As I just mentioned in the last post, "Unitary Moonbat" had a blog article back in July that began with Gilgamesh and plowed straight on through to Saddam Hussein's literary efforts. I'm sure I saw something about this back in 2003, but some fun excerpts (these from Begone Demons!) come out here again:
[Unitary Moonbat:] The villain is named Ezekiel Hescel (three guesses as to his ethnicity), a fat, evil, eternal old man who conspires with the Romans (i.e. the Americans) to invade the lands of Salim, a hero/resistance fighter whom Saddam gushingly describes as "a pure, virtuous Arab. Salim is tall and handsome with a straight nose." When the coalition invades, Salim's army is there to greet them – here's how Saddam was seeing the epic battle between he and the Americans playing out, even as the Humvees and M1s were massing on his borders...
The king of the Romans gave his orders to begin the charge. The first line of Salim's army shot at the Roman riders with arrows. When the Roman riders fell down the women of the tribe beat them with sticks or killed them with swords.
Salim freed his long hair. He was so strong. He was fighting the Romans like a hawk. He was riding a white horse and shouting: "Allah akbar! Long live the Arabs and long live Islam!"
Salim was carrying a sword and his colleagues were giving him another sword when the first was broken. The Romans ran away as Salim got close to them.
...
Then Ezekiel Hescel and the king of the Romans saw the twin towers of the Roman's city on fire. Ezekiel Hescel was beating his face and saying, "Everything I've collected is gone."
...
Ezekiel Hescel and the Roman leader ran away after because they had lost their power and money.
UM cites Jo Tatchell's article in the Prospect, which identifies the genre of "dic[tator]-lit" and comments:
Saddam was famously fascinated by other great leaders, particularly Nebuchadnezzar, Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler, and he mixed culture, mythology and religion to create in himself a hybrid, prophet-type character...
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