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The Convenient Silencing of Saddam Hussein

No one should be surprised that Saddam Hussein would be convicted of a war crime, but the particular crime for which he was to be executed was an odd choice, to say the least. The torture and killing of over 100 people in the village of Dujail in reprisal for a presidential assassination attempt by Iranian sympathizers early in the Iran-Iraq war was certainly cruel and unjust, but hardly atypical of war. Collective punishment of towns considered treasonous has been a staple of warfare, and over the last few decades it has been practically a standard counter-terrorist policy of the Israeli state. The U.S., for its part, willingly tolerates the “collateral” loss of thousands of innocent lives in the pursuit of a supposed greater good, such as its own security, so it is hard to see why one would begrudge Saddam a mere hundred reprisal killings.

It is true that this case had the advantage of a clearer trail of direct presidential culpability, but there were far better cases from which to choose in this regard, without the clouding circumstances of war with Iran and an attack on a head of state. For example, during a televised purge of the Baath party, Saddam read names of those who had fallen out of favor, and they were led out to be executed. The footage of this purge exists, and provides unambiguous evidence of purely political executions. Unfortunately, the victims are Sunni and Baath, and the war crimes tribunals were concerned only with crimes against the Kurds and Shiites now in power, the same groups who supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.

The Dujail massacre has another advantage, in that it occurred before the U.S. lent its overt support to Saddam’s regime. Through most of the Iran-Iraq war, the United States had removed Iraq from its list of terrorist states and allowed American companies to sell the materials needed for chemical weapons. The U.S. provided aerial intelligence to help Saddam select Iranian targets, several of which were struck with chemical weapons. The American press showed little sympathy for the gassing of Iranians, but there was outrage toward the 1988 gassing of Kurds, which the Reagan administration met with only a terse statement of disapproval, but no sanctions.

It was during this period that Saddam committed his greatest crimes and earned his reputation for monstrous cruelty. This would have been the more obvious period to find a case that typified his crimes, but this would have been a disaster for the U.S. Saddam’s Western lawyers could no doubt have called upon Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and others who aided and abetted Saddam’s genocidal war against the Iranians and their allies in Iraq. The same people who claim that Saddam killed hundreds of thousands neglect to mention that the only way to arrive at such a large figure is to include the Iranian casualties in a war where the U.S. overtly supported Iraq. Naturally, Saddam’s American co-conspirators would have declined to testify, but the public relations damage to this increasingly discredited administration could have been disastrous.

Not that this administration necessarily responds to public opinion. Saddam’s execution has no doubt inspired some more fist-pumping at the White House, and rehabilitated the delusion that success in Iraq can be achieved by an escalation of force deployment. Although President Bush claims the goal is to democratize Iraq, this was an after-the-fact improvisation made necessary by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. The goal in Iraq since the Clinton administration, long before 9/11, has been regime change. If the goal had been security, there would have been no reason for de-Baathification and the wholesale disbanding of the Iraqi army. Those ill-conceived policies (belatedly and partially reversed under Bremer) are the principal reason for the security failure and economic disaster in Iraq, and have made success in those areas practically impossible, as it requires the construction of a modern government from scratch. The failure of Iraq is a legacy of the policy of regime change and the ends-justify-the-means mentality that has prevailed at the policy-making level at the Pentagon and in the White House.

With the death of Saddam Hussein, regime change is complete; that is the only “mission” the U.S. intended to “accomplish” anyway. The socialist structure of Iraq has been dismantled, and restrictions on foreign ownership have been eased, to allow lucrative reconstruction contracts. Careful students of modern history know that the Cold War was about defending capitalism rather than democracy, as the West supported business-friendly dictators and opposed socialism even when it was the product of free elections. The idea that “the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power” seems unassailable in principle, but the reality in Iraq makes that proposition more doubtful by the day. At any rate, that oft-repeated Bush/Blair mantra simply reiterates the morally bankrupt ends-justify-the-means mentality that destroyed a nation in order to “save” it.

Pro Multis: What’s in a Word?

A seemingly minor piece of news may foretell a shift of emphasis in Catholic culture, as the Vatican has ruled that the formula for consecration of wine at Mass must be translated “for many” rather than “for all”. The traditional Roman liturgy, as well as all the ancient eastern liturgies, follows the Gospels in declaring that the blood of the New Covenant would be shed “for many, unto the remission of sins.” This move will please those traditionalists who have questioned the legitimacy and even the validity of the “for all” consecration used in many vernacular Masses, and it comes on the heel of rumors that the Pope will issue a universal indult for the practice of the traditional Roman liturgy.

