I think UM featuring Saddam Hussein as a "Diabolical mind" in the heart of the middle east is like giving out speeding tickets in the indy 500. The fact is the majority of the middle east has been ruled by ruthless despots, monarchs, and military dictators for hundreds of years. There are others as Ayatollah Khomeini, Arafat, and Khadofi that have blood in their hands. Even the alleged "democratic" egypt is led by a dictator. In the UM feature, we see the dead kurdish people who were killed by Hussein. But the Kurds have a bloodthirsty history with Turkey. Moreover, they are known for honor killings against women. They recently stoned to death 17-year old Kurdish lady for commiting the heinous crime of dating a sunni. They also mention his brutal war with his "nice" persian Iranian neighbors. Those are same people that took an american embassy hostage. I wonder if there was any blood lost when the Iranian islamic revolution took power?

I think Pol Pot runs circles around Saddam as the diabolical mind of modern times. He is the same class as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Vietnamese refugees even have stated "Pol Pot makes Ho Chi Minh look like a puppy in comparison." Estimates vary from 25 to 40 percent of the cambodian population was exterminated by him. Watch the film The killing fields for more info. Many who escaped the death camps were so traumatized that they died in their sleep. This inspired Wes Craven to write the Nightmare Elm Street films. He read the articles and couldn't believe that healthy people died where nothing wrong was found in the autopsies. Craven figured maybe something in their dreams killed them and created Freddy. The real person in their dream was Pol Pot. :eek:

That´s the "Diabolical Mind" episode. That episode also presented the segments about Marie Hilley, the woman who poisoned her husband and daughter, in order to collect insurance money, an interview with convicted murderer Daniel Wilder and the eerie case of the murders of Joan Rogers and her daughters Michelle and Christe in Tampa Bay, Florida. In the version that I have thanks to the "bookshelf" tapes that I have mentioned before (sadly in Spanish), there is not an update to the Rogers´case, but later a guy named Oba Chandler was convicted for the murders, and now he is a death row inmate in Florida.

i have read the book Black Widow which concerns the Hilley case.
UM does just a very brief summary of the people she poisoned.
As for Saddam and the others, I think as far as killing people,
the rule of Stalin in the Soviet Union was probably the bloodiest of them all.

Using Saddam was a safe and high profile choice. I wouldn't go far beyond that in evaluating it. That segment was in late 1991, not long after the first war this country had been involved in since Vietnam nearly two decades earlier. Americans had been fed a daily dose of Saddam just months earlier.

If the segment had been filmed years earlier I doubt Saddam would have made the cut since his name ID and America's knowledge of Iraq would have been dramatically less.

This may be unpopular, and I in no way endorse Saddam or his torture killings, but one must ask is Iraq better off without him? At least with him in power there were not 50-100 civilians being killed at once in a market square due to car bombings. There were not 3 or 4 religious sects fighting for control and killing thousands of civilians in a bloody civil war. Sure, Saddam did himself kill many people, but if one kept one's mouth shut and showed no dissent, usually one would live. This is not my ideal form of life, but it beats what is there now. At least Saddam kept some semblance of law and order, no matter how oppressive it might have been at times.

The Iranian and Syrian and Al Queada terrorists would have seen ugly deaths if they tried to operate in Iraq under his rule. Many people now forget this, but Saddam did not much care for Islamic extremist causes (he made it known he did not care for Bin Laden). He was quite moderate in his religious beliefs. With Saddam it was not about Islam, but rather about him.

Saddam was diabolical, but he took control of Iraq and kept the extremist religious sectarian leaders with the only language they understood - violence. This is not to say he was not a scum bag himself, however.

The fact is that until that region comes out of the religious sectarian dark ages, nothing will change. There are people far worse than Saddam that are waiting in the wings; people who actually DO want to destroy America.

I know someone who's Husband met and guarded Saddam. He did undertand english and spoke it with an accent. The man had an ego but don't confuse a "Diabolical Mind'' with an Irrational mind. UM shows only kurds and some shia he killed. The kurds wanted to seperate from Iraq and many were subversive. Many shia joined with the shii'te Iranians during the war so they were killed. Saddam had the Roman pagan eagle in the Iraq Flag and took imperial power serious. Few know that there were other minority groups protected by him as Arab Christians, Jews, Yezidi's and Mandaens. Many arab countries are known for targeting christians. Saddam protected christians and even his former foreign prime minister Tariq Aziz was a christian. Many Muslim countries have repressive laws against women. Saddam was very western and secular, so many women benefited from that.

