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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, I am Robert Evans, and this is again

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you everything

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Speaker 1: you don't know about the worst people in all of history.

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Speaker 1: Today we are talking about Saddam Hussein, dictator genocide here

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Speaker 1: and romance novelist. With me today is Jamie loftus writer, podcaster,

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Speaker 1: other art makerer of things, yeah, and a comedian. Are

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Speaker 1: you ready to get your Saddam on? I am fully ready?

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, Saddam Hussein Abd almag Alto Crety was

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Speaker 1: born on April ninety seven, and we know that much

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Speaker 1: for sure. Everything else about Saddam's early life is kind

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Speaker 1: of up in the air. Reading about his back stories

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Speaker 1: a little like asking the Joker to explain, like where

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Speaker 1: scars came from. You get different stories depending on who

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Speaker 1: you talk to. Right, there's a Jared Letto version of

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Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein, and then there's the Heath Ledger interpretation. Everyone

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Speaker 1: brings something different to the table. Yeah, and I went

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Speaker 1: full Ledger on this one. Okay, spiring, Okay, well yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is a little bit um. So you know, early on,

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Speaker 1: Saddam is kind of an underdog from the start. His

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Speaker 1: dad disappears like six months before he's born. He was

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Speaker 1: probably murdered by bandits, but we don't really know. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Saddam's older brother died while he was still in the womb.

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Speaker 1: One common myth states that his mom tried to kill

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Speaker 1: herself and aboard her baby. After these deaths, she leapt

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Speaker 1: in front of a bus and was reportedly saved by

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Speaker 1: a local Jewish family, and after they stopped her from

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Speaker 1: committing abortion slash suicide, she is alleged to have screamed,

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Speaker 1: I'm carrying Satan in my belly. This fetus has already

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Speaker 1: killed his father and his brother and wants to be

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Speaker 1: the only man in the family. Okay, yeah, really this

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Speaker 1: I feel like where people bring up the baby Hitler

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Speaker 1: paradox all the time of like if you could go

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Speaker 1: back in time and kill a baby, if you could

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Speaker 1: save six million people, would you. I feel like this

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Speaker 1: anecdote effectively answers that lastion she tried. His own mom

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Speaker 1: was like, you know what, something is awry. There's wow

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Speaker 1: isn't going to end well, I can tell it like

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Speaker 1: the second trimester. So the real villains were the people

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Speaker 1: who saved the babies, effectively answering the baby Hitler paradox,

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Speaker 1: kill the baby. Yeah, the villain in this story definitely

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Speaker 1: isn't Saddam's mom. She tried to do the right thing. No, God,

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Speaker 1: she was sacrificing herself to kill this evil baby. To

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Speaker 1: kill the evil baby. That's upset. I mean, yeah, kill

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Speaker 1: the baby. Yeah, kill the baby. I'm learning kill the baby.

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Speaker 1: I feel like we answered that question. Well, please bring

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Speaker 1: this argument to court in a few years when I

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Speaker 1: killed the baby when time travel exists, are you just

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Speaker 1: going to find another baby? I mean, there's gonna they'll

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Speaker 1: they'll be other There's evil babies born all the time.

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Speaker 1: That's the really horrifying thing is there are That's there's

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Speaker 1: an evil baby born every day. Right now, someone is

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Speaker 1: being born who will later really hurt people. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: I have that feeling because every time I see a baby,

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Speaker 1: they almost all look like Dick Cheney, and it's like

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Speaker 1: a percentage of them will turn out to be like

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Speaker 1: Dick Cheney, Like we just know at it's crazy. My

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Speaker 1: my best friend just had a baby, and I like,

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Speaker 1: look at her son. I'm like, you're going to gaslight

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Speaker 1: someone so hard one day. They're gonna be so upset,

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Speaker 1: arrate you're now, You're so damn cute right now. You

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Speaker 1: haven't done anything terrible, but I can just see you

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Speaker 1: kicking a dog in twenty four years and feeling nothing

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Speaker 1: and just bone quiet on the inside. Um. So, Saddam's

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Speaker 1: mom did eventually give birth to a healthy baby boy.

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Speaker 1: She named him Saddam, which means one who confronts so

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Speaker 1: solid name game. Okay, I mean, in terms of naming

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Speaker 1: a baby, you already view to be satan. To be

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Speaker 1: the devil seems a little on the nose, but sure.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's what he spent us whole life doing.

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Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. His family was very, very poor.

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Speaker 1: His hometown of Alaga was a very violent place, so

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Speaker 1: he grew up tough. One version of the Saddam myth

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Speaker 1: says that he was enchanted by math, learning, reading, and writing,

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Speaker 1: but that his mother told him his destiny was as

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Speaker 1: a farmer, and she wouldn't let him go to school. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so she's trying to suppress the devil, Like, let's not

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Speaker 1: educate the devil, Let's just give him a raake and

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Speaker 1: hope for the best. Yeah. The last thing this boy

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Speaker 1: needs his math. Wow, you know I've got a lot

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Speaker 1: of respect for Saddam's mom right now, she tried, she's

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Speaker 1: doubling down on thinking her son is pure evil. Yeah

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Speaker 1: she she really put in the work to try to

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Speaker 1: stop this. Wow. Okay, um, but yeah, So Saddam's home

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Speaker 1: was a one room, mud brick hobble, no electricity, no

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Speaker 1: running water, just him and mom, Just him and mom.

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Speaker 1: His brothers are dead or his brother is dead. He

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Speaker 1: said to have had a rough upbringing. The other kids

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Speaker 1: in town mocked him for not having a dad. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And because he had no older brother, there was nobody

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Speaker 1: to defend him, so Saddam started carrying an iron bar

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Speaker 1: as a weapon. This is like six year old Saddam

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Speaker 1: walking her with an iron bar, just beating other kids. Wow,

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Speaker 1: just like just like Tanya Harding. Yeah, there's a little

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Speaker 1: galuling everyone in the village, all right. Yeah. Well, and

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Speaker 1: he went up with a stepfather at one point, but

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Speaker 1: he was his stepfather was apparently quite vicious. His name

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Speaker 1: was Hassan the Liar. So maybe not great choice on

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Speaker 1: mom's part there. Maybe. Okay, Mom just lost me for

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Speaker 1: the first time in this in this story. Yeah, maybe

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Speaker 1: don't marry Hassan the Liar. I mean, especially if he

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Speaker 1: comes with that title. Yeah, even imagining the house party,

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Speaker 1: they meeters like, oh, yeah, I'm you know, so you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm Hassan the liar. Hello. Maybe he like couchit. Maybe

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Speaker 1: he's like, I'm Azon date five. You're like, oh, it's

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Speaker 1: the liar. That's what he was saying the whole time. Um.

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Speaker 1: Hassan's weapon of choice was a large pipe soaked in

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Speaker 1: boiling tar, which he would use to beat Saddam with. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh that's horrible. I know there's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: this story where you're kind of on Saddam's side. Okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm on this journey. So one of the peculiarities about

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Speaker 1: writing about Saddam is that you either get really sympathetic

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Speaker 1: towards him or wildly negative towards him, depending on who

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Speaker 1: writes his back story. But it's it's pretty safe to

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Speaker 1: say either way. His childhood ship, Like if you look

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Speaker 1: at the CIA analysis of Saddam, like you can see

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Speaker 1: the CIA analysts like feeling sorry for little kids Saddam.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that's like a normal part of learning about Saddam. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: one night, when he was around ten, he was said

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Speaker 1: to have snuck out of bed and gathered up his

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Speaker 1: few possessions into a hobo bundle and made it to

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Speaker 1: the town across the desert or whatever to uh find

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Speaker 1: some other members of his family because he was the desert,

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Speaker 1: well a little bit of a desert, not a lot

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Speaker 1: of desert, like he wanted to he wanted to go

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Speaker 1: to school, and his mom wouldn't let him. So he

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Speaker 1: sneaks out and he finds some relatives and he says,

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Speaker 1: I want to go to the city where my uncle lives. Uh,

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Speaker 1: can you guys help me get there? Uh? And they

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Speaker 1: say yes, and they give him cab, fair and a gun.

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Speaker 1: He's ten, he's ten, and he just this. Now I'm like,

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Speaker 1: this kid just wants to learn math and he needs

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Speaker 1: and and he's given all these weapons. You want to

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Speaker 1: go to the city, Huh can you imagin mean? Ten

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Speaker 1: years old? And being like, I really I want to

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Speaker 1: learn maths so much, I'm going to run away from

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Speaker 1: my family. God, I would have just been a farmer

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Speaker 1: in their answer being oh you okay, you want to

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Speaker 1: learn math, Well, here's a gun and some money, like

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Speaker 1: deal with the price of math. Maybe you're lying, yea,

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Speaker 1: you may have to kill somebody to get to math,

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Speaker 1: so no one goes with him. He goes by himself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he goes by himself. He finds finds someone to drive

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Speaker 1: him and and has a gun in case someone attacks

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Speaker 1: him on the road. But he gets to He gets

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Speaker 1: to de Crete, which is the big city comparatively, and

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Speaker 1: his uncle takes him in and Saddam starts to attend school. Um.

