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Messing with their minds Don't Delay -- Revolt Today!By Rick Horowitz
You're a top Iraqi and you're sitting in your top-Iraqi office in Baghdad, just minding your own business, when the phone rings. Not your official phone, the one that's perched big and button-full on the corner of your desk, but your cell phone, the little private one you keep tucked away in your trousers for those special calls. You flip it open, hold it to your ear, and a voice you've never heard before tells you to take down Saddam. You slam the phone shut and jam it into your briefcase. Then you look around you to see if anyone else has seen or heard even a bit of this. The coast is clear (or so you convince yourself), and you try to forget about the call and go back to doing what you were doing. You're a top Iraqi a day or two later, and your cell phone rings again. You open it absent-mindedly, and it's the same voice. Saddam is doomed, the voice tells you -- why let Saddam destroy you, too? "A wrong number," you tell the voice. "Goodbye!" Except, of course, that it's not a wrong number. The voice has addressed you by name, the name no one calls you but those who know you well. How did they learn that name? you wonder, and where did they get this number? Almost no one knows this number. These Americans, with all their psychological warfare, are more clever than you suspected. Defeating them and turning back their evil designs will take an even greater exertion than you and your colleagues had calculated. Still, your confidence remains high. Iraq has a glorious history, and under the noble leadership of Saddam Hussein, the greatest glories are yet to come. This is no time to be fainthearted. You feel equally resolute in the days that follow, though you can't help noticing your computer filling up with e-mail messages of a decidedly negative tone. Abandon Saddam, they urge you. Save yourself and your people. It's easy to press the "Delete" key, somewhat harder to erase all these messages from your memory. But you're more determined than ever to prevail. The utter arrogance of the Americans, you fume, with their plans for running Iraq after the war -- a war that, at least officially, hasn't even started yet. What if you pulled a stunt like that? you wonder. What if you announced how America will be governed after America is defeated? Wouldn't that shake them out of their swagger? You're a top Iraqi and you're deep into your reverie when your cell phone rings again. You consider letting it ring itself out, then recognize the utter impossibility of doing so. It could be something vital -- it might even be His Excellency himself -- so you reach for the phone. Saddam has shown contempt for you, the voice declares; you owe Saddam nothing. "Stay away!" you hiss into the mouthpiece, and again, for good measure: "Stay away!" You decide that you'll report it, the calls and the e-mail alike. Those even higher up the ladder of command must know. But then you hesitate -- how will they take the news? Of all the top Iraqis, they may wonder, why have the Americans seen fit to test your loyalty? Is there weakness there that demands further scrutiny? Surely it would be better to keep the information to yourself. Yet what if it's a ruse? What if it's Saddam who's behind the calls and the messages, Saddam who's testing you to see how you'll react? Isn't the proper course the forthright course? To report all these approaches to the proper authorities? But it might be too late for that. What if the time to report these calls and messages was when the very first of them occurred? If that's the case, you realize, you've failed the test. You're already doomed. You're a top Iraqi sitting in your top-Iraqi office in Baghdad and you've never felt so isolated. Your cell phone rings again. You flip it open, and you hold it to your ear. Posted 2/25/03. You'll
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Rick Horowitz
