going to bed. Have fun reading and let your thoughts be heard.