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Speaker 1: That does not go very well though, because he was

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Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein um and he gets expelled. Um. And when

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Speaker 1: he's expelled, he goes to his uncle, and his uncle

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Speaker 1: gives him a gun and says, but he already has

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Speaker 1: a gun. Yeah, well he gives him another gun. So

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Speaker 1: far he has an iron bar and two guns. And

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Speaker 1: he's not even eleven years old. Yeah, he's not even

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Speaker 1: eleven years old. And when he gets expelled, his uncle

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Speaker 1: gives him a gun and says, go make the principal

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Speaker 1: take you back into the school. Saddam does. He pulls

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Speaker 1: a gun on the like a like age eleven. So

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Speaker 1: he's like a fifth or sixth grader, yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: has to go. He's like, I want to learn math, God,

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Speaker 1: damn it, I want to read. And the Jesus. Okay, cheez,

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Speaker 1: you gotta give him credit. He is dedicated to that education.

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Speaker 1: He has had more of a life than both of

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Speaker 1: us at angel Leving. Okay, so he's put back into

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Speaker 1: school after after threatening violence on the principle because he

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Speaker 1: threatened the principle. Because threaten the principle. Okay, yeah, so

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Speaker 1: he gets to go back into school. Um, his uncle

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Speaker 1: became his childhood role model. His uncle's name was Kirla

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Speaker 1: Uh and Kirala had before this point, spent six years

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Speaker 1: in prison for fighting against the British occupation of Iraq.

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Speaker 1: He was kind of a Nazi sympathizer, um, And by

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Speaker 1: kind of, I mean he was a sympathizer. So he's yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's a can we like, okay, this is actually a

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Speaker 1: question always a Nazi sympathizer, Are we just saying Nazi? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a little more complicated because, like he was a

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Speaker 1: lot of why he liked the Nazis is because the

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Speaker 1: Nazis were fighting the British and the British weren't control

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Speaker 1: of his country, so it's not. But he was also

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Speaker 1: super anti Semitic, So he's like a Nazi sympathizer and

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Speaker 1: also and also okay, well yeah, and the reason that

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Speaker 1: Saddam idolized his uncle is because his uncle was an author.

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Speaker 1: Um and his uncle's written work that was most famous

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Speaker 1: was a pamphlet called those Whom God should not have created, Persians,

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Speaker 1: Jews and flies. Okay, I was about to compliment his

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Speaker 1: use of whom, but I didn't take it back. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he got he got the home right, he did a

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Speaker 1: good use of whom and a bad use of everyone

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Speaker 1: everyone else's time. Everything else is terrible. Um that that

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Speaker 1: pamphlet would go on to have a big impact on

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Speaker 1: a young Saddam because his foreign policy is Dictator of

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Speaker 1: Iraq was based around opposing the per 's Iran Uh

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Speaker 1: and Israel. I'm not aware of any anti fly policies,

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Speaker 1: but I assumed they made it in there somehow too.

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Speaker 1: So I'm now I'm like not on Saddam side again,

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Speaker 1: because it's like, imagine using one. I'm like, if I

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Speaker 1: use my uncle's like weird, creepy fan fiction account as

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Speaker 1: a way to like direct a country, we would all be,

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Speaker 1: you know, like X files, be characters frantically having sex

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Speaker 1: with each other. So you can't just take your uncle's

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Speaker 1: literature and take it to heart too much. Well, big

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Speaker 1: ups on your uncle. I mean mine is it's more

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Speaker 1: like Frasier fan Thick, which is uncomfortable. That's a fancy uncle.

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Speaker 1: You know, I would prefer that to X files. I'm

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Speaker 1: like where we're getting into genre stuff, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: but molder in that like swamp monster thing. That's a

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Speaker 1: hot mix. I'll give you his email. Yeah, really, I'm

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Speaker 1: really into that. Um So. Saddam moves to Bagdad with

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Speaker 1: his uncle to attend secondary school, which is what not

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Speaker 1: Americans call high school. Now he's a teen. He teen,

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Speaker 1: Saddam tena heart throb Saddam. Um, I'm gonna show you

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Speaker 1: this picture of young Saddam. I saw that picture when

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Speaker 1: I came in. He was like, God, I hate that

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Speaker 1: he's hot. He's not a bad looking guy, it says

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Speaker 1: damn ye. That was the working title of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: Um so uh. Saddam moves to Baghdad with his uncle.

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Speaker 1: He graduates high school. He spends three years in law

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Speaker 1: school before he drops out to join the radical bath

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Speaker 1: political party, the Bathists in short, or a pan Arab party.

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Speaker 1: They think that all the different Arab state should be

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Speaker 1: one big country. This is after the Ottomans have fallen,

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Speaker 1: so that's kind of what they want. They're sort of socialist,

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Speaker 1: but they're also anti communists, so the CIA really likes

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Speaker 1: them at this point. Um. So in nineteen fifty eight,

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Speaker 1: there's a big military coup that overthrows the king of

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Speaker 1: Iraq and a new asshole named Kassam winds up in

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Speaker 1: charge of the country. The CIA didn't like coss him

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Speaker 1: because he was kind of pro Soviet Union, and since

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Speaker 1: the Bath Party also hated Kassam, the CIA was like,

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Speaker 1: these guys are clearly our friends. They've become sympathizers this

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Speaker 1: new Okay. So Saddam was working as a teacher during

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Speaker 1: this period of time. Yeah, teaching, I'm not I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure what. I haven't found any details about it. He's

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Speaker 1: not gonna rate my professor. Where his students at? Yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: what kind of teacher was Saddam? Do we know what

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Speaker 1: age he was teaching? I mean, I'm gonna guess like teenagers,

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Speaker 1: But I really have no idea. We should not like

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Speaker 1: teens around Saddan. We should better if he's teaching like kindergarten,

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Speaker 1: definitely funnier if he's teaching kindergartenda helping little kids put

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Speaker 1: blocks in the right hole. You know, I think that

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Speaker 1: that is a good way to neutralize a threat, is

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Speaker 1: to just put them, put them around a little cutie

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Speaker 1: pies and tell him what the color blue is. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these monsters are really good with kids.

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Speaker 1: Hitler probably would have been an all right kindergarten teacher. Jeez. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he's teaching probably teenagers. He's teaching probably teenagers. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know exactly. Um. Because teacher Hot Teacher Saddam,

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Speaker 1: Hot Teacher Saddam and Hot Teacher Saddam and his friends

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Speaker 1: wind up getting the attention of the CIA, and the

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Speaker 1: CIA is like, you guys want to assassinate the president? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And so dominous friends are like, yeah, we want to

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Speaker 1: assassinate the president. And so the CIA gives them all

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Speaker 1: weapons and helps them plan a daring murder. It is

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Speaker 1: crazy how many people are just down to give Sodam

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Speaker 1: the same guns. That's his whole childhood. It's just people

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Speaker 1: giving him guns. What is it about him? And then

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Speaker 1: everyone's just like, we've got to arm this man, like

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Speaker 1: the trustworthy man. You know what. This guy's problem is

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Speaker 1: not enough guns. You know, I like everything, but what

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Speaker 1: I really could use is more violence. Yeah, if we

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Speaker 1: just strap a gun to him. Yeah. Now the CIA

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Speaker 1: is giving Saddama guns, so dominous friends. Yeah, and so

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Speaker 1: there they get set up to go assassinate President Kassam

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Speaker 1: Uh and Saddam's job in this assassination is to provide

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Speaker 1: cover for everybody while they run up to the President's

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Speaker 1: car with machine guns and gun him down. Um. Things

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Speaker 1: instantly got sucked up. Depending on who you believe. Saddam

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Speaker 1: either got so excited when the gunfire started that he

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Speaker 1: rushed up to shoot the president too, or he panicked

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Speaker 1: before the attempt even started and fired his gun into

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Speaker 1: the air. Um. We don't really know what happened, but

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Speaker 1: the whole attempt has been described as a farce. One

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Speaker 1: assassin was given the wrong bullets for his gun by

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Speaker 1: the CIA. Another assassin got a hand grenade caught in

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Speaker 1: the lining of his coat. Um, so it was just

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Speaker 1: a disaster. The president survived, Saddam got shot in the

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Speaker 1: leg as he was fleeing. Very null coward vibe to

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Speaker 1: that assassination, very silly sound. Yeah, you could imagine like

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Speaker 1: yakety Sacks being a solid like Assassin a soundtrack for that.

