GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Dec. 18, 2003 -- Beasts of Terror like Saddam Hussein are everywhere.   Some stand out more than others, but all employ the same three fundamental tactics--Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.

     We have heaped the sum of Terrorism upon Saddam's head, but his crimes against humanity can be found in the footprints of all who use the Triads of Terrorism--Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--to rule others.
       The parent who won't hug his or her child, or shouts:  "Shut up, I'm busy," is a shadow Saddam.    The torture to the child may not appear as outward welts, bruises, scars he or she wears to school or around the neighborhood, but deep inside the child, in the "spider hole of its own Terrorism," the child's soul shrieks in silent pain.   Tears of anguish fall on parched soul soil, sucked up as quickly as they strike.
       Currently, the world is watching the torture of Saddam Hussein unfold.   The goal is to get Saddam to finger his accomplices, to rat out his sidekicks so we might line them up in a neat row and hang or shoot them all, as though to punctuate the "end of Terrorism."
       But, is Saddam's torture and his eventual death the solution to Terrorism or only a big festering boil, symbol of its ripeness on this earth?

       What if the capture and torture of Saddam Hussein is nothing more than a measure of knowledge that we all need to consume that we can be, and maybe are, Terrorists of Saddam's ilk, each of varying degrees of inhumanity, to our children and loved ones, to our fellow citizens, to our fellow workers?
       How many Saddam Hussein's have you worked for?  How many "bosses" have treated you or others like "scum of the earth?"   
       How many people have abused you?   Taken advantage of your trust, your love, your faith in them, kicking you like a mangy dog, laughing at you, lying to you?
       Terrorism?    How much of it lives in daily life, issued by others directly or indirectly at you?
       What about the managers of retirement funds who steal away the life savings of investors?   Who kill dreams of being financially secure while feathering their own bed?   Are they Saddam Hussein Shadows?
       What about husbands and wives?    What about the destruction of love, the bombing of mutual respect between two people?    Fifty percent of all marriages in America end in divorce--a Terrorizing event for many that ends in emotional bloodshed just as painful as a suicide bomb exploding in a schoolyard or crowded department store.

       And what about the Saddam Hussein parents--the mother or father or combination who treat the children with such disrespect and violence of both physical and emotional degree that the child grows into a ball of hatred of itself and others.  The child hides in a "spider hole" as Saddam did, frightened that the maker of the footsteps above will uncover the hiding place and place him or her into the torture chamber, beating the child with words and whipping until he or she surrenders all his or her will, humanity over to the captor?

        What about political Terrorism?    What about the trust placed in leaders to do what is right for us, only to believe we have been victimized by false platforms when we find out the promises were broken and that self-seeking replaced public relations?
        Then there is the Church.    We find that the people to whom we entrust the souls and sanctity of our children have taken our children down dark paths, robbed them of their innocence, raped and pillaged their purity under the guise of guardianship?
        Saddam Hussein is many of us, living in many spider holes, in many different lands, wearing many different disguises.

       When we look at him, Saddam the Butcher of Baghdad, it is easy to finger-point.   It is easy to heap upon his head all the Terror of all the Terrorists who have ever Terrorized any of us.  It is easy to spill his blood as though it were the blood of our abusers.
        One of my great Terrorists, my great Saddam Hussein, was a high school teacher named Mr. Pitcher in Rapid City, South Dakota.   I was taking Trigonometry and he took me aside after class and put his arm around me and said:  "Cliff, you are not smart enough to go to college.   You shouldn't be in this class.   You're not going to be anybody special.  I think you should take auto mechanics, not advanced math.   At least you'll learn something you can use."
          What right does a teacher have to destroy the dreams of a child?
          What right does a parent have to not hug or love his or her child?
          What right does a employer have to berate another employee in front of others, humiliating them on a personal basis?
          What right does a husband or wife have to fight and argue and call each other vile and corrupt names in front of their children?

       Terrorism has many fingers attached to a thousand hands.   It touches us all in the way a spider's web is spun, from countless angles.   Terrorism, like the spider's web, is sticky.  It tends to attach itself to us, and we pass it on--sometimes totally unaware we are mirrors of the Terrorist who Terrorized us, mere shadows of Saddam Hussein.
            We are torturing Saddam Hussein today.   The greatest of all tortures for someone like Saddam is stripping him of power and prestige.   He is now a "street person," a beggar who waits for the alms of his captors.
             How many of us have "wished" we could reverse the roles of our tormentors--and made them into our prisoners to issue to them the same forms of violence and tyranny they heaped upon us, or we imagined they did.
           Today's news shows Saddam's victims getting into his "face," tormenting the tormentor.   The King of Brutality is now the victim of his seeds of Terror.
           But, there is one torture far more brutal than the CIA or any of the adults who are shoving their faces into Saddam's can offer.
           They are the children of  Iraq.

           Perhaps the greatest torture to Saddam is to have the children of all the people Saddam Terrorized sit in a room with him and just stare at a living Beast of Terror.   Zoos are designed for children to see "wild beasts" tamed by civilization.
          Such a zoo is appropriate for Saddam, for children need to realize that the Terrorists who issue upon them emotional and physical agony throughout their lives are nothing more than caged animals, as Saddam is today.
          Children need to understand that Fear, Intimidation and Complacency are states of mind that can be changed.  The brutality of an adult over a child--emotional or physical--changes as the child grows larger, older, wiser.
           Eventually, the child either avoids such Terrorist behavior as was delivered upon him or her, or, becomes the mirror of it to his or her own children.
           If we put Saddam in a zoo, listing all the crimes he committed against humanity, and next to him displayed the "perfect parent" we would see the difference between a parent who used Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to rule, and the other who used Courage, Conviction and Right Actions that benefit the Children's Children's Children to help others evolve.
          The difference would be obvious to the children.   They would know that the Beast of Terror within them, or that inside those who Terrorize them, belongs behind bars.  They would know there is a way out of becoming their abusers.

         The torture of anyone is the belief that nothing will change.   Physical torture assumes that the pain will never end.  Emotional torture assumes the feeling of emptiness, uselessness, sadness, loneliness, unworthiness will never end.
          Vigilance says that isn't true.   Courage can overpower Fear, Conviction can undermine Intimidation, and Right Actions for the Children's Children's Children can change the present in behalf of the future, destroying Complacency and the sense that life is futile, a rut, an empty hole like the spider hole Saddam ended up in.
          Saddam Hussein may be looked upon by many as a war criminal whose quick prosecution and death will signal some end or halt in Terrorism.
          But the real value of Saddam Hussein is keeping him alive for the children to study.  If they can see the Beast of Terror and learn that he is impotent, that his power of them is null and void, perhaps they will see that the Beasts of Terror who they think rule their lives are nothing more than Saddam Husseins.
          However, if we erase Saddam from sight and bury him in a hole in the ground, we miss the real value he offers.       

          He needs to be displayed in the Zoo of Vigilance, in the cage of the Beast of Terror.  And next to him needs to be another cage without bars for the Parent of Vigilance.    Let the children see both, compare both.
         Let the children chose to use the Beast of Terror as a reason to evolve above life's Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   Killing Saddam will be an act of Complacency, an act of removing a wart but not its cause.
         If there is a great torture for Saddam, it would be to make him sign the Pledge of Vigilance and try and live by it.    Should he be able to change from the Beast of Terror into a Parent of Vigilance, he would remind the world that the Beast in all of us can be beaten.
           

Dec. 17--Interview With Saddam Hussein In His Rat Hole

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