War is crime, but this is the manly crime defying effeminate mores and rigid society. The most convinced pacifist can be carried away by the sight of charging cavalry, attacking troops, roaring tanks and fighter jets taking off a desert strip. Not in vain, women admired warriors, poets sung their mighty deeds, and priests anointed their heads. We can fetch a Roman adage or a Koranic verse, a line from Shakespeare or Nietzsche to praise a leader of men and disregard the costs of war. We can forgive a bloodshed, it's sordid affairs that can't ever be forgiven.

Murder of the deposed Arab ruler's young sons is the ultimate sordid crime of President Bush. It transformed him from a fool into a villain, from the dubious vanquisher of a disarmed state into a vile murderer, from a deceiver into a bloody crook, from the vainglorious chieftain on board of the aircraft carrier into a vicious monster. Whatever we think of Saddam Hussein, cynical and cruel murder of his sons is an abysmal collapse into archaic mode. This is worse than Napoleon's murder of young Duc d'Enghien, worse than the crimes of Richard III. Stalin and Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt killed millions, but they did not hunt down children of their adversaries.

If the president would tear their noble hearts and gobble them dripping blood on his starched shirt he would not be more disgusting. It is a moral collapse of the ruling class: his schools, Harvard and Yale, once aristocratic breeding ground of American gentlemen, reached moral nadir under the guidance of Lawrence Summers the Platitudinous, Samuel Huntington the Trivial, Leo Strauss the Godless and Alan Dershowitz the Torturer. Probably Sing Sing would produce a more suitable ruling class at lesser cost.

It is a moral collapse of the army. Hundreds of heavily armed American soldiers who participated in the execution brought shame on themselves and the Armed Forces. Copycatting the Israeli assassins, they shot missiles at unprotected men. They are not soldiers anymore, their place is with hangmen. Their cowardly deed will delegate them into lower recesses of Hell, within a shouting distance from Judas.

It is a moral collapse of the media. This docile tool of Empire stepped into moral abyss beyond the cowardly murder. TV pundits discussed price of blood in dollars and shekels, they argued whether the murder will put paid to the Iraqi resistance. The TV screens were turned into stakes posting the bloodied heads of two handsome young men, a scary sight, but even scarier was the joyous crowd of brokers and investors at Wall Street, celebrating the Dow Jones' rise by guzzling Arab blood. It was not the first vicious murder in mankind's history; but the first one met with equanimity; a bloody sacrifice to Mammon. The healing spasm of moral disgust did not shake the sick society.

The dead and torn body of the fourteen-year-old boy, a grandchild of Saddam Hussein, will haunt Bush whenever he looks at his own children and grandchildren, like Banquo's bloody ghost on Macbeth's feast. Indeed, the Texan killer of Hussein's sons is but a remorseless replica of the Scottish murderer of Macduff's sons.

In a Christian land he would be excommunicated, for a vengeful murderer of his enemies' children has no place in Kingdom of Christ. Not in vain he befriended Sharon and Perle who are used to laud murder of Haman's children at the feast of Purim.

Noble and brave, the sons of Saddam Hussein did not escape to a faraway land; they did not pocket billions for surrender, they did not lounge in Minsk or Riyadh as the dishonest mainstream media suggested. The Young Lions of Baghdad, they fought the superior forces of aggressor, and fell defending their homeland. Kusai and Udai were together in their lives; and in their death they were not divided. They will be forever cherished in the collective memory of mankind, with other tragic and courageous fighters against the Empire from Vercingetorix the Gaul to the Sioux chief Sitting Bull, from Che Guevara of Santa Clara to Abdel Kader al Husseini of Qastal. Their last stand and their death redeemed Iraq and returned self esteem to the Arabs. They died in flesh but remained alive in spirit; their murderers are but living dead. When the Middle East will regain its independence, their names will be written on the precious porphyry of our monuments.

Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalist based in Jaffa. His articles can be found on the site www.israelshamir.net. In order to subscribe to this list please send blank email to shamireaders-subscribe@yahoogroups.com You may freely display this article on the Web or forward it, but ask for permission in order to publish as hard copy.

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Comment
Alton Raines
7-25-03

This is so slanted it's ridiculous. Both of Saddam's sons held high ranking positions and even ran whole departments within the Baath party and army, including officially sanctioned divisions devoted to torture and rape. Who does this guy think he's foolin'? It is ridiculous to make it sound like Uday and Qusay were uninvolved innocents who were hunted down and killed for simply being related to Saddam. In fact, it's simply a ridiculous lie. And it's one we're going to continue hearing, apparently, for months to come. Bush and company do enough legitimate evil to report on, why can't people just stick to the cold hard facts? It makes reasoned protest look equally twisted and politically dishonest.