Strategic strikes and not occupation is the way to handle WMD's if they exist. Israel thought saddam had a nuclear reactor so they bombed it and LEFT. Reagan bombed Lebannon when Hezbollah killed over 200 marines in 1983. Then about a year later he LEFT. Saddam loved Reagon and vice versa. Saddam had NO relationship with the Taliban Afganistan govt. ONLY 3 countries did Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and United Arab Emirates. ALL LISTED AS AMERICAN ALLIES HA HA HA. :lol:

As already mentioned, UM put Saddam because was the popular face on the time. Thier research department usually does a great job but they just got the obvious choice. BTW, the criminal profilers showed on the segment are overrated. Many of them made horrible predictions on the DC Sniper case.

Why was Saddam covered on Unsolved Mysteries?? What was the mystery involving him?

Why was Saddam covered on Unsolved Mysteries?? What was the mystery involving him?

It was part of a special called "Diabolical Minds" that focused largely on sociopaths and the nature vs. nurture debate. The special also (briefly) touched on Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.

Thier research department usually does a great job but they just got the obvious choice. BTW, the criminal profilers showed on the segment are overrated. Many of them made horrible predictions on the DC Sniper case.


You're talking about Jack Levin. I remember when he was consulted by all the cable news channels during the DC sniper case and he gave the regular "loner, white male, no friends, former military, pissed at the world" profile. Of course, he was wrong on most counts, including the fact he was sure it was one guy, which it wasn't. Profiling is an imperfect science and overrated. The fact is it is very hard to predict human behavior on the micro scale.

The thing that makes me laugh is when these profilers are consulted, they invariably give the same profile -- white, 25-35, loner. You never hear profiles of "Asian female, 60 yo, extroverted." ;) My point is, after hearing the same profile over and over again, why keep consulting them? They are going to keep saying the same thing. When profilers are contacted, it means the police have no case and are grasping at straws. It can be detremental when the police go after the typical profile of the killer and the profile is completely wrong. I wonder how many killers have gotten away because they were discounted as suspects because they didn't "fit the profile?" Gasey and Bundy did not fit the profiles either (other than being white males).

I think UM featuring Saddam Hussein as a "Diabolical mind" in the heart of the middle east is like giving out speeding tickets in the indy 500. The fact is the majority of the middle east has been ruled by ruthless despots, monarchs, and military dictators for hundreds of years. There are others as Ayatollah Khomeini, Arafat, and Khadofi that have blood in their hands. Even the alleged "democratic" egypt is led by a dictator.

Old post but i think the recent events show again that the diabolical minds episode having Hussein was more opportunistic than substance. Pol Pot was one of the sickest leaders and makes even Sadam a puppy in comparison. Some of his atrocities included killing pregnant women and than having their fetus ripped from their bodies.

As a side note, if you get the Bizarre Murders set on Disc 2 in the linear notes it mentions Pol Pot but he was not featured, so i am assuming that was edited from the NBC broadcast or it was simply an error.

That was one of the worst UM segments ever.

Using Saddam was a safe and high profile choice. I wouldn't go far beyond that in evaluating it. That segment was in late 1991, not long after the first war this country had been involved in since Vietnam nearly two decades earlier. Americans had been fed a daily dose of Saddam just months earlier.

If the segment had been filmed years earlier I doubt Saddam would have made the cut since his name ID and America's knowledge of Iraq would have been dramatically less.

Exactly. Saddam was used because of the context of the time. Was he a bastard? Sure. Was he any worse then most of the strongmen who run and ran most of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe? Not really.

Moreover, one could certainly argue western leaders and corporate executives are as equally "diabolical" depending on how you define the term.

This may be unpopular, and I in no way endorse Saddam or his torture killings, but one must ask is Iraq better off without him? At least with him in power there were not 50-100 civilians being killed at once in a market square due to car bombings. There were not 3 or 4 religious sects fighting for control and killing thousands of civilians in a bloody civil war. Sure, Saddam did himself kill many people, but if one kept one's mouth shut and showed no dissent, usually one would live. This is not my ideal form of life, but it beats what is there now. At least Saddam kept some semblance of law and order, no matter how oppressive it might have been at times.