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Speaker 1: Are we in the sixties, yat or is he still

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Speaker 1: like in college age? I think this is the early

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Speaker 1: sixties because Cossum took power in fifty eight, so this

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Speaker 1: is Saddam's sixties hilariously failed assassination attempts um so Saddam

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Speaker 1: getting shot in the leg. The official version of the story,

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Speaker 1: and by that, I mean, like the Iraqi government's official

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Speaker 1: version of the story, was that he and a friend

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Speaker 1: had to remove the bullet with a razor blade and scissors,

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Speaker 1: so they get a little like Boondocks Saints thing there

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Speaker 1: um and they claimed he was still in high school

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Speaker 1: at the time, but that doesn't track with the actual

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Speaker 1: time for a timeline. But like the version of the

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Speaker 1: story that IM wanted people to believe is that he

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Speaker 1: liked removed the bullet from his own leg, and then

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Speaker 1: went back to school, went to maths. I mean that

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Speaker 1: is that is a narrative, that is exciting, That is

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Speaker 1: a cool narrative. I got Boondocks and then and then

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Speaker 1: I went to algebra two. I wasn't gonna miss my

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Speaker 1: fucking quiz or whatever. I don't know enough algebra can't

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Speaker 1: fault him for that my quiz division. Um, but we

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Speaker 1: actually know that he fled the country immediately so he

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Speaker 1: wouldn't get murdered as suffer of his friends were. Um,

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Speaker 1: the CIA and the Egyptian intelligence forces helped him escape

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Speaker 1: to Cairo, where he was put up in a nice

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Speaker 1: apartment and apparently spent all of his time playing dominoes

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Speaker 1: for several years. Wait for several years, Yeah, he's he's

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Speaker 1: there for a few years. It's playing dominos and dominoes.

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Speaker 1: That is a sinister game to be playing for many years.

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Speaker 1: You know. That's seen in V for Vendetta. It's like

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Speaker 1: my least favorite scene of him all time, where like

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Speaker 1: v has set up a room full of dominoes for

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Speaker 1: this one, and it's like, who it took you? You

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Speaker 1: only live here, This must have taken sixteen hours, and

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Speaker 1: you're just like, hey, Natalie Portman, check this ship out.

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Speaker 1: And then he knocks down the whole thing. You're just like,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? Such a crazy person move. It's

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Speaker 1: so like it could there be a big, bigger red

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Speaker 1: flag other than refusing to show your face. That movie

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Speaker 1: is infuriating. I'm sure the reality is he was like

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Speaker 1: playing dominoes with other people at cafes. But I like

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Speaker 1: to imagine him for just three straight years alone in

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Speaker 1: his apartment just building dominoes, and right, we don't I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah, dominoes. I forgot dominoes is also okay, and

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Speaker 1: not just I imagined him in like a ballroom just

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Speaker 1: assembling dominoes in different patterns and trying to get people

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Speaker 1: to be like, hey, you know, would be really cool. Um.

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Speaker 1: So nineteen sixty three rolls around, uh, Cossom gets assassinated

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Speaker 1: and Saddam is able to return to a rack, but

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Speaker 1: person by a different crew. Yeah, somebody, somebody else, not Saddam. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure the CIA was still involved. Um. Saddam goes

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Speaker 1: back to Iraq, but it turned out the new government

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Speaker 1: wasn't a big fan of him and his fellow bathists either,

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Speaker 1: so he gets arrested in sixty four and sent to prison. Thankfully,

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Speaker 1: Iraqi prisons in the sixties kind of acted on the

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Speaker 1: honor system, So after two years of imprisonment, Saddam convinced

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Speaker 1: his guards to let he and some friends go to

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Speaker 1: a restaurant on their way to court. While he was

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Speaker 1: in the bathroom, he walked out of the back door.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's fully on the jail, fully on them.

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Speaker 1: That is a wild policy. I also thought you were

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Speaker 1: going to say, fortunately, prisons in Iraq had dominoes. I

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Speaker 1: assume he's dominoing throughout this period, basically unchanged. So, um,

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Speaker 1: he gets out, Yeah, he gets out. He rises through

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Speaker 1: the ranks of the Bath Party, and in July nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight, he helps to launch a coup that finally

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Speaker 1: puts his party in power. Um, here's a quote from

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Speaker 1: a book I found about how that morning went down.

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Speaker 1: He began by bringing out all of the weapons and

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Speaker 1: uniforms he had hidden in the house. His wife, Sagita,

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Speaker 1: helped in the preparations, as did their son Udai, who

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Speaker 1: ran around the room picking up hand grenades from the floor,

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Speaker 1: bringing them one by one to his father as if

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Speaker 1: they were toys. Oh scary. When did he get a son?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean he's got a wife and kids

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Speaker 1: by this day. That that kind of happens after he's

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Speaker 1: out of prison, and okay, okay, so he's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm really going to pull it together now, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to join an extremist party. I'm gonna have a wife

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Speaker 1: and kid, and a kid he's getting shipped done God,

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Speaker 1: and then and so his kids touching grenades. Good good, good,

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Speaker 1: good good. I mean there's grenades all over I rack

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Speaker 1: they love those things. Um yeah. That quote is from

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Speaker 1: a Saddam sympathetic biography by Nita Renfrew. You can find

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Speaker 1: it online if you want. It's very much questioned, but

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Speaker 1: I am choosing to believe that particular depiction because it

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Speaker 1: warms my heart. I mean a moment for father hunt. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's some quality dadding. Um, so the cougo's off without

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Speaker 1: a hitch. Saddam becomes the vice president. He's number two

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Speaker 1: to a guy named Hassan al Baker h Well. Vice President.

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Speaker 1: Saddam finishes his law degree in enrolls in the University Baghdad,

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Speaker 1: but he attends classes in disguise. Well that is a

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Speaker 1: bad movie. That's a secret vice president. My yeah, student

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Speaker 1: Mike Pence, he's just sitting in a biology class, getting

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Speaker 1: angrier and angrier. He can't say anything. Mike Pen's putting

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Speaker 1: on a wig and going to someone's chem class. They're

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Speaker 1: just explaining how like the age of the universe, and

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Speaker 1: he's just like red faced, sweating and furious veins bulging

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Speaker 1: on his neck. Do they say anything about what the

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Speaker 1: disguise was, because if not, I'm going very silly, bigger mustache,

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Speaker 1: gigantic classes. No. I found no details on how he

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Speaker 1: was disguised, but he apparently had a life long habit

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Speaker 1: of going around in disguise disguise. Okay, I'm imagining the

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Speaker 1: disguise kit from the Master of Disguise, one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite movies. You just dress up like a gigantic cherry

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Speaker 1: pie in a college class learning chemistry. That is so

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Speaker 1: bizarre someone could have come to his house. Yeah, alright, Well,

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Speaker 1: we have some ads to break to. Uh. So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna sing a little song for sweet Lady Capitalism, and

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Speaker 1: then when we are back, we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein's love of reading, his rise to absolute power,

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Speaker 1: and of course his career as a romance novelist. All

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Speaker 1: that more after some ads, and we're back. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: we are talking about Saddam Hussein, who, at this point

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Speaker 1: in our story has gone from an adorable lead pipe

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Speaker 1: wielding child to the vice president of iraq Um. Saddam

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Speaker 1: was vice president for eleven years, although for most of

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Speaker 1: that time he was the are behind the scenes and

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Speaker 1: he was actually in charge of the country. UM and

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Speaker 1: one of the first things he decided to do as

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Speaker 1: vice president was to spread his love of reading to

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Speaker 1: everyone in Iraq with what was essentially the most brutal

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Speaker 1: scholastic book fair in history. UM. He required every city

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Speaker 1: and village interact a host reading programs. Attendance was mandatory.

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Speaker 1: Skipping was punished by three years in prison. Every man,

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Speaker 1: woman and child in the country was forced to learn

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Speaker 1: how to read, and it worked. Iraq went from majority

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Speaker 1: of literate to the vast majority of people there being literate.

