December 27, 2003
True Humiliation

Those who accuse the U.S. of mistreating or humiliating Saddam Hussein don't seem to have noticed how little humiliation has been applied so far. It would have been easy enough to shave off the mustache along with the beard. However spurious, a claim of medical necessity would have sounded plausible: it certainly looked as if the mustache harbored fleas, lice, ticks, or all three. A full-fledged Curly Stooge haircut would also have been hygienically and penologically appropriate.

Didn't 'Comical Ali' curse people's mustaches when they annoyed him? It appears that a clean-shaven Iraqi is only half a man, and the U.S. has spared Hussein that humiliation, even restoring him to his pre-war beardless-but-mustachioed condition. Of course, that may not have been from the goodness of our hearts so much as to prove to Iraqis that the man in custody was really Hussein.

Posted by Dr. Weevil at December 27, 2003 01:29 AM
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