Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

Weekend Edition August 28-30, 2004

The Better Leader Lets You Live

Big Men

by DIANE CHRISTIAN

In ancient Sumer, Iraq 5000 years ago, ruling councils sometimes sought a lugal (big man) to lead armed fight in times of crisis and danger. Scholars think eventually these big men became kings, and civil and military power merged. Saddam Hussein consciously copied the strongman style of Joseph Stalin and was pleased to be regarded as a brutal big man. Though he had himself painted astride a white horse like the Islamic warrior Saladin, he was more often shown brandishing a rifle. Leader photo poses are revealing.

The Grand Ayatollah Sistani (usually pictured serious and prayerful, usually speaking against violence) got Moktada al-Sadr’s followers to put down their rifles and weapons and separate from the holy shrine in Najaf. Sistani’s power was greater in the faceoff siege than that of weapon-brandishing rebels, threatening Iraqi police forces, and the most heavily armed military in the world-the US Marines.

Sistani today is regarded as the most powerful man in Iraq. He prefers to separate religion and politics and refuses roles in the government. When he called on Shia faithful to march with him to liberate Najaf he instructed followers to enter the shrine unarmed and called on the al-Sadr forces to lay down their arms and on the US to withdraw. He brought off what bluster and threatening and brutal destruction couldn’t-though the cynical argued that the shelling devastation, the reeking human and animal dead, the rubble-reduced buildings, the ruined economy, softened and set up the scene for him.

What is the difference between big men with a gun or a plane or a bomb or a peaceful idea? Rate Saddam, Stalin, Bush, Kim Jong-Il, bin Laden, Gandhi, Napoleon, Caesar, King, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Sistani.

Peace-loving Presidential candidates in the US fare badly according to political calculation. People want a lugal, a big man, an enforcer, someone to lead in times of crisis and danger. But big men are overrated and usually poor kings.

All times are crisis and danger. Everyone dies. The better leader lets you live.

DIANE CHRISTIAN is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at University at Buffalo and author of the new book Blood Sacrifice. She can be reached at: engdc@acsu.buffalo.edu