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Speaker 1: UNESCO gave Saddaman Award see that that is an unusual

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Speaker 1: move right for like an evil ruler to want people

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Speaker 1: to be literate, Like usually you're You're like everyone needs

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Speaker 1: to be as dominobedient as possible. That's so, I was like,

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Speaker 1: you're going to read and if you don't learn how

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Speaker 1: to read, you're gonna go to fucking prison for three

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Speaker 1: years to jail. Yeah, you're it was it. I imagine

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Speaker 1: it was like specific things you had to read. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think like there's a lot of reading of religious

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Speaker 1: texts and whatnot. Like during the height of his regime,

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Speaker 1: a lot of fiction was banned, but at this point

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Speaker 1: they weren't banning a lot of books like you know what,

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Speaker 1: just pick up a Juny B. Jones, pick up an

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Speaker 1: Animals and that's a lot of anim warps in nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 1: If you don't read a new Animals chapter book this week,

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Speaker 1: you're going to jail, my friend. Yeah, they're big fans

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Speaker 1: of the animals. I mean, Saddam was a big reader.

422
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:33,160
Speaker 1: He's a huge Hmmingway fan, which, of course, jeez, we're cock. Yeah.

423
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 1: I really loved Old Man in the Sea. Man. I

424
00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:38,480
Speaker 1: wonder if you ever picked up any David Foster wallet,

425
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,919
Speaker 1: just don't get sad dump started. He won't shut up.

426
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: I'm not shut up about it. Every stands for friends

427
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: and and and sufferable. Okay, Um, so we're almost at

428
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 1: the end of our positive Saddam stuff. But I do

429
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 1: need to mention that he was a surprisingly progressive leader

430
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 1: when it came to women's rights. We're talking about the

431
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,199
Speaker 1: Middle East in the seventies here, so don't expect like

432
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: a lot. But they were allowed to live, they were

433
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,199
Speaker 1: allowed to work and be in the military. Um. And

434
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,640
Speaker 1: it said that he preferred women's advice and insight because

435
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 1: he thought they were more honest than men. Uh. So

436
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:20,159
Speaker 1: this concludes the good part of Saddam Hussein being in

437
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: charge of Iraq. Uh he becomes the full president in

438
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. Um, he went from you know, during

439
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: the time when he was VP, he'd go around and

440
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: disguise a lot and kind of undercover boss the country. Um,

441
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: it seems unnecessary. It seems like something you could delegate

442
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: to a second party. It's like a thing though an

443
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: Arab folklore. There's stories going back a thousand years of

444
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 1: like rulers hiding amongst the people to learn about like

445
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 1: their lives and stuff. So it's kind of a thing

446
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 1: you do for the pr It's like, but behaving like

447
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: a fictional character would be like a good like if

448
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:56,719
Speaker 1: I was just like I'm gonna I'm trying to think

449
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: of a good example of like I'm gonna be a

450
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:01,880
Speaker 1: mermaid and die at the end, and that's a half

451
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:07,160
Speaker 1: proved that I'm a cool leader. So as president, Saddam

452
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: went from yeah, doing the whole undercover thing to making

453
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:13,479
Speaker 1: frequent televised visits to various random neighborhoods around the country.

454
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: Here's another quote from that Renfrew book. One day, he

455
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: would turn up suddenly at an ancient Christian monastery. Another day,

456
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: who would visit Kurdish peasants in their homes, inspecting their

457
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: sanitary and refrigeration facilities, perhaps poking a bit of meat

458
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 1: to see if it was fresh before long. It was

459
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: understood that the president could drop in anywhere, at any moment. Oh,

460
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: he sounds like you know what he sounds like. He

461
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: sounds like Bill Murray. I find that behavior to be

462
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: absolutely despicable. I don't like living in a world where

463
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: Bill Murray is just allowed to show up wherever he

464
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: wants and it's news. It's like he's intrude to either.

465
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: Bill Murray showed up at my wedding like he should not.

466
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: He was not invited. He should leave. Saddam's infamous meat poke. Yeah,

467
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: the president just showing up at your I was poking

468
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: your meat, Murray and your wedding. I just wish Bill

469
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: Mury didn't do that. So Saddam at this point is

470
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: very popular, Uh, popular amongst also the other people he's

471
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: in power with, the other members of the Bath Party. Uh,

472
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: they thought he was intellectual and practical and uh, just

473
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 1: a generally nice guy. Uh. He was of course hiding himself. Uh.

474
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,880
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy nine, as he becomes president, Saddam

475
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: purges the Bath Party of all of his rivals. Uh.

476
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: He was able to get one member of the party,

477
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: a guy named Mashadi, to inform on all of his enemies. Uh.

478
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: Maschadi was given the choice to either number one, confess

479
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 1: everything and roll on twenty two other members of Congress,

480
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 1: basically that Saddam when had purged, or to watch his

481
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: wife and daughters get raped in front of him before

482
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: being murdered. Oh my god, Yeah, so that's the choice

483
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: Saddam gives this guy. Mashadi rolls on his colleagues. Saddam

484
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: executes all of them. He videotapes the executions and sends

485
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: copies of the tape to other members of the Bath Party.

486
00:25:55,880 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: That is horrifying and also uh bold to document. Yeah,

487
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: that's okay. So we're we're we're in it now, we're

488
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: in a nightmare. Boss. Saddam has arrived. No more book fairs,

489
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: No more booksairs. Well, I mean everyone can read now,

490
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah. And in nineteen eighties, Saddam Hussein invades Iran,

491
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: starts an eight year war that kills like a million

492
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: people in bankrupts Iraq. Uh. In nineteen eighty eight, he

493
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: launches a series of chemical weapon attacks against Curtis civilians

494
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: in northern Iraq and killed around two hundred thousand people,

495
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: most of them women and children. Uh. But I thought

496
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,719
Speaker 1: he was a feminist icon well, as we just cussed earlier.

497
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:40,880
Speaker 1: Maybe too strong, okay, Um, although he gassed all genders,

498
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 1: he did not discriminate me who he would ruthlessly murder.

499
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: You wouldn't call it a misogynist chemical weapons attack. It

500
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: was a woke genocide and extremely woke genocide. Um. So Yeah,

501
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety, Saddam invades Kuwait. We all know how

502
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: that worked out. It's not great for him. So Saddam's

503
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: life kind of goes off the rails after the Gulf War.

504
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: Honestly incredible that it makes it that far. We could

505
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: do a whole podcast at how messed up Iraq was

506
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: during that particular time. I'm going to pick just a

507
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: few of the wildest stories. So Saddam had a son

508
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: in law and a second cousin both at the same time,

509
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:26,640
Speaker 1: because you know a little bit of Texan. Yeah, yeah.

510
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: Uh named Hussain Kamel. He was one of Boss Saddam's favorites,

511
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: and he was appointed both Minister of Oil and head

512
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: of Iraq's weapons development program. Mr of Oil sounds like

513
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: a fake job. Minister of oil. Yeah, you keep being

514
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: a fuel Well, no, actually get into the get into

515
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: the we gotta sell them. You're actually gonna want to

516
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: move right, Okay. So in n though, he becomes he

517
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: and his brother uh Saddam Kamel. So Hussein Kamel and

518
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 1: Saddam Kamel. I know that's a little sake. Wait, So

519
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: Saddam's son in laws, the men who marry his daughters

520
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: are named Hussein and Saddam Kamel. So Hussein Kamel, and

521
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 1: I know it's it's a little like they're like pranking him.

522
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 1: It's a common name. Um. So they're married to Saddam's daughters.

523
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: But they wind up falling a foul of Saddam's son Uday,

524
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: who's still well, I don't think he's the heir apparent anymore,

525
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: but he's very powerful. So they think he's going to

526
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: kill them, and they fleeted Jordan's along with Saddam's daughters

527
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: and a bunch of their friends. Jordan grants them asylum.

528
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: Hussein Kamel promises to give the CIA a bunch of

529
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: inside info on Iraq's w m D program, but he

530
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: didn't actually have much to give because Iraq wasn't making

531
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: w m D s anymore, as we all learned a

532
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: few years later. Yeah. Um, so he starts to become

533
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: less and less useful for Jordan and the c I

534
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: A uh, and for some reason nobody can really explain,

535
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: he decides to go back to Iraq along with his brother. Uh.

536
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: This is after he's gone on CNN to accuse Saddam

537
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: of surrounding himself with idiots. Um. So they do that,

538
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: They talked to the CIA, and then they head back home.

539
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, you're gonna get murdered the instant you set

540
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: foot in Iraq, but they still do it. They're like,

541
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: what if he didn't it. Saddam's like, it'll be fine,

542
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: it'll be fine. Is this there like Selma and Louise moment.