This reaffirmation of tradition undermines two aspects of the “progressive” liturgical enterprise: historical criticism and linguistics. Modern liturgists have often rationalized their novelties as restorations of primitive Christianity, prior to the accretions of the medieval and Tridentine periods. This pseudo-traditionalism has all the credibility of a man who would honor his grandfather by disparaging his father, and more pertinently, it is often unsubstantiated by historical fact. In the case at hand, the advocates of the “for all” translation speculate that the original Aramaic word (conveniently lost to history) could have had this meaning, despite the fact that the Evangelists (including Aramaic-speaking Mark) render it in Greek as polloi, not pantes. Moreover, the context, “shed for you and for many, unto the remission of sins,” suggests restriction to those whose sins are remitted. As a matter of liturgical history, all the ancient rites of the east and west use “for many” in the consecration. In the face of this evidence, we can conclude that advocates of the erroneous translation are motivated less by the dictates of exegesis and historical criticism than by a favoritism for a more inclusive-sounding theology.

The Holy See is also insisting on a more literal rendering of the editio typica of the Roman liturgy, which is in Latin. Notwithstanding the speculations about Aramaic, the authoritative version of the Roman liturgy is in Latin, which renders the consecration formula, “pro multis.” All vernacular translations are supposed to be faithful to this edition, and no one can credibly argue that “for all” is an accurate translation of the Latin. It is not the task of the translator to second-guess the Latin version and return to the supposed original source in Aramaic, but only to translate the Latin as it reads. The current Roman liturgy is actually closer to the traditional liturgy than many English-speakers realize, owing to the distorted and paraphrased English translations. This effective usurpation of authority over the text of the Mass by liturgical translators can be expected to recede over the next few years.

Cardinal Arinze expressed the view that teaching how Christ’s sacrifice is intended “for all,” though effective only “for many,” is a subject for catechesis, not liturgy. This amounts to a refutation of any rationalistic, social engineering model of liturgy. The liturgical reform proposed before and during the Second Vatican Council was intended to renew some apostolic forms that had been lost through the centuries and eliminate some redundancies, but in a way that was respectful of received forms. Many of the reform generation, unfortunately, had insufficient reverence for tradition as such, and to some extent directed the liturgy away from the eternal God, and more toward the supposed “needs of the people,” evincing a profound failure to understand the basic function of liturgy and ritual. This well-intentioned, well-planned liturgy has never been as aesthetically endearing as the old, for the simple reason that culture cannot be synthesized. Like most “progressive” artifacts of the sixties and seventies, the liturgical aesthetic from that period already seems dated, so many churches have traded their aesthetic heritage in exchange for kitsch. The Vatican’s present inclination is to restore some of what was heedlessly discarded, so that the Church may engage modern culture, yet retain an authentic culture of its own.

The Regulation of Trans Fats

New York City has decided to ban trans fats from being served in restaurants, prompting the usual libertarian argument that this limits consumer choice, as if any consumer would choose trans fats if given a real choice. Trans fats are a serious health liability and add absolutely nothing to flavor. They simply extend shelf-life, so they are a benefit to the producer and the retailer, not the consumer. The consumer’s health is the collateral damage resulting from the manufacturer’s desire to maximize profit. At best, the consumer may benefit indirectly from a slight reduction in the price of goods, but this variation in retail value has been found to be negligible.

Libertarians would have us recoil in horror from the “nanny state” preventing restaurants from serving trans fats, as if this were an affront to liberty, but instead would allow businesses to poison their customers (who never know the trans fat content of the food served) as if this were a sign of freedom. When consumers have no knowledge or control over the content of their food, it is difficult to see how they are acting freely. Given the opportunity, many businesses will poison their customers to the maximum extent permitted by law, which is why the FDA came into existence in the first place. Far from being advocates of freedom, the libertarians would make us slaves to the whims of unscrupulous businesses who would hydrogenate harmless fats into killer fats in order to maximize shelf-life. This is but a minor example of the greater fallacy of libertarianism: that government regulation is evil, but the same level of coercion from business is good. While the tyranny of the state is to be feared, it is no greater freedom to be at the mercy of private enterprise.