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Big Disclaimer: Before I carry on, I'd like to make it absolutely clear I was not in any way in favor of Iraq's invasion led by the US and never believed propaganda about WMD for a single second. I never bought the bit about them wanting to remove dictators once WMDs turned out to be a complete hoax either. It is abundantly clear today that removing dictators for its own sake is not even close to being on the US foreign policy agenda.
Good. Now that we have that out of the way, I have to say every Arab dictator speech brings back fond memories of Baghdad Bob. Remember him? He was funny as hell. I am talking about Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf who was Iraq's "information" minister during the 2003 invasion of his country. We're using the word "information" in a rather generous manner here, but we might as well so as to give the guy credit for services rendered above and beyond the call of duty, reason, logic, and several other things.
This guy was amazing. He was still mouthing off and making ballsy speeches when armor elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division were rolling into Baghdad. We I saw his final speech I was half expecting him to get tackled to the ground any minute now in mid-sentence. You could see armor maneuvering in the distance behind him as he was saying everything was fine and the infidels were toast.
During recent events, I couldn't help thinking of this guy as I watched dictators make unfortunate speeches in attempts to threaten their population and make like everything is under control even after the point of no return has been crossed by a long way. Their discourse becomes totally disconnected from reality and part of us almost wants to feel sorry for them. (I said "almost".)
What is far from funny, of course, is what those dictators are doing to their population. If it weren't for that, it would be pure comedy.
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