543
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: That's the that's as close as I can get to

544
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: unpacking that one. There is a little bit of a

545
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: Thelma and Louise moment coming in a bit okay, Um,

546
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: first off, so that we don't get to Uh, we

547
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: don't want anyone feeling too sorry for Saddam Kamel and

548
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: Hussain Kamel. Saddam Kamel. One of the things he was

549
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: famous for doing a couple of years before this point

550
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: was he got angry at a guy and he made

551
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: him drink gasoline and then he shot him with incendiary

552
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 1: rounds so he would catch on fire. Oh my god,

553
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: nobody in this story is a good guy. Okay, So

554
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: he's like a tarantino. Yeah, this is the kind of

555
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: ship that said. I'm like, if you were close to

556
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: the Hussain family, Uh, you know, when he was in charge,

557
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: you could do stuff like that. You could really get creative.

558
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: You could really get creative with being a mons here.

559
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: It's just important you don't feel sorry for anyone for

560
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: what comes next, because this is a hell of the

561
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: story if you can get past that. Um. So they

562
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: go back to Iraq. Uh Saddam orders them to divorce

563
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: their wives and orders them to show up for judgment

564
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: and justice, and instead they hold up in their family house. Uh.

565
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: Saddam doesn't send the police after them, he doesn't send

566
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,719
Speaker 1: the military after them. He sends the boy's uncle and

567
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: his enforcer, whose nickname was Chemical Ali because he carried

568
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: out the genocidal chemical weapons attacks along with a forty

569
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: man tribal hit squad, and before the hit squad arrives,

570
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: Chemical Ali sends the brothers a Honda van filled with

571
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: weapons and ammunition so that they can fight. What follows

572
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: is a thirteen our firefight that kills at least two

573
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: members of the tribal hit squad. It ends with a

574
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: rocket barrage that kills one of the others, and Hussein

575
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: Kamal staggers out of the smoky rubble of the house

576
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: with just like in the wake of this rocket attack,

577
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: screams out his name to the sky and then is

578
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: cut down in a hail of gunfire. Why, because that's

579
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: how they did ship. They just that's some poppet master ship.

580
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: He was like, we could just do this, or I

581
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: could take him to prison or gunbattle. Gun battle, which

582
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: is more fun to hear about later. Yeah, and it,

583
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty badass, and it ends biblically. It

584
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: does your name to the sky and then being yeah,

585
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: I feel like that's almost like giving them a better

586
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: way to die than just sending someone to you know,

587
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: like you know, cut their throat and leaf like they're like,

588
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: you're going to go down in a very dramatic way, Saddam.

589
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: Apparently these two guys Saddam was really cared about, like

590
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: actually did care about. So this is nice Saddam. How

591
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: a nice Saddam executes you? Is he let you die? Fight,

592
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: you get to you get to die. Like it's sort

593
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: of like mission impossibly, like there's a lot of high drama.

594
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: Maybe there's music playing. We don't know, we weren't there.

595
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: I hope there was music playing. I hope that someone

596
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: just threw on like a Hans Zimmer score in the

597
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: background and just kept rewinding the gazette and playing the

598
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: just keep going, well, what years is coming on in?

599
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: What sounds like there's a there's a Zimmer. I'll figure

600
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah there's something in there. Yeah. Um So

601
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: on the on the less murder and explosiony sort of thing,

602
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: Saddam had a friendship with Jordan's King Hussein Um. During

603
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: one of the king's visits, the two went fishing, and

604
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: King Hussein thought it was suspicious that Saddam and only

605
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: Saddam caught a bunch of fish. After a couple of

606
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: fishing trips, he developed the theory that Saddam had ordered

607
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: a diver to put fish on the end of his

608
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: fishing line and only his fishing line. Was it true?

609
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: What we There's no way to know for sure, but

610
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: one trip there was maybe a funk up with the

611
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: diver in a fish wound up on King Hussein's line

612
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: and he pulled it up, and immediately after that a

613
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: fish winds up on Saddam's line. But King Hussein's fish

614
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: looks bigger, and so Saddam has both of the fish

615
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: go off with one of his runners to get weighed,

616
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: and the guy comes back and it's like, no, Saddam's

617
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: was a quarter pound bigger. Oh what a stressful friendship.

618
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of man Saddam Hussein was to

619
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: his buddies. I wonder if he's like insecure in any

620
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: way if any time you catch a fish, it's like

621
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: who's Basically he's just like, well, whose dig is bigger?

622
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: And then just like have some go away the fish.

623
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean that sounds a kind of

624
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: a fun way to torture a friend of me. Yeah,

625
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: you know, only I may catch fish. So as the

626
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: years after the Gulf War, drew on. Saddam gets more

627
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: and more paranoid. He's constantly afraid of being poisoned, and

628
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: so he has all of his food, which is mostly

629
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: fresh lobster and fresh fish, flown in daily and inspected

630
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: by nuclear scientists before being fed to him. Um, I

631
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: think by the nuclear scientist. By the nuclear scientists. Well,

632
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're feeding it to him, but

633
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: they're inspecting his food. Jesus Christ. Okay, because they're not

634
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: working on nukes anymore. You get to do something with

635
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: your scientists, right right, I mean if your w m

636
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 1: D is not popping, you know that's I mean, keeping

637
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: people employed. Make sure this lobsters fresh. Um. He passed

638
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: a lot of time reading books about Joseph Stalin, who

639
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,760
Speaker 1: was his hero and very chill your time, and watching

640
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: movies his Some of his favorites were The Godfather, Enemy

641
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: of the State, and The Day of the Jackal. Seems

642
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: a little on the nose. Yeah, let's throw in some

643
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: what if it was like? He loved Enemy of the State,

644
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 1: The Godfather and like all about ten things I hate

645
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: about you stop watching that movie. He had us offside

646
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, No, he was not a subtleman no um.

647
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 1: In his sixties, his doctors advised him to start getting

648
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: two hours a day of walking exercise. Since he was Saddam.

649
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: He did this in the craziest way possible. I'm going

650
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: to quote from an Atlantic article called Tales of the

651
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: Tyrant here. He used to take these walks in public,

652
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: swooping down with his entourage in the neighborhoods and bagdad

653
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: his bodyguards, clearing sidewalks and streets. As the Tyrant past,

654
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: anyone who approached him unsolicited was beaten nearly to death.

655
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: But now it is too dangerous to walk in public.

656
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: The limp must not be seen, so Saddam makes no

657
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 1: more unscripted public appearances. He limps freely behind the high

658
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 1: walls and patrolled fences of his vastest states. Often he

659
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: walks with a gun, hunting deer or rabbit in his

660
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: private preserves. He is an excellent shot. Jeez, okay, he's

661
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: just extra extra as hell on every single every That

662
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 1: does sound a little bit similar to like when they

663
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: were trying to hide the fact that like Roosevelt was

664
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: like paralyzed, Like we're just gonna go way out of

665
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: our way to make sure that people don't know the

666
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: ruler has a lamp like but also by calling attention,

667
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: like he could have just granted a place. Yeah, no,

668
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: I think I think going on limping walks with a

669
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 1: gun and murdering random animals is the better way to

670
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: get exercise. He needs listen. He can't go somewhere without

671
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: a gun. He was basically born with a gun, basically

672
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: born with a gun in his um. So, one of

673
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:21,320
Speaker 1: the things you get when you study Saddam and you

674
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: read his writings is it seems like you kind of

675
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: started to sour on being in charge of Iraq during

676
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties, um he started taking more naps

677
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: and playing hookey and government meetings. His former vice president

678
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: said it sometimes took three days to get in touch

679
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: with him. So what was Saddam doing with all of

680
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 1: his time? Now? What was he doing? He'd become a novelist.

681
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: Reading is a theme that kind of runs through Saddam's

682
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: entire career. And while the standard like Arab hero thing

683
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 1: is to be a poet, like that's the thing that

684
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: they really emphasize, like Russians, it's your novelist. If you're

685
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,760
Speaker 1: a if you're an Arab hero, you're a poet. Saddam

686
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: instead chose to write trashy romance novel wow. Uh. And

687
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: we're going to get into those trashy romance novels and

688
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: exactly what happened with Saddam's career as an author after

689
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,959
Speaker 1: the break. But first we have more ads for things

690
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: that you can buy or things that can buy you.

691
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 1: I don't know how ads work. Here we go, we

692
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 1: are back, and we are talking about Saddam Hussein, dictator, murderer,

693
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 1: pipe wielder, and romance novelist. Just further proof that there

694
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: really is nothing more dangerous in this world than a

695
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: failed artist. Like there's so I mean, limitless examples of

696
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: a failed artist doing something truly holacious to the world.

697
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,399
Speaker 1: One of the weird things I found, because we're doing

698
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: a podcast that touches on Stalin later, is that so,

699
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: like Saddam is a novelist, and but like the like

700
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 1: the traditional Arab warrior hero thing is to be a

701
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: poet as well as a warrior. Joseph Stalin wrote poems

702
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: and the standard like Russian man of substance things to

703
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: be a novelist. I don't know which is weird to

704
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 1: me that they Saddam is a big fan of Stalin,

705
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: and they kind of wind up chips in the night,

706
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: babies in the night. They would have been great friends,

707
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: they would I mean, I'm sure it sounds like Saddam

708
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: is a little bit like fan boying out over over Stalin.

