Just Getting Old

I try to be thoughtful. Certainly there are a few of my readers who believe me to be anything but, and there is nothing I can do to prove otherwise. I haven't the energy to presume infallibility, or eternal clarity. I can only aspire, to dream, even to hope. But today is an exception, or so I sense in my gut; for my thoughts are all scattered about.

It may be very much the case that Saddam Hussein needed to die. It has been a long battle with his obdurate spirit, with his intractable ways. Lord knows that had Mr. Hussein shown a smidgen of humility, had he simply opened his country -- without games and shenanigans -- to the West for free and unfettered inspections, the Invasion of Iraq would not have ever occurred. Lord knows that there were countless murders under his regime: he even committed murder in the street when he was young, well before he came to power. He murdered members of his own family though he had promised them no harm. He was anything but charming.

Considering all that (and there is much more to consider), it nonetheless comes as a shock to wake up to news that Mr. Hussein is dead; that he has been hanged during the Muslim call to morning prayer.

Surely my sentiments are born out of my being too Western, or too effeminate, or too squeamish for such news. Surely I am too weak, too soft and pampered, to accept this sad tale. But the fact is that I do accept it. I just don't do so with any sort of elation or any sort of repose. This news comes as a harsh fact. It comes as a sort of spiritual blunt trauma to the soul. One is not to rejoice at the death of one's enemies.

Some of you may recall my argument against the death penalty (at least as it would be enforced in the United States). Some of you may also recall my reaction to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Today, in the quiet of this morning, I am reminded of those somber thoughts. And I am also reminded of what an emergency room doctor said to me when I had an ankle injury (peroneal subluxation) she was misdiagnosing right before my eyes. She told me: "No, no, no. There's no tendon there. You're just getting old."

She was wrong about the tendon.

Peace, somewhere, for but an hour.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.