The Kremlin’s Western mouthpiece, RT, has just reached peak RT.
The following RT segment is from an interview with Saddam Hussein’s granddaughter Hareer Hussein Kamel regarding her new book on Iraq.
‘Iraq’s history has been distorted, my family discredited’ – Saddam’s granddaughter to RT https://t.co/xtVbZtB4Jh pic.twitter.com/Qig8zRRqIP
— RT (@RT_com) April 8, 2019
Kamel actually starts well in calling for a greater public recording of Iraqi history. After all, Iraq has a storied and important history. The territory that now makes up Iraq has been home to many powerful civilizations, extraordinary culture, and great and terrible battles. And in the 20th and 21st centuries, Iraq has encapsulated the reverberations among colonialism, monarchy, dictatorship, democracy, and modernity.
But Kamel ruins it with some Orwellian Newspeak. “I decided,” she said, “to tell the story of my family, which people have tried to discredit. The truth is made up of lots of parts.”
No, it really isn’t. The truth of Saddam Hussein’s rule is one of absolute clarity. It is a tale of entire towns gassed to death, of the annihilation of the Marsh Arabs, of the subjugation of Iraq’s Shia population, of cronyism and corruption as institutions of governance, of invasions and wars that cost millions of lives. It’s also a story of kidnapping, torture, murder, and mass graves that make ISIS war crimes look quaint.
Kamel may find some support within the Sunni Arab constituency that still regards Saddam Hussein as a hero. But I suspect there’s a simple explanation for why she’s receiving such publicity. Like the network she’s appearing on, Kamel is a master of delusion. Take her Instagram profile, for example, which offers an odd mix of private jet posing and affectionate photos of her psychotic uncle Uday Hussein. Uday is no longer with us, having been shot quite a few times by various arms of the U.S. Army back in 2003.
Anyway, I look forward to not reading Kamel’s Saddam Hussein fan fiction.