709
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 1: For sometimes you could call him a Stalin nerd. He's

710
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of a Stalin's down if you will. Alright,

711
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: So Saddam Hussein publishes his first novel, Zabiba and the King,

712
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: in two thousands. It's an instant bestseller in Iraq and

713
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 1: sells millions upon millions of copies under his regular name,

714
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: uh no, under the name that it was published under

715
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: is basically he who wrote the book. What can basically

716
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: like the middle finger emoji? Written by whose fucking businesses?

717
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: By the guy who wrote it? Asshole J D Rob. Sure,

718
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: but everyone knows Saddam. The word gets out, and of

719
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: course they all buy a copy because like, you don't

720
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: want to be caught without your copy of Saddam's stupid

721
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 1: fucking book. Um. You can buy the English translation of

722
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: this book online right now for twelve dollars. It was

723
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: republished by an American during the war and it's the

724
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: cover is just Saddam. It's just Saddam with a beard

725
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: on a red background. It's not the original cover and

726
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: a pretty gnarly looking font. I would argue it looks

727
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: like it was self published on Amazon. It kind of was.

728
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: It was just a guy who translated it, who got

729
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: a copy, translated it and published it as quick as

730
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: he could. He like, his justification was I thought americans

731
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: fighting over there might want to read this book of

732
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: the guy they deposed. I I mean, I see that,

733
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: and there's definitely a historical value to Saddam's creepy book. Wait,

734
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:56,879
Speaker 1: what's it about? Well, okay, first off, short review, it's

735
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: not good. It's not good. It may lose something translation

736
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: from Arabic, but it is not a good book structurally.

737
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: I think we're okay to not give Saddam Hussein the

738
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. You lose that after the first genocide, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

739
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 1: when once you hit a million people, you've killed your

740
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: year out about a million and a half deaths at

741
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: this point, probably conservatively something like that. But he's fine

742
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: in the time to to follow his bliss, he actually

743
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: wrote like three books in four years something like that.

744
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: So he's very, very dedicated. He's Stephen king his way

745
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: through the ship. Right, he's like banging coke lines and

746
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: writing garbage. Okay, So the basic plot is that a

747
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: king who represents Saddam Hussein Um falls in love with

748
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 1: a beautiful local woman named Zebiba, who represents collectively all

749
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: of Iraq. I wonder if she's much younger than him, yes, okay, good. Unfortunately,

750
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: Zebiba has a husband the United States who became betrothed

751
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: to her during an arranged marriage, and she spends a

752
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,399
Speaker 1: lot of the book being forced to have sex with no. Yeah,

753
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: it's it's sad. So we've got Saddama is a protagonist.

754
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: We've got a much younger, hotter female avatar. I'm assuming

755
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: she doesn't have a personality, and we've got a ripe fantasy.

756
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: She does have a personality. She's the smartest one in

757
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: the book, and she spends the whole book right lecturing

758
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: everybody icon. It's it's kind of weird, but like, she

759
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: is not the character you'd guess from that plot synopsis,

760
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 1: where she's just like hollow, like like she isn't just

761
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: instantly in love with him for no good reason, but

762
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: he's she like spends the whole time lecturing him about politics,

763
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: and he's portrayed as kind of a dumb guy. Um,

764
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:39,439
Speaker 1: it's it is. It is weird, it's not the book

765
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: you'd expect, and it has a really strange structure. So

766
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: it's framed as a story being told to a group

767
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: of young children by an old, grandmotherly woman, like a

768
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 1: princess bride kind of set up. Yeah, it's exactly that.

769
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: It's a princess bride kind of set up, and it's

770
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: sort of works at the start. But the whole book

771
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: is has periodic rants by Saddam Hussein put into these

772
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: characters mouths. So a lot of Saddam's rants wind up

773
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: in the mouth of an old lady talking to children.

774
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: So at one point, this old woman spends a whole

775
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: page lecturing small children about how sexy mouths are. I'm

776
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: gonna quote from the book here. And if the meaning

777
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: of the mouth is that great, should not a man

778
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 1: be jealous about the mouth of the one he loves her? Laughter,

779
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: every movement of her lips. Clearly one understands. Why then,

780
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: are mothers and grand mothers cover their mouths in front

781
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: of strangers? So that is a quote from an old

782
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: lady talking to children. Oh God, I feel like maybe

783
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: he forgot that was happening times of the book he did,

784
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: because he forgets for like a hundred pages to bring

785
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: it back to her. And then he brings it back

786
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: to her. He's like, hopefully every won't forget about that

787
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 1: whole time when she was telling kids how hot mouths are.

788
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: Just wait, so on page a hundred and seven, Saddam

789
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: rights and again put this into the mouth of an

790
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: old lady talking to kids. Even an animal respects a

791
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: man's desire if it wants to copulate with him. Doesn't

792
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: a female bear try to please a herdsman when she

793
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: drags him into the mountains as it happens in the

794
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: north of Iraq? How would you know that? Where's the info?

795
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: Was just throwing shade on the curds by saying they

796
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: have sex with bears and putting that in the mouth

797
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: of an old woman talking to kids. Yeah, okay, how wait?

798
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: How long is this that? It's like three I read.

799
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I read all of it. I fell

800
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: asleep four or five times because it is there's just

801
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: pages of rants, Like it's not a good book. I've

802
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: pulled the highlights out here. Okay, Um, So yeah, we've

803
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: gotten through the bear sex, the weird mouth rant. Um.

804
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: So the main purpose of the book is to allow

805
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: Saddam to throw shade at his enemies, kind of like

806
00:43:51,360 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: Michael Crichton in that regard Rest in Paradise. Um. Some

807
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 1: of it's what you'd expect. He attacks the U S

808
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: and Israel a bunch, you know, he's Saddam Hussein. But

809
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, he spends most of the book raging against businessmen,

810
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: the concept of a hereditary monarchy, and apparently all of

811
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: the people who worked for him. Um, that's a that's

812
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,479
Speaker 1: a wild platter topics. So at one point, like there's

813
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: a Zebiba is visiting the castle and the king. She

814
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: has an altercation with some guy and the king apologizes,

815
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: and she's like, isn't it true that those who surround

816
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: the king are exceedingly more cruel than the king himself.

817
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Saddam being like, I didn't kill

818
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: all those Is I just bad people working? Like, yeah,

819
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: I trust no bit lesson learned, right. Um. There's also

820
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: a lot of points in the book that make it

821
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: clear he's kind of tired of being a dictator. Um

822
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: did not the soul of the one who had surrounded

823
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: himself with a multitude of useless things become burdened by

824
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: the intricate maze of his palaces, their furniture and thick walls,

825
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: had not his soul died as a result, having completely law.

826
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: It's aesthetic sense. WHOA, Yeah, that's a little emolarious. Yeah,

827
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of like, so I'm feeling sorry

828
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: sitting in his palace feeling sorry for himself. This is

829
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: so lame. I'm the prisoner. When you think about it,

830
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 1: everyone should feel bad for me. Do you think sadd

831
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 1: I'm ever like pulled out bright eyes and was like,

832
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: you know what I always imagine it's more of the

833
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: cure guy. Okay, great. Um, So it's it's a surprising book.

834
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 1: When I went through the synopsis other people had put up,

835
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: it sounded like a straightforward propaganda diet tribe against America

836
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:37,839
Speaker 1: and pro Saddam. But it went not being way more

837
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: complicated than that and not good because again, this is

838
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: an awful book, but it's complicated. Um. So, at one point,

839
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: Zebiba asks Saddam, does a common woman like me need freedom?

840
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: And so I was like, yes, I want my people

841
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: to be free. It's good for people to be free.

842
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: Say one thing, do the other. And so Zebiba tells

843
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: him it would be a good idea to have a

844
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: people's counsel where he lets elected leaders from the populace

845
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: help the king reform the country and maybe even run

846
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: the country someday, and sam Is the king is like,

847
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. So like, there's weird stuff in here. Yeah. Yeah.

848
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: The whole book carries a very strong anti royalty line.

