we live in an absurd universe. The man who woke up today answering to the name Saddam Hussein is not the man who went to sleep the night before. The person who started typing this sentence is not the person who will end it. THE PRESENT HAS NO MEANINGFUL CONNECTION TO PAST. The idea that these actions are somehow "our" actions, that todays Saddam owns the actions of yesterdays Saddam, is purely a matter of mechanical nessecity - no more compelling than speaking of rocks "urge" to roll down a hill. The man we will call Saddam who finds himself standing on the gallows, knowing he is about to die, will in no essential way be different than those young men women and children who suddenly found themselves coughing up their own lungs.