Saddham Hussein: Not Yet Uhuru



So Saddham Hussein--the "sadman of Iraq," murderer, and possessor of weapons of mass destruction--is finally caught like a rat. He was hiding in a "spider hole," in a farm near his hometown of Tikrit, not far from one of the palatial palaces that he had built for himself by the River Tigris. And everyone is raising a high five and slapping each other's back with the misguided belief that they have begun to see light at the end of the tunnel.

They say that the road to Jerusalem and in fact to world peace, starts from Baghdad. And now that the erstwhile leader of the "evil regime" has been nabbed, should they not roll out the ukulele and begin to celebrate the end of terrorism, weapons of mass murder, and mass graves? But no--not yet "uhuru," a East African word for freedom. And not yet eureka. Because the worst is still to come.

This is the message that I am sending out to the powers that be with my controversial book, "CHASING SHADOWS!" (A book that reveals the terrorists' master plan to finally set the world on fire!) So 9/11 may well be a picnic at the beach--a tip of the iceberg. Because those very factors that cause terrorism--the political, economic, social, religious, health, and environmental problems bedeviling the world--are still present, and there has not been any conscious effort to address them. We are, therefore, chasing shadows--fighting the effect instead of the cause, the symptom and not the disease.

According to the American thinker, George Santayana, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The fact is that man is short sighted. Neither Saddham Hussein nor Osama bin Laden, is the originator of terrorism. This evil has been around for some 6,000 years, and world conditions have been getting worse with the passing of the day.

Dictators have existed throughout history. From the industrialized Europe to the impoverished Latin Americas. From the "Banana" republics of Asia to the "failed states" of Africa. Some have passed on and others have clung on to power for decades. And new ones will emerge.

Let us reason this together. Despite the fact that criminals such as murderers, rapists, and robbers have been jailed or given the death penalty, records show that violence has been on the increase. In the United States alone, a serious crime is committed on the average about every second. That means at the end of the 6 minutes that it would take you to read this, about 360 persons may have either been robbed, raped, or murdered. Saddening.

Take another example. World War I has variously been described as "the total war," "a turning point in history," "the day the world went mad," "the end of the world." Writer Ernest Hemingway called it "the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth."

Yet, that did not prevent World War II and the 55 million souls that went with it. Nor has it prevented the more than 100 million lives that have died in over 150 wars since 1914. Nor did it prevent the "madness" of Sarajevo in Bosnia, or the "ethnic cleansing" in Burundi and Rwanda, or the "new war" on terror. Nor has it prevented the 12 wars that are going on around the world this very day!

So the bottomline is that the hanging of Saddham or Osama will never stop terrorism, nor will it make the world a safer place. Another Saddham, another Osama, will rise tomorrow. The quest for "uhuru" or "kwacha," the dawn, would turn out a dream, unless we address the imbalances that precipitate terrorism, now. Otherwise we would wake up tomorrow and see the UN building on fire. Or behold the world in total darkness. Or begin to drop dead because of a mysterious plague, or worse, a nuclear bomb. (No thanks to the terrorists.)

"Where were you when the world stopped turning?" is the lyric of a song by a musician in remembrance of the collapsed Twin Towers. Dancers took to the dance floors, and the song went to top the music chart show. That was good.

But by the time the terrorists actually prepare for the show - down, there will be no musicians and dancers to celebrate the world