849
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: It's made repeatedly clear that the hereditary rule of a

850
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 1: country is really dumb. The book is also filled with

851
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: you know, casual anti semitism, chauvinism, and weirdness. But there

852
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: are some oddly woke passages, like this one when Zebiba

853
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 1: comes after the king for his privileged life. Have you

854
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 1: ever known famine? Have you ever had to borrow money

855
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: to buy a piece of bread for your family, or

856
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 1: paid rent for your house so that you would know

857
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: the afflictions of the needy? And have you ever tried

858
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: to convince a woman like a common man that you

859
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: are worthy to sleep with her, that your relationship would

860
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: grow stronger if you did so? In your case, does

861
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,479
Speaker 1: the woman who was supposed to sleep with you even

862
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: have the right to decline? He wrote a passage on consent. Yeah,

863
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 1: Saddam's he's a consented Saddam. He's a surprising guy. He's

864
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: literally addicted to consent. Okay, he's having people murdered at

865
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: the same time he's writing about like consent, he's having

866
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,959
Speaker 1: women ripe, but he's also like consent rules. Okay, Yeah there.

867
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: I feel like to me that that passage is very

868
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 1: much like I was raised poor with a single mom. Yeah,

869
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: that is what that passage screens. And I think there's

870
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: some of that in there because he you know, he

871
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: was pro the king getting overthrown and he just like

872
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: hates people who grew up rich because he had a

873
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: rough upbringing. I mean same. But like, there's ways to

874
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: manage those feelings. You don't have to a million people.

875
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: There's other ways have a feeling that they were not

876
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: all extremely wealthy people. Have you tried alcohol and pain killers? Yes,

877
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: it works great for America. Love self medicating. It neutralizes

878
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: you as a person, It neutralizes your potential. Yeah, I

879
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: would like if I could have just gone to Saddam

880
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy and them and like these are viking

881
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,760
Speaker 1: in like you're kind of really like this hot tips

882
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 1: medicaid and never learn man, and you will be a

883
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: neutral force in the world. How to avoid being Saddam.

884
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,479
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Um, I'm not going to complain. The book

885
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: is a bastion of progressive thought. Um. And and just

886
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: so I'm being totally fair here here's another paragraph that

887
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:20,280
Speaker 1: Saddam wrote about women that's significantly less woke. Uh, truly

888
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: a woman if she decides to do so, we'll get

889
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: a man by any means. And if she chooses to

890
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: destroy a woman or wages a war with her in

891
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 1: the process for the one she loves, she will not

892
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: hesitate to go as far as murder. Wow, woman on

893
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 1: woman violence. Yeah, there's a lot of that in here, too.

894
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: Should be lifting each other up. There's a subplot where

895
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: the king's first wife hates Zebiba, and YadA, yadda, YadA.

896
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: Um it's a bad book. Um. So it's not at

897
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: all the book I'd expected, though. Zebiba winds up getting

898
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: raped by her husband America when she tries to leave

899
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: him her her husband is stands in for America. Oh

900
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: I thought that was his literal name. No, it's a

901
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,439
Speaker 1: little more subtle than that. He doesn't have a name

902
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,919
Speaker 1: like Joey. His name is Joey. We don't find out

903
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: the king's name until like a third of the way

904
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: through the book. It's not like What's the Annihilation where

905
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: they're not using people's names as a stylistic choice. It's

906
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: just a bad book. We'll get around, We'll name some

907
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: of the characters. Also, the king's name is Arab. Oh. Okay,

908
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 1: he's not He's not good. He's not good. Um so yeah.

909
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 1: The Zebiba is raped by her husband America when she

910
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: tries to leave him in America, and an evil prince

911
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: who represents Israel raise up an army to try to

912
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: invade the kingdom. Um again a surprising part. The king

913
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: does basically nothing in the defense of the kingdom, like

914
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: he's fighting there, but we don't hear anything about him. Instead,

915
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: Zebiba leads the defense. She puts on armor and leads

916
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: the army of the country to defend the kingdom, and

917
00:49:55,880 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: she dies fighting. She pulls a fatal mulan. Basically, yeah, again, surprising,

918
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: that is interesting. That's actually that's the first time, like,

919
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: whow I didn't that's a good twist, and after her death,

920
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: the king appoints a council made up of normal men

921
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,879
Speaker 1: and women from around the country and then dies off screen. Uh.

922
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:18,280
Speaker 1: So the book ends with this council of like grandmother's

923
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: and bakers and whatnot in charge of the country, uh,

924
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: figuring out how to move forward. So she did not

925
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: die in vain. She didn't die in vain. I'm not

926
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: used to used to things that female characters do having impact. Yeah,

927
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: he is a He is more woke than a lot

928
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: of Hollywood screenwriters. That is wild. He's doing laps around

929
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: Sorkin right now, especially since it's two thousand. I think

930
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: I didn't double check, but I think this passes the

931
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: Bechtel test um. But I'd have to go through it

932
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 1: again to know for sure. I mean, very important to

933
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: be Wait what other things came out in two thousand

934
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,799
Speaker 1: that this is more woke then a short list work

935
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: then Gladiator, more walk than Almost Famous, more work than

936
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 1: American Psycho, more work than Memento, more work than Requiem

937
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: for a Dream. Damn. Yeah, I am impressed. I should

938
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: note also that one of this democratic Council's first access

939
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: to kick out a Jewish guy and take all of

940
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 1: his stuff. This is still Saddam we're talking about. Um,

941
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: but it's to add like an asterisk to the Bechtel test,

942
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: be like you cannot possibly pass the Backtel test and badam,

943
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: it's just not allowed. Yeah. Yeah, that that that's a

944
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: good the back to the Saddam corollary to the to

945
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: the Bechtel test. A lot of asterisks. It's not a

946
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: perfect system. Um so yeah, and all of this weirdly

947
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 1: progressive stuff is actually why a lot of experts on

948
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 1: Saddam are pretty sure he wrote this himself and he

949
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: didn't have a ghostwriter, because no ghostwriter would have been

950
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,240
Speaker 1: allowed to like end a book with Saddam's self insert

951
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,919
Speaker 1: dying uh and a democracy being established, like right, they'd

952
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: get killed. Yeah, they'd get killed. So it's probable Saddam

953
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 1: actually wrote this, and maybe than his other books too.

954
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: Um yeah. He wrote like four novels in his last

955
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:07,359
Speaker 1: three years in power, which is pretty impressive. Um. So

956
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, you know, the United States is

957
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,760
Speaker 1: getting ready to invade Iraq, one of Saddam's last actions

958
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,840
Speaker 1: in power, as like the first marine units are crossing

959
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: into his country. Uh. One of the final things he

960
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: does is send off a draft of his last novel,

961
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:27,840
Speaker 1: Begone Demons to Tarik Disease God Drama drama Queen. I

962
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:30,400
Speaker 1: got a deal with defending my country from an invasion,

963
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: but first first I need some notes, Like, can I

964
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:38,720
Speaker 1: get some notes? I'm not sure that I quite used

965
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: the kmma correctly. Yeah, I didn't go with the Oxford

966
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: I switched about halfway through. Where does Sam stand on

967
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: the Oxford comma? I don't know because it's they're originally

968
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 1: written in Arabic, so there's no way to know how

969
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: he did it. Yeah, I mean there is a way,

970
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: but I don't read Arabic. You have to go. You'd

971
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 1: have to ask a lot of people. Yet. Um, So

972
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:57,720
Speaker 1: I have been unable to find a copy of Begone

973
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: Demons in English. Uh, we are, We're king on that

974
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 1: because it was translated into Japanese. So we may be

975
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: doing a special Japanese Begone Demons podcast something like that.

976
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 1: I was able to find a Telegraph article that contains

977
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: some extracts from this novel, and it's amazing. So the

978
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 1: basic plot appears to be that Romans and Jews invade

979
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:25,400
Speaker 1: Iraq and Iraq beats them by nine elevening them. Um.

980
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 1: So here's a quote. So the in this quote, Ezekiel

981
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: Heschel is the king of the Jewish people. Um quote.

982
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: Then Ezekiel Heschel and the King of the Romans saw

983
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: the twin towers of the Roman city on fire. Ezekiel

984
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 1: Heschel was beating his face and saying, everything I've collected

985
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 1: is gone. One of the Romans was laughing at Ezekiel

986
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 1: and advised him, try building another two towers and sell

987
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: the one and rent the other to the Roman king.

