'Saddam's jail diaries' published
An Arab newspaper has published what it says are excerpts from diaries written by the ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein while in captivity. The extracts printed in Al-Hayat portray a man who never seems to have stopped believing in himself as a historic leader.
Al-Hayat said it had obtained extracts from the handwritten memoirs, which the paper said ran to five big volumes.
No remorse
Some of the entries were signed "Saddam Hussein, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces".
The language he uses often suggests a leader addressing the nation, and frequently he urges the Iraqis - as he did during his trial - to unite and resist the US-led occupation. He quotes from the Koran a great deal and describes the Iranians as a greater danger to Iraq and the Gulf Arabs than Israel.
On the other hand, his love poems - addressed to an anonymous woman - show a mawkish sentimentality not uncommon among adolescents suffering the first pangs of unrequited love.
There are a few mundane details about his health checks and what he says is his fear of catching HIV if his clothes were hung to dry next to those of his American guards.
But nowhere to be seen in the extracts is any sense of remorse or self-examination.
This leaves the reader of Saddam's diaries with a strong impression that may perhaps be aptly summed up in the words of US novelist F Scott Fitzgerald: "The secret griefs of wild unknown men... or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7386496.stm
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"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
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Scot fitzgerald was a tormented man poor sod!saddam tormented millions but he is gone and tomorrow here is INDEPENDENCE day!!!No more scuds!!
those scuds must have been the absolutely most stupid waste of money and fuel in modern time, a medieval catatpult would do better in combat
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frewurny glirt ptohtsm!
To read these "diaries" would only teach us things about Saddam that the civilised world has known all along, that he was a sick, twisted dictator with a huge chip on his shoulder. Why on earth would anyone want to build up his reputation as a martyr anymore than it has done already?
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"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
AHhh, yes, my ol' pal Saddam. I often wonder if he made peace with his Maker before he met the nooose. I remember him asking to be killed by firing squad like a soldier, so that he could die with some dignity. The guards said his favorite food was nacho cheese flavored Doritos'. No HIV where he's at!!
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