Saddam Hussein

Summary

Dominique Pagani mentions Saddam Hussein mainly as an example of media discourse. From 2015 to 2026, he repeatedly points to the phrase "Saddam Hussein defies the West" or "the Westerners". For him, it shows how vague the word is and how it opposes a realm of good to an empire of evil12. He counts him among the personalised enemies and the "devils" that the West names one after another, presented as a "new Hitler"34. He also recalls that the British promoted him as a "good killer of communists"5. Without counting him on his own side, he stresses that Iraq was a secular country, that its leader did not put religion at the centre and that he was targeted by Bin Laden and then by NATO67. He grants that the regime was repressive, but judges that Atlanticism did ten times worse in Iraq. Finally, he cites the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist and the empty appeal to "our values" used to justify the aggression.

1. 1Mythology and truth8 Aug 2015 · 19:47
2. 2#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 57:52
3. 3The music of history26 Apr 2015 · 1:06:57
4. 4#12 From Kafka to Proust, the dialectical passage from the intermezzo to the perpetuated edge7 Apr 2022 · 2:19:46
5. 5Money, work, freedom3 Aug 2019 · 17:35
6. 6#3.3 From Ulysses to Daedalus1 Aug 2017 · 1:20:13
7. 7Niger special: should we “blacken the corpses”?7 Aug 2023 · 1:10:33

Summary produced automatically from 18 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.