Villainy!

An article in this month's U.S. News & World Report caught my attention. It was a report on the latest intelligence regarding the insurgency. Recent intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein masterminded a plot to instigate an insurgency and launch attacks on coalition forces in the event that Baghdad should fall and/or he should be captured. Approximately one thousand skilled Iraqi intelligence officers were trained in guerilla warfare and terrorist cell tactics in the months before the U.S. invasion.

Saddam Hussein is the king of the evil dictators.

I mean, when you think about it, he does everything that you're supposed to do as an evil overlord. He researches weapons of mass destruction, he detains, tortures, and executes political rivals and dissident and their families, he tests weapons on civilian populations. He had body doubles, building-sized murals, an elite corps of loyal guardsmen. And, we now discover, he had planned for the eventual defeat of his plans. The current insurgency and political turmoil is Saddam's way of cackling madly and pushing the big red self-destruct button.

Of course, he remains defiant at his trial and likely still expects to be rescued and reinstated by his loyalists. And the insurgency has blown up to include foreign militants, Al Qaeda operatives, and Iranian spies, with a pool of Iraqis in varying states of economic and emotional need to make up recruits for the violent insurgency. The U.S. and the burgeoning democratic government are struggling to deal with infrastructure, politics, and world opinion while combating the rebels, while the insurgents do their best to disrupt the democratic process, scare off foreign civilian aid, and shatter the confidence of Iraqi security forces while making the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq seem increasingly pricey. The Iraqi people are, as always, stuck in the middle, and just do the best they can.

As a human being, of course, Hussein is detestable and monstrous. But as a villain! O, what a superb and admirable man he is.

In other news, Afghanistan has now has a president and he is doing fine.