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Tony Hawk Explains:
The Rise, Rule and Fall of Saddam.
written
by Jon Tony Hawk - may 4 - 2004
Hey guys! Tony Hawk here. When Jon asked me if I would write an article on his awesome website, I was like, "Heck yeah, bro!" I was totally stoked. Now, I know you must be asking, "Why the hell would they get Tony Hawk to write about Saddam Hussein?" Well, this issue is a really sensitive one, as Saddam's regime was taken out by U.S. forces in a conflict that was very controversial, both here in the States and abroad. You see, Jon knew he couldn't entrust just anybody to bring such a touchy subject to the table. Most people fail to see the issue clearly, and would either
a) write 10000 words about how Saddam Hussein is more like "Saddam "IN-SANE", or
b) Photoshop Hitler's head onto President Bush's body and make him say "2 + 2 = 5 GET IT I AM ALLUDING TO THE FACT THAT THE BUSH PRESIDENCY IS AN ORWELLIAN NIGHTMARE FOR SOME REASON."
As the universally-regarded coolest guy in the universe, I was the obvious choice to bring the "Butcher of Baghdad" 's life to you in a fair and rad manner. Take the time I made a guest appearance on "Jackass" and Bam Margera burned down my house. The whole episode was just some guy pointing a camcorder at me while I looked around smiling with my hands on my head and said "OH YOU GUYYYYYYS". You see, you could murder my wife and kids and rail-grind their corpses and I'd be like "Holy shit, that's boss!"
Therefore, I am incapable of getting all bent out of shape when I hear about how Saddam deployed chemical weapons and brought agonizingly painful deaths to thousands of little Kurdish children. I am also incapable of getting all pissed off at Bush for sending hundreds of American soldiers to die under false pretense. It's like, genocide and war-mongering are their thing, and skateboarding's my thing. Arguments are weak, man! It's much better to say things like "Well, Saddam's a really bad guy, I think we can all agree on that" and "The sky is blue".
So hey, what do you say? Let's get this thing "rolling", much in the way a skateboard tends to roll!
I. Who is Saddam Hussein?
Saddam Hussein was born April 28, 1937, in Tikrit, Iraq. A bunch of boring crap happened that I can't represent with screenshots from "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4", since there's no such move as the
HEELFLIP + MANUAL + 360 FOLLOW FOOTSTEPS OF ARAB NATIONALIST UNCLE + NOLLIE + BOTCH ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AND GET SHOT IN THE LEG + NOSE MANUAL + 540 WAGE FRUITLESS WAR WITH IRAN MCTWIST
To me, Saddam's greatest asset is his utilization of the manual. For those new to the radical sport of oppressive-regiming, a "manual" is essentially a wheelie on a skateboard. Allow me to demonstrate.
Manuals are most useful for putting a string of tricks together. For example, one can grind a rail, jump off, nose-manual to a vert ramp, and pull a 360 Benihana. Below, one of Saddam's more infamous uses of the manual.
REFUSAL TO PAY OFF WAR DEBTS TO KUWAIT + FLIMSY JUSTIFICATION FOR INVASION THAT IS A NEBULOUS MISHMASH OF ARAB NATIONALISM MANUAL + 360 U.N.-DEFYING OCCUPATION OF KUWAIT
34,503 POINTS
Recently, the manual has been subject to a lot of criticism. Some say that it's a cheap way to stretch out a trick, and pretty much just a lame segue way. But I think all those haters need to take a chill pill! The manual is just as impressive as a 540 Melon or Frontside Baath Party Seizure of Power.
II. The Middle Eastern Landscape
The Middle East is the most politically volatile region in the world, and to understand why and how Saddam painted such a picture, we must first understand the canvas on which he worked.
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SADDAM'S MIDDLE EAST 1. Turkey 2. The Mediterranean Sea 3. Syria 4. Iran 5. Israel/Palestine 6. Jordan 7. Iraq 8. Kuwait 9. Egypt 10. Saudi Arabia |
What was once the cradle of civilization was, by the 1980s, one of the most deadly regions in the world. It was a land complicated by Arab nationalism and the West's thirst for oil, and doomed by egotistical men such as Saddam.
Saddam rode to the throne of Iraq atop the crest of a wave of nationalist sentiment. It's not like today, where you can just do the 900 and people call you a god. Yesterday's bloody coups are today's wicked grab tricks. Perhaps this is why Saddam's Iraq flourished in the 1970s, but ultimately met its end in 2003.
III. Saddam's Ambition
It has been said that ambition is both Man's best characteristic, and his worst. And this skinned-knee skater has got to agree! You see, Saddam had a great thing going for a while. I mean, yeah, he ruled with an iron fist and executed hundreds of dissidents. But, I mean, sometimes you've got to bust that move out. Here's me executing my favorite trick at the 2001 X-Games.
540 HORRIFIC REIGN OF TERROR
6,871 POINTS
Fortunately, the U.N. didn't frown upon my actions when I out-skated Bob Burnquist to take the Gold in the freestyle that year. Saddam wasn't so lucky. But though he had made many enemies throughout the years, the U.S. was not yet one of them. America provided Saddam's Iraq with the needed weaponry to wage war with its neighbor, Iran. Hoping to achieve a quick victory over the weary nation, which had recently endured an Islamic revolution, Iraq hit Iran with full force. However, Saddam had underestimated his neighbor. After eight years of loss and destruction, the war finally ended in stalemate. The border between Iraq and Iran lay in ruins.
Saddam surveyed the ruined landscape. His war of ego had cost one million lives and billions of dollars. When presented with the perfect illustration of the futility of war, most would swear off the cannon and sword forever. Not the Butcher of Baghdad. He would soon continue to show the world that he wasn't afraid of a little blood.
