Some things I'd rather not see

I see that a bunch more photos of Saddam Hussein in his Fruit of the Looms were published in a British tabloid Saturday.

If there's one thing I do not need is more photos of an aging dictator sitting around in his skivvies. (At least he doesn't wear a thong. I'd have taken him for a boxer man, myself.)

But that's way beside the point when it comes to photos like this.

Saddam's one of the 3 or 4 worst dictators of the 20th century (along with Noriega and Kadafi). And you tell me that he's so lightly guarded that someone can sneak in and take a BUNCH of photos of the prisoner in his undies?

Give me a break.

Those photos could not have been surreptitiously taken by ANYONE. No news photographer, free-lancer or papparazzi is going to be able to get within a half-mile of Saddam without a full body cavity search. Maybe two.

Those photos were taken and released to send out a message. By whom? The U.S. military? Possibly. The British military? Possibly. The Iraqi government? Not a bad guess, either.

It's to the advantage of all three groups to show the world, and the Iraqi people that Saddam's no longer a powerful man, a man to be reckoned with, a man to be feared. What better way than to show him in his undies? How further can he be degraded?

It's to the Iraqi government's advantage to show that Saddam and his Baath Party are no more; and that you Sunnis had better watch yourselves before YOU show up in the Sun in your FTLs, too.

Or, if could be someone who is interested in invigorating the country's religious civil war. Not that it really needs it.

But whatever message is intended - and you HAVE to know that's why the photos were released - there simply is no way -- NO WAY -- they could have been taken and released without the knowledge and approval of U.S. officials. Not after the Abu Ghraib prison photos caused so much embarrassment.

So that means all we're really left with is what message we're attempting to send; and to whom?

And so it goes.