Having read this book and The black hole, I have had a lot to think about.
I have been in Iraq recently and in the times before the coalition of the billing went in to save Iraq from Saddam and what I have found is a country so divided that it is not just in fragments but shards.
Latif Yahia's book has been proven over and over again by others who fled the regime and most recently documents and places that were discovered after the fall of Baghdad. Mostly Mr.Yahia's work has been used as a reference point for other writers and also propagandists but what we must remember is that although the Devil's double acuratley describes life inside the former dictator's regime it is aimed pointedly at his son's atrocities and brutal crimes. If one is loved as a son, no matter what the father is, is it not a loss when they are killed? If Mr.Yahia was indeed shown the gentler and fatherly side of Saddam Hussein as I believe he was, why would he not grieve at the death that this great man received, we may not agree with how Saddam Hussein ran his country but he was hanged in shame as a criminal, instead of being given at least his due, a firing squad.
As popular as the Devil's double is as a reason for the occupation of Iraq and the need for the invasion, The Black Hole is the reverse, Mr. Yahia has held a mirror up to our own administrations and shown the paralels between the two, this is something that we feel extremely uneasy about and rightly so, we all want to believe that we live in a free democratic society, but as our liberties are slowly taken away from us in the name of peace are we not slowly slipping into that which we are supposedly fighting?
Having fought against the will of the CIA for nearly 16 years Mr.Yahia to my knowledge still finds himself without a homeland, surely someone who has played such a part in modern history deserves a country to support him? Or has his use as a propaganda tool come to an end and rendered him useless to the powers that be?
To my mind it is a travesty. ( )