The Iranian and Syrian and Al Queada terrorists would have seen ugly deaths if they tried to operate in Iraq under his rule. Many people now forget this, but Saddam did not much care for Islamic extremist causes (he made it known he did not care for Bin Laden). He was quite moderate in his religious beliefs. With Saddam it was not about Islam, but rather about him.

Saddam was diabolical, but he took control of Iraq and kept the extremist religious sectarian leaders with the only language they understood - violence. This is not to say he was not a scum bag himself, however.

The fact is that until that region comes out of the religious sectarian dark ages, nothing will change. There are people far worse than Saddam that are waiting in the wings; people who actually DO want to destroy America.

Iraq would have been somewhat better than it is now had Saddam either been left in power or was replaced by another autocrat. People don't want to believe that for many reasons including the fact that his removal has set the stage for an eventual Iraqi civil war.

Iraq was an artificial whose integrity is seen as "beneficial" more to extrinsic rather intrinsic elements. There are few people in Iraq that see its remaining as an intact to be as important as it is the US and other Western nations.

So while Saddam was a cruel and brutal ruler, he did keep what is now becoming a rapidly divided and fractured country together for longer than it would have (or maybe should have) been.

I think the inclusion of Saddam in the segment was just some sort of propaganda. Wasn't this aired around the same time that Desert Storm was happening?

I think the inclusion of Saddam in the segment was just some sort of propaganda. Wasn't this aired around the same time that Desert Storm was happening?

It was after Desert Storm. According to what I have read, the "Diabolical Mind" episode originally aired as a "special edition" on Sunday, November 3, 1991.

I think UM featuring Saddam Hussein as a "Diabolical mind" in the heart of the middle east is like giving out speeding tickets in the indy 500. The fact is the majority of the middle east has been ruled by ruthless despots, monarchs, and military dictators for hundreds of years. There are others as Ayatollah Khomeini, Arafat, and Khadofi that have blood in their hands. Even the alleged "democratic" egypt is led by a dictator. In the UM feature, we see the dead kurdish people who were killed by Hussein. But the Kurds have a bloodthirsty history with Turkey. Moreover, they are known for honor killings against women. They recently stoned to death 17-year old Kurdish lady for commiting the heinous crime of dating a sunni. They also mention his brutal war with his "nice" persian Iranian neighbors. Those are same people that took an american embassy hostage. I wonder if there was any blood lost when the Iranian islamic revolution took power?

I think Pol Pot runs circles around Saddam as the diabolical mind of modern times. He is the same class as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Vietnamese refugees even have stated "Pol Pot makes Ho Chi Minh look like a puppy in comparison." Estimates vary from 25 to 40 percent of the cambodian population was exterminated by him. Watch the film The killing fields for more info. Many who escaped the death camps were so traumatized that they died in their sleep. This inspired Wes Craven to write the Nightmare Elm Street films. He read the articles and couldn't believe that healthy people died where nothing wrong was found in the autopsies. Craven figured maybe something in their dreams killed them and created Freddy. The real person in their dream was Pol Pot. :eek:

Well of all of those despots I think Saddam was one of the weirder ones and unlike Qaddafi it was in a bad way. Yeah Iran might not have been "nice" but Saddam did invade them unprovoked. In the mid 1970s Saddam and the Shah signed an agreement that ended tensions between the two countries (they hadn't been in all out war but very near it) after the 1979 Islamic Revolution there was a famous moment on Iraqi TV where Saddam lit the treaty on fire signifying that it was now null and void. And obviously shortly after that he invaded Iran. After the war Saddam had a statue of himself made out of captured Iranian helmets. To me that's a diabolical mind.

All of that being said, Saddam is, even today the second most popular leader in the Arab world after the late Gamal Nasser.

I feel like the comparison between serial killers such as Ted Bundy and a dictator like Saddam Hussein is extremely similar--and as troublesome--to lumping organized crime bosses and hitmen into the "serial killer" category. It doesn't fit. While certain personality disorders, mental illnesses, or other such things may occur in each group as the segment seemed to suggest, the homicidal motivations are fundamentally quite different.