History’s Shadow: Do You Still Believe It Can’t Happen Here?

The Butcher’s List and the Illusion of Safety

Al-Khuld Hall: A Furnace of Fear

The air inside Al-Khuld Hall was thick, oppressive. Not just from the suffocating heat radiating off the sunbaked stone of Baghdad’s political fortress, but from the dread that slithered through the chamber like invisible smoke, curling into the lungs of every man present.

They were Iraq’s elite—the generals, the intelligence chiefs, the ministers, the business magnates. The architects of Iraq’s government and economy. Men who had spent their lives mastering the brutal calculus of power, navigating its treacherous tides, and winning. They were untouchable.

Before Saddam Hussein even entered, the words rang through the chamber like a thunderclap:

It was announced: A conspiracy has been uncovered.

A plot. Against the Ba’ath Party. Against Iraq. Against the new President Saddam himself.

The air shifted. No one whispered. No one moved, but beneath the surface, panic spread like a toxin, seeping into their bones, paralyzing the room with a silent scream.

Who? Who among them had dared?

The words detonated like an executioner’s pistol, shattering the illusion of safety they had spent years cultivating. These men—Iraq’s most powerful figures—were suddenly confronted with a truth too terrifying to acknowledge:

No one was untouchable.

Then, he entered.

Saddam Hussein did not storm into the room in rage. He did not bellow accusations. He moved with measured precision, his presence swallowing the air itself, a gravitational force that pulled the room into total, suffocating silence.

He took his place at the podium, a thick stack of papers in front of him. He did not speak. Instead, he let his fingers drift across the pages, flipping through them with excruciating slowness, savoring the moment, letting the weight of what was about to happen settle into their marrow.

Time thickened. No one breathed. Finally, he looked up. His gaze swept the hall—not like a leader surveying his men, but like a butcher assessing the livestock before slaughter, and then, he spoke.

“All of the guilty men are in this room.”

A name was called.

“Muhyi Abdul-Hussein Mashhadi.”

Mashhadi, the Secretary-General of the Ba’ath Party—one of Saddam’s most trusted men—stood without hesitation. The measured rhythm of his footsteps as he walked to the podium was the only sound in the vast chamber.

The silence was deafening. Then, Mashhadi spoke.

“I was the one behind the plot against the new president.”

A shockwave rippled through the room. Men shifted in their seats, their gazes darting to one another, searching for answers that did not exist.

Mashhadi? A conspirator?

His voice remained steady, each syllable striking like a hammer against the brittle bones of certainty.

“It was me who convinced others to join.”

Eyes burned into him, desperate to find hesitation, a crack in his facade. There was none. Was it true? Had the man who sat at the very center of their empire betrayed them all? Saddam sat beside Mashhadi now. He reached into his suit pocket and retrieved a thick Cuban cigar. Striking a match with deliberate care, he brought the flame to the tip, the ember glowing in the dimly lit hall. He exhaled a thick plume of smoke, his expression unreadable, as Mashhadi continued speaking.

And then—he began to name names.

One by one, he called them out. Each syllable was a hammer blow, each name a death sentence. Some men lowered their heads, accepting the inevitable. Others sat frozen, their hands gripping their knees, fighting the primal instinct to flee—even though there was nowhere to run.

The confession ended.

Every single word was a lie.

But it was the lie expected of him. Days earlier, Mashhadi had been dragged into a torture chamber, his flesh torn open, his bones bruised, as he was made to listen—in excruciating detail—to the horrors that would befall his wife and daughters if he refused to comply.

In the hall Saddam let the silence fester. He stood, moving with the same unshakable deliberation. From his pocket, he retrieved another cigar, lighting it with the same patient cruelty, letting the tension ferment.

Then, in a voice so calm, so casual, it sent fresh terror through the room, he asked:

“What means should be used against these traitors?”

The walls closed in. The room shrank. No one dared to speak. The silence itself was suffocating.

Then, Saddam answered his own question.

“You know the answer.”

A long, deliberate pause.

“There is no other way than the sword.”

The words settled like the final nails in a coffin.

Then, his voice turned procedural.

“When I have read out your name, you shall stand up, recite the party’s slogan, and then leave the hall.”

He lifted his list. Slowly, deliberately, he began reading. One by one, the names were spoken. One by one, the men rose. One by one, they recited the Ba’ath Party slogan, their voices hollow with dread. One by one, they walked to the exit.

They did not know what lay beyond the doors. But they could guess. Then, one man broke after hearing his name.

“I haven’t done anything!”

His voice cracked—a raw, desperate plea. The chamber recoiled, as if his terror were contagious.