To pay for war expenses, the Iraqi government was forced to borrow from its neighbor to the south, Kuwait. Kuwait was a small but wealthy nation, relying almost entirely on its plentiful oil. Kuwait was once considered a province of Iraq, and Saddam felt that he could avoid paying the Kuwaitis back. When the Kuwaitis forced his hand by tapping oil from Iraqi oil fields in an attempt to get its money back, Iraq invaded.
FRONTSIDE NOSEGRIND OVER OIL FIELD + TESTING THE BORDERS!
458 POINTS
The world's response was swift. Not long after Saddam crossed the border, he was met with a wall of international military might. Weeks later, his army and economy were decimated. Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait would be widely regarded among the most spectacular military failures in modern times.
IV. Bush-Hussein II
Still ahead for Saddam was his most bitter conflict yet.
During the first Gulf War, the American forces were led by President George Bush. Throughout the 1990s, Iraq had enjoyed a period of relative peace. Economic hardship still burdened the Iraqi people, but their leader had managed to abstain from invading another country for the rest of the decade.
Then, in January of 2001, President George W. Bush was elected President of the United States. "GWB" began planning to depose Saddam from day one of his presidency. He didn't appreciate Saddam's plot to kill his parents during the first Gulf war, nor his call for Bush Sr. to effectively "shove it."
But this time around, a war against Iraq was not such an easy sell. America did not enjoy the backing of the international community that it did in the first Gulf War. And perhaps most damning was the vehement opposition to the war proposal that he faced at home. Much of America saw it as an imperialist and unnecessary act. Saddam was quick to publicly embrace the roles of victim and martyr for the Islamic cause. However, jumping from the pigeonhole of religious zealots such as Osama bin Laden to the pigeonhole of American-accepted role models such as Muhammed Ali would prove a daunting task.
OL-LIE! BUMAYA! OL-LIE! BUMAYA!
WIPEOUT! 0 POINTS
As deceitful and manipulative as Saddam could be, it was surprising that his nemesis would steal a page straight out of his tricklist. But President Bush executed the manual to end all manuals when he prepared his justification for war.
DESIRE TO INVADE IRAQ FOR REASONS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT INCLUDE THIRST FOR OIL + "FREEDOM FROM TERROR" MANUAL + 180 ON ATTEMPT TO BEFRIEND WORLD COMMUNITY + FAILED ATTEMPT TO USE A SEGWAY (SIC)
WIPEOUT! 0 POINTS
I mean, I'm not hating on him or anything, but a Segway? Wicked lame, man.
For the first time in decades, Saddam was on the other side of aggression, and nobody was surprised when he responded with defiance. Years earlier, the United Nations had imposed restrictions on Iraq's munitions that prevented Saddam from legally possessing certain weapons. Bush charged Saddam with failure to comply with the resolution.
As we often do in the skating world, Bush and Hussein attempted to resolve their differences through a good old-fashioned game of Horse. It was a close match, but Bush executed a killer rail jump from the North Korean border to the Iranian border to the Iraqi border.
*special move sound*
AXIS OF EVIL DARKSLIDE!
78,934 POINTS
Saddam couldn't match it, and the all the world was enlightened at once.
The troops were soon mobilized, but major combat was over as quickly as it was the last time the two countries battled. Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq for three decades, was forced to go into hiding in his own country.
V. The Shameful End
Coalition forces now occupied Iraq. Months passed, there was no sign of Saddam, and the world wondered whether he was alive. Some reported sightings of him performing lip tricks in the dried-up, bombed-out swimming pools of Baghdad and Najaf, but such reports were met with criticism. "Complete B.S." said a local cleric. "Saddam would never be that spineless."
Still others believed that he had been whisked away to Russia or Palestine.
*special move sound*
GRINDING THE GAZA STRIP
-4 POINTS
In December of 2003, after some eight months on the run, Saddam Hussein was captured by coalition forces, in a manner very unbecoming of his defiant nature. Soldiers uncovered him in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit. He stood up in his hole, squinting from the flashlights being shined in his face.
Without exhibiting resistance, he said in perfect English,
"My name is Saddam Hussein.
I am the leader of Iraq.
I am willing to challenge Tony Hawk to a GRAFFITI DUEL TO THE DEATH FOR DOMINION OVER THE NATION OF ISLAM!"
I was as shocked as you undoubtedly are. But hey, it sounded like a cool contest, and I'm not one to say no to an opportunity to conquer the Middle East!
So I put on my gear, and prepared for the most wicked ride of my life.
Saddam's a dirty fighter. I knew that going in. But what I didn't realize was that he had the power to lift me off of my skateboard with one hand. That's totally illegal. And they call us the Great Satan! Sheesh!
But I knew that he could use all the Muslim voodoo nonsense he wanted, and that my Christ-honoring refusal to say swear words when performing wicked awesome tricks would prevail. I started with liberating Iraq, and claiming their press for America.
Soon, I had managed to tag everything from Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, to Israel. I skated on back to Turkey and stood at the shore of the Mediterranean Sea so I could get a good vantage point of everything I had tagged.
I'm so stoked that I played such an instrumental role in freeing the Middle East of all those stupid Arab leaders! Now they can come out of their caves and mud huts and teepees and stop hiding from the light of democracy! And hopefully, they can learn from my example of unconditional niceness and stop bombing school buses full of little kids. But if they want to keep doing that in the name of nationalist gobbledy-gook, then I'm cool with that, I guess. I mean, it's all about having fun and doing your own thing!
Well, anyways, I'm Tony Hawk, and this has been "The Rise, Rule, and Fall of Saddam Hussein." Take it easy!
- Jon
Jon@progressiveboink.com
AIM: Boiskov