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KILLFILE
Epicurean Intelligentsia
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Member Since: 2/2006Last Seen: 2/09/2010
Member Since: 2/2006Last Seen: 2/09/2010
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Tunc ait illi Iesus converte gladium tuum in locum suum omnes enim qui acceperint gladium gladio peribunt.
Photo by Alicia. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)
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At 6:00 pm on December 30, 2006 Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in the gallows of Camp Banzai, the same used by his own intelligence services throughout the tenure of his regime in Iraq. His death brought to a close, not just a chapter in Iraqi history, but a bloodstained metaphor for the continued failings of US foreign policy throughout the middle east. In Saddam Hussein's life and death are reflected the meddleings of western powers in the tribal struggles of the middle east -- an arrogance of power, wealth, and morality that have contributed to untold human misery and suffering in the name of political expediency and ephemeral alliances. The United States deserves no laud, no glory, no praise for righting - too late -- a wrong of her own creation, shortsightedness, and disregard.
Historians will write, not to praise Saddam Hussein, but to bury him -- to document in fact and figure the lifetime of a despot, a tyrant, and a murderer. In so doing they must, unavoidably, document the jagged blade of American Foreign Policy held too long against the necks of countless pivotal states in the struggle for global supremacy against the Soviet Union.
Hussein's tale begins in 1959. Dwight D. Eisenhower, then President of the United States, authorized the CIA to undertake the assassination of Iraqi Prime Minister and General Abd al