"A member of Saddam's ruthless Republican Guards was "a good man" until he was taught torture by Americans? Say what?
If Lost was veering towards the preposterous, now we've gone wholesale into some kind of Howard Dean fantasy! Here's how this twist is covered by the Feb. 27, 2006 issue of the conservative Weekly Standard:
Get Lost
The tropical island at the center of ABC's hit show Lost features a number of curiosities: Polar bears appear and disappear, a group of mysterious "others" are slowly picking off the survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, and a sinister black cloud races around the island, terrifying our protagonists. Oh, and there's an Iraqi torturer stuck on the island who was taught his monstrous trade by American troops during the first Gulf war.
In a flashback during last week's episode, we learn that our sympathetic Iraqi character was forced by an American soldier to torture a fellow Iraqi for information about a downed American chopper pilot. As he informs one of the "others" prior to beating him to a bloody pulp, "I was 23 years old when the Americans came to my country. I was a good man. I was a soldier. And when they left--I was something different. For the next six years, I did things I wish I could erase from my memory--things which I never thought myself to be capable of. . . . You want to know who I am? My name is Sayid Jarrah. And I am a torturer."
You see? Saddam's Republican guard was not full of psychotic, torturing madmen until the Americans showed up to teach them the tricks of the trade in 1991. Sounds like Al Gore's been moonlighting as a screenwriter. "
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03-31-2006
