Innocence In Mark Bowden's Tales Of The Tyrant

Our human nature requires us to be products of our environment. If someone grows up in a house that appreciates art, those that grow in the house are likely to inherit that trait as well. Those that grow up in tribal society are likely to hold those tendencies for the rest of their life too. As we see in Mark Bowden’s “Tales of the Tyrant” in this tribal way of life people live independently; they need not work with others, because they only have themselves. Saddam Hussein did not know how to civilly operate with others around once he rose to great power; so he was forced to use his village mentality where violence is the rule of law, thus leading to his intense and irrational cruelty. Some would like to argue that it was actually his Hussein’s realization that such power existed that corrupted him. They think that he wishes to return Iraq to a historical age of glory. But the real history that is important is that of the beginning of his life. In the essay Bowden recounts an interview with a journalist named Saad al-Bazzaz in which al-Bazzaz discusses the root of all of this evil. But before one understands what al-Bazzaz discusses, the reader first needs to know about Hussein’s very early childhood background. His father left before he was born, his

He notes many things, among them are: ten references to isolation or “being on your own,” sanguinary nature of politics and law in the village, and loyalty over everything to the tribe and family. Saad al-Bazzaz explains that “Those who grew up in the villages are afraid of everything.” No could expect a person with such a mentality to run a herd as large as a nation with such simplistic tendencies. This is all that Hussein knew. This twisted moral code was what guided him beyond his sheepherder’s beginning. It’s these seemingly benign, but really savage polices that he took into the highest office of