When Saddam Hussein died, there wasn’t a lot of reminiscing going on. People had been talking about his life, his political and military career and his country, Iraq, for years already. When Johnny Carson died, people told a lot of stories about his life and his closest friends mourned him, people got together and had some TV special in his honor. Nobody was really giving a shit about him while he was alive, but when he finally passed away he captivated the thoughts of thousands. There was an article on Time magazine about his passing, a whole page obituary dedicated to a man that had not been mentioned in the publication for years.
The opposite happened to Saddam. His face was printed all over the major news outlets across the world, only furthering his legacy as the last great dictator of the modern world. This man held a standing confrontation with the United States for almost twenty years and went on untouched. Diplomacy had kept him well protected behind invisible walls of civil laws and historical precedent, safely ruling his country. It took some controversial actions by a force greater than the rest of the world combined to finally bring the man down, leaving behind his palaces to be used as American military bases.
He was stuck in a lengthy trial process for years, was prosecuted for innumerable crimes against humanity, and was finally hanged from a rope. A sneaky cell phone, a postmark of the new millennium, captured the hanging. But when his body stopped shaking, very few people mourned for him or spoke of his life. His face did not capture news headlines any longer, and nobody gave a shit. People did to Saddam before he passed away what they had done to Johnny Carson after he passed away.