Saddam did not flinch. He simply took another slow drag of his cigar, exhaled, and repeated himself.

“When I have read out your name, you shall stand up, recite the party’s slogan, and then leave the hall.”

The man hesitated. His body trembled. Then, he obeyed. By the time Saddam finished, 68 names had been read. Then, he smiled and made a statement to those who's names were not called.

“Thank you for your loyalty.”

Some of the men who remained wept in relief. Others sat paralyzed, staring straight ahead, knowing what it meant to have survived.

The 68 were taken to prison. For two weeks, they rotted in darkness, their fates uncertain. Then, the verdict came.

22 would die.

Saddam chose the executioners himself. Not soldiers. Not strangers. Not executioners. Not members of the military. Ba’ath Party members.

Men who had sat in that room. Some of the chosen executioners hesitated, their hands trembling so violently that their bullets missed their mark, requiring multiple shots to finish the job. Others fired without hesitation—knowing that obedience was survival.

Until that day, the Ba’ath Party members lived within a lie. The same lie you tell yourself now.

You believe yourself to be safe.

You sit ensconced in the quiet sanctum of your home, wrapped in the trappings of modern comfort, lulled by the conviction that no matter how the world shifts, no matter what forces gather on the horizon, catastrophe will always befall someone else. You have told yourself that wealth is insulation, that status is a shield. You believe that because you are affluent, because you are white, because you are old, or because you are respected, the maelstrom that looms will break elsewhere—above the heads of the unprepared, the imprudent, the unworthy.

But history does not spare those who mistake proximity to power for immunity from it.

The men who sat in Al-Khuld Hall were not dissidents, not revolutionaries, not interlopers. They were the architects of the regime, the very sinew of its machinery, men who had spent lifetimes mastering the calculus of influence, men who had made the ruthless bargains required to remain indispensable. They were confidants, enforcers, strategists. They were rich, they were powerful. Yet in that moment, when Saddam’s gaze swept the chamber with a butcher’s meticulous scrutiny, they understood—their safety was an illusion, their survival a privilege that could be revoked.

You do not need to conjure some dystopian vision of first Felon Trump standing at a gilded podium, shuffling through a stack of names, his voice measured and mechanical as he calls out your name. That is not the specter that should haunt you. The warning is more insidious than that: It is the belief—the fatal, arrogant belief—that you are safe.

Do you truly think, as the Ba’ath Party once did, that it would be impossible for him to stand behind a podium and read a list of names? Pelosi, Cheney, Newsome? He has already pardoned and freed thousands of violent felons—men who stormed the Capitol at his command, men who beat police officers, men who shattered windows and screamed for blood. They have walked free, emboldened, knowing their violence was not punished but rewarded. Do you believe, after all this, that he would hesitate to call upon them again? That a man who calls his opponents ‘vermin’ and raves about bloodletting would balk at removing those on his enemies list? Do you really believe, in a nation where a convicted felon openly revels in fantasies of retribution, that such a moment could never come to pass?

You do not need to be in the room.

The list is not just for those whose names are read. It is not just for the men who rise, recite the slogan, and walk toward their fate.

The list is for everyone.

It is a declaration, a pronouncement, a shift in the fabric of power itself. The moment the first name is spoken, the moment the first man obeys, it does not matter where you are. It does not matter if your name is read aloud.

The only thing that matters is that the list was read, and the room obeyed.

And now, so will you. Because once the list is read aloud, there is no longer a choice. There is no argument, no negotiation, no resistance. There is no mass uprising, no sudden moment of defiance where people stand up and say, "Enough!"

Do not delude yourself with fantasies of communal resistance. Do not lull yourself with naive notions that those around you—your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors—will reach a breaking point and say,

"This is too much. This is a bridge too far."

How many times have you already expected that to be true?

If such a moment were possible, it would have happened before the first name was spoken. But it will not, because it never does. The moment the first man stands, the world outside the room has already been given its orders. It is not a question of whether you agree. It is not a question of whether you believe in the system, whether you support it, whether you think it is right or wrong.

It is only a question of whether you comply.

And you will.

Because the first name was called.

And the first man stood.

And once the list is read aloud, non-compliance is not an option.

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If you’re reading this, you likely already understand the dangerous moment we’re in. You’re engaged, aware, and active.

But you likely also know someone—like I do—who still believes this won’t affect them. Someone who assumes the institutions will hold, that warnings are overblown, that this is just another political cycle.

This piece is for them. Please, ask them to read it.

And as always if you’ve made it this far, take a moment to like, share, and comment. In an algorithm-driven world, engagement is power. Your voice helps push this message further, and that makes a real impact.