Back in the spring of 2003, while visiting Manhattan with a coworker, we came across a street vendor selling most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. Officially “personality identification playing cards,” according to Wiki. I’m a little surprised the U.S. Army didn’t refer to them as PIPCs (pronounced PIE-picks). “Sergeant, distribute two PIPCs to each man before 1800 hours.” “Yes, sir.”

I bought a pack from the vendor and it’s still kicking around the house somewhere, along with other souvenir playing cards that I’ve acquired over the years. Such as a pack depicting Elvis — every card a King? — and another one from Mexico City with the Aztec Sun Stone on each card.

That purchase seems like a long time ago. Maybe because it was, though more psychologically than chronologically.

As for the Ace of Diamonds, Abid Al-Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, certainly a man with much blood on his hands, a later Iraqi government (2012) showed him the business end of a rope, though that was some years after his boss met the same end.