Today has been entirely surreal. My brother Steven pounded on my door around noon (had another rough night – not feeling well) and told me to get out of bed. I was rather ticked, since it took me until around 6:30am to actually fall asleep. But then he shouted something that seemed very… strange. He said that they’d captured Saddam Hussein and that President Bush was going to speak in five minutes.

Questioning my sanity, I pulled myself out of bed, pulled on a robe, and went downstairs… where I promptly laid down on the couch and covered up with a blanket. Close as I could get to being back in my own bed. I watched the news on NBC as they showed a lovely recap of all the carnage and destruction that Saddam Hussein has wrought upon his people and his neighbors over the past few decades. It really made me wonder why they don’t explain all of that more often, i.e. just how many masses of people he has murdered since the Gulf War. And then they showed the footage of today’s Saddam – the bedraggled, dirt-encrusted, bearded, disoriented shell of a former dictator. It was surreal to say the least. I remember when I was back in Kindergarten, living in Fairfax, Virginia, and learning about what was going on in the Gulf War. My father was working on something in the Pentagon at the time, and even though I and all my peers were children, we still picked up on a lot. Especially considering the majority of the children in my class were the sons and daughters of ambassadors, government officials, and military personnel. I distinctly remember one sunny day driving around with my Mother, asking questions about what was going on in Iraq, who Saddam was, what he was guilty of, and why President Bush always mispronounced his name.

It’s strange that so many years later, he’s finally been captured. He’s in US custody. Looking at him this morning, he didn’t look quite so frightening anymore.

I don’t by any means think this will end the violence in Iraq. Honestly, I don’t think anything anyone can ever do will end the violence in the Middle East. The way I see it, the majority of people in that region have been reared in an environment rife with such hate that it seems nearly impossible to lead them out of it, to prove to them that there’s a better, easier, happier way to live.

It makes me think of my visit with the Count in Berlin. He gave me a tour of his car collection, consisting of a Jaguar, a Ferrari, an old 30’s Rolls Royce, and a Lamborghini SUV. Most of these cars were so coated in dirt, grime, and cobwebs that it was obvious the Count didn’t go joy-riding too often. As Dean and I were looking under the hood of the Lamborghini, the Count asked us wistfully if people in America drove such cars. We told him that yeah, you’d be surprised how many people are out driving nice cars, especially where we live in the DC area. We’d never seen a Lamborghini quite like this, but we’ve seen our share of $100,000+ cars cruising around.


His expression became rather melancholy. He said that his cars are left dejected and unused in the garage because never in his country could he drive any of these in safety. He told us that in all the time he has owned that beautiful and rare black Lamborghini SUV, he’s only driven it once. He took it out in his neighborhood for all of ten minutes. After parking it outside of a store for only a few minutes, he returned to find that several of the windows had been smashed in, there were scratches all over the car, and a tire had been blown. He said that despite over a decade of respite from communism, the populus that was once East Germany finds it difficult to break the mindset of jealousy, that feeling of, “If you have nice things and I don’t, you shouldn’t have them either.”

And that was just communism. I hate to say it, but does that compare to centuries of ruthless, blood-hungry dictators; warfare based on ancient tribal allegiences and vindictiveness; the gassing of thousands of innocent men, women and children; relentless religious persecution; hatred and violence so severe that it cannot even be mentioned? And this is ingrained into the minds of each new generation born in the tumultuous region. How can we even attempt to overcome a millenium of hatred? It’s going to take another millenium to achieve true peace, because only when the masses understand peace and democracy will they begin to accept it.

But, all of that said, I believe that thousand year effort is well on its way. The capture of Saddam Hussein is some of the best news I’ve heard in a very long time. He was a tyrant to end all tyrants, one that had learned how to hide beneath perfect desert camoflauge, while continuing to enact his every bloody whim. Now we just have to finish cleaning up Iraq and then move on to fixing Pakistan and other such places. Problem is, our military’s so depleted that it’s going to take us a while (thank you, President Clinton…) But, being the way we are, we’re certainly going to try our best.

Whatever way you choose to look at it, I’m glad Saddam’s days are numbered. I’m glad he won’t be returning to power. Ever. I remember being frightened of him when I was little, I’m glad to see him in a situation where he’ll be answering for all of his crimes. I’m not sure how they’re going to do that, or even if an actual trial is all that logistically sound, but either way, I know he’ll get what he deserves. Hooray for that.

On a more pleasant note, I finally got the Christmas tree all done. I put it all together finally (it’s a fake tree cause Mom’s allergic to the real stuff), I went to Target (twice) to buy decorations, and was busy until midnight finishing it all off. It was nice to go into Target and buy all new ornaments for the tree. Normally we end up pulling boxes upon boxes of old decorations out of the storage room, but none of us wanted to bother with it this year. We’re all just a bit tired and the thought of basement spelunking wasn’t very appealing. So instead I asked to be in charge of the tree, I went to Target, I spent thirty dollars, and did the whole tree. Now it looks fabulous! (At least, I think so.) I was going to take pictures, but I couldn’t find any AA batteries, so I’ll take pics tomorrow after my batteries recharge.

I think that’s everything out of me for tonight. I’m still not feeling too well. The problem is, I feel sick but I’m also hungry. I don’t know if I should eat, though, since feeling sick in this case involves a none too happy tummy. But dang it, I want waffles! 🙂 My question is, who *doesn’t* want waffles at 1:20am? 🙂