Like many former apologists for Soviet terror, the British lefty, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, has a soft spot for Saddam Hussein. His interview with the monster will surely rank high up there in the annals of moral obtuseness along with Jimmy Carter’s fellatial interactions with various mass murderers. Will Benn get a Nobel next? Maybe he should just get an Oscar. How, after all, do you keep a straight face when Saddam says, “Most Iraqi officials have been in power for over 34 years and have experience of dealing with the outside world. Every fair-minded person knows that when Iraqi officials say something, they are trustworthy.” And how do you have an interview with the big guy from Tikrit without mentioning the invasion of Kuwait? Still, it was good to see Saddam embrace the “peace movement,” and send them his encouragement. He knows their usefulness to his barbarism. The best antidote is the following spoof in the Guardian of all places. Even they can’t take this old aristocratic Stalinist seriously. Here’s a taste:
TB: America goes to war where there’s an oil interest, as we did in the Falklands, because the Falklands was an oil war – there’s more oil around the Falklands than there is around the United Kingdom. And, of course, some companies are now bigger than nation states. Ford is bigger than South Africa. Toyota is bigger than Norway.
SH: Bigger than Norway?
TB: Bigger than Norway. And I do not want a world which is safe only for oil companies and motor companies, but which is dangerous for my grandchildren. SH: I too am a grandfather. I too think of my grandchildren, Raghda and Rana’s fatherless children.
TB: Fatherless? What happened to their fathers?
SH: I shot them. But there were others I didn’t personally shoot, you understand. Family gatherings in our country can sometimes become, how do you say, over-exuberant.
Irrational exuberance, Saddam-style.
The Dish 