January 01, 2007

The death of Saddam leads to some recollections of a past war. And this time, it's not one of the conflicts with the West, but the war with Iran. It's a sad and horrifying set of anecdotes, from a different point of view from what we usually get in the United States.

There are two more short takes on the event at iranian.com (their motto: "Nothing is sacred") on the death of Saddam here , one schadenfreuden-ish cartoon and another one which jabs at the U.S., plus this (to me) baffling satire.

posted by Vin Ethyl 17 years ago
  • "this (to me) baffling satire." I think it's such extremely gentle satire that his choice of gifts might get by you. Recipes so he could start a restaurant? He certainly knew that he'd never be free. A can opener for fighting with bad drivers? I'm sure he had limos and surrounding security guards during his reign. And so on. Even the Canada Dry and Queen Elizabeth references must have some similar meaning, but they're too subtle for me.
  • From what I've read, the Iran-Iraq War was really an incredible and horrific event. As a side note, I've always had an interest in Russian aviation, and one of my books discusses Tu-16 bomber training. It mentions a crew in Iraq around 1981-82 where, upon getting the mission brief to a civilian target in Iran, one crewmember refused to fly. The Iraqi secret police took him to the corner of the flightline and executed him.
  • Oops! Sorry about that!