988
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 1: Both you and the Roman king will rotten hell. So

989
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:04,920
Speaker 1: that's completely unhinged. It's very unhinged fan faction. And once

990
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: the Iraqis burned their towers down, the Romans and the

991
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,359
Speaker 1: Jewish people all run away because they've lost their power

992
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: and money, which was maybe optimistic because we we did

993
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: lose our power and money in Iraq, but we did

994
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:24,160
Speaker 1: not leave. We are still there. Buddy. Oh jeez, demons yeah,

995
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: begon demons um weirdly like Hemingway ask title. Yeah, yeah, yes,

996
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: it was in The King, ye know, yeah, very true,

997
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:36,880
Speaker 1: very true. Um. So, the character of Salim is the

998
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 1: King of the Arabs in this and he's Saddam's self

999
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:42,800
Speaker 1: insert uh S's Harry Potter if you want, Yeah, exactly,

1000
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:44,759
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to read an excerpt from a

1001
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: battle scene that Saddam describing himself fighting the king of

1002
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: the Romans, gave his orders to begin the charge. The

1003
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: first line of Salim's army shot at the Roman writers

1004
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: with arrows. When the Roman writers fell down, the women

1005
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: of the tribe beat them with sticks or killed them

1006
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:02,840
Speaker 1: with swords. So again loves women. In battle, Selim freed

1007
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:06,440
Speaker 1: his long hair. He was so strong. He was fighting

1008
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,160
Speaker 1: the Romans like a hawk. He was riding a white

1009
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 1: horse and shouting Allah Akbar, Long live the Arabs and

1010
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: long lives long. How many masturbation breaks do you think

1011
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: he had to take in the rending of that and

1012
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 1: that want long hair and just pecks out to hear

1013
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: he wanted to just be Fabio strong. He was so strong,

1014
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: so strong. I feel like that's basically him being like, Okay,

1015
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: this is what I want for cover art. He is

1016
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: so strong, his hair is so long long the Glorio

1017
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: commercial her all the way I'm worth it. Two. He

1018
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 1: was so strong as maybe the most vulnerable sentence my

1019
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 1: entire life. That really cuts to the core of his

1020
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:04,319
Speaker 1: whole body reaction hearing that, Oh my god. Um So,

1021
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 1: Saddam was captured on December two thousand three. He was

1022
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: taken into coalition custody and eventually tried by the Iraqi government.

1023
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 1: During his incarceration, he was watched over by a team

1024
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: of twelve young American soldiers. Um Now. Their story and

1025
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: a lot of other stories, are chronicled in the excellent

1026
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 1: book The Prisoner in His Palace by Will Barton Worker.

1027
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going to go into a huge amount

1028
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: of detail here. I recommend reading that book because it's

1029
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:29,920
Speaker 1: it's filled with great anecdotes. But the gist of it is,

1030
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: these young kids, they didn't know Dictator Saddam. They didn't

1031
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: know massacring people. Saddam. They knew he had done all that,

1032
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:37,919
Speaker 1: but when they met him, he was a sweet, old

1033
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: bearded man who talked to them about their lives and

1034
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: their problems. So one of his medics, they weren't all young.

1035
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:44,960
Speaker 1: One of his medics was like a fifty one year

1036
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,879
Speaker 1: old black guy from Compton who he and Saddam kind

1037
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,359
Speaker 1: of clicked because Saddam had a rough upbringing too. They

1038
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 1: both have a lot of experiences with like violence in

1039
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: their youth. Again, this sounds like a bad movie. There's

1040
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,840
Speaker 1: a scene where that guy the medics brother dies and

1041
00:56:57,880 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: he goes over to see Saddam before he like gets

1042
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 1: flown back home to attend the funeral, and he's like,

1043
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be gone for a few days. My brother

1044
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: just died. And he's clearly broken up about it. And

1045
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 1: Saddam grabs him by the shoulders and looks him in

1046
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:10,799
Speaker 1: the eyes and says, I will be your brother. How

1047
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 1: do you politely be? Like, you know what, I'm good.

1048
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: They all liked him, They all really like, like, at

1049
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:19,959
Speaker 1: least most of them really liked him. He would smoke

1050
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 1: cigars with him, He would give them an advice on

1051
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:24,439
Speaker 1: girls and advice on life, and like he didn't seem

1052
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: like said um. He was a sweet old man to them,

1053
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: and they really dug him, like they would do nice

1054
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: stuff like find him furniture and help him set up

1055
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: his like his little cell so that he could live

1056
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: kind of nicely. He had cigars the whole time. We

1057
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: don't know who gave them to him. Someone would just

1058
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: give these soldiers money every week for Saddam cigars. Nobody

1059
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: knows who it was. It had to be someone with

1060
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 1: some clout, maybe Bush. I don't know, I don't know. Um,

1061
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,720
Speaker 1: that's I want to read that book now. It's a

1062
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 1: it's a very good book. The Prisoner in his Palace.

1063
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: Like the weird thing is that when he gets tried

1064
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: and executed on December thirty, thousand and six, Um, these

1065
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: poor kids who have been guarding him for months have

1066
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 1: to escort him to the gallows and they like him,

1067
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: and there's like tears in their eyes as they lead

1068
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:13,720
Speaker 1: him off to die, and they have to like take

1069
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,480
Speaker 1: his body back. And years later a bunch of them

1070
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,320
Speaker 1: have PTSD because of what they did with Saddam. I

1071
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:23,000
Speaker 1: guess you couldn't have predicted they would have loved Saddam.

1072
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: But you should rotate them, like, don't have the same

1073
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 1: guys with him the whole time and then make them

1074
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:32,000
Speaker 1: see him die. That's messed up. That's so and now,

1075
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: I mean, there's like so many levels to that guilt

1076
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: of like I killed my friend, but also my friend

1077
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: killed a million people, so it makes sense, and like

1078
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,600
Speaker 1: they're they're all like he was like none of them

1079
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 1: don't believe he was a monster, but they were also

1080
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 1: like and and part of it is like anyone who

1081
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 1: becomes a dictator, you're good at being charming, like you're

1082
00:58:49,720 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: good at making people like you. And yeah, like in

1083
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: a way you could say that was his last fucked

1084
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: up thing, was like making all these young American kids

1085
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: be his buddy before he gets hung in front of them,

1086
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 1: his final gaslight. Yes, final, I just want to do

1087
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 1: one more shitty thing before I do, Like, let me

1088
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:13,680
Speaker 1: just fuck twelve more people up, the last twelve people

1089
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:16,439
Speaker 1: I had access to. I just haven't given quite enough

1090
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: people PTSD. Wow. So that is the story of Saddam

1091
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: Hussein and all twelve people like copped to liking him

1092
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 1: later on, not all of them, but most of them,

1093
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: so probably all yeah, yeah, they were all pretty like

1094
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 1: nobody was like, oh he was just a monster the

1095
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:35,959
Speaker 1: whole time. Like everyone was like, he was a very nice,

1096
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 1: polite old man. I mean, they have rules like that

1097
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,080
Speaker 1: at nursing home so that like people aren't too traumatized

1098
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: when their patients die. Yeah, military probably should have called

1099
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 1: that one ahead of time. Major oversight. But I guess

1100
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 1: in theory, you're like, oh, a dictator might charm you,

1101
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 1: but when once you're that deep in casualties. You you

1102
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:58,160
Speaker 1: kind of expect them to drop the acts. Yeah, yeah,

1103
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:01,440
Speaker 1: you wouldn't. Seems like most some would. This sounds like

1104
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: an outlier. Yeah, Saddam's an outlier in a lot of ways.

1105
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 1: Um wow, yeah, Saddam Hussein. I feel weird. Yeah weird.

1106
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 1: That's that's the Saddam effect. Yeah, kind of like you

1107
01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:19,360
Speaker 1: both need a shower and a jog. Yeah, I need.

1108
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: I needed one of Saddam's weird murder jogs, murder limb.

1109
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:27,160
Speaker 1: I just got to go on a walk and shoot

1110
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: some animals. Yeah wow. All right, Um, well, Jamie, you

1111
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: wanna plug your plug doubles up? Please? I will. You

1112
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: can listen to my podcast, the beck Del Cast uh

1113
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:44,960
Speaker 1: comes out every Thursday. Uh. And you can follow me

1114
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 1: on You used to be able to follow me on

1115
01:00:46,920 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: twere now you can't. Now you can follow me on

1116
01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 1: Instagram at Jamie christ Superstar. And that's where I can

1117
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: be found fantastic Uh. Joined this next week when we

1118
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 1: will be talking about someone else terrible. I am Robert Evan.

1119
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:02,920
Speaker 1: You can find Behind the Bastards on social media at

1120
01:01:03,000 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 1: Bastards Pod. You can find us on the internet at

1121
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: www dot Behind the bastards dot com, where we'll have

1122
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 1: pictures and videos and all sorts of other content about

1123
01:01:13,120 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: these terrible people in their weird, weird lives. Uh So,

1124
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: catch me every Tuesday. I'm Robert Evans. You can find

1125
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at at I write okay to letters

1126
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 1: and um I'll be doing this every week, so be

1127
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:36,280
Speaker 1: sure to check in and learn something fascinating about someone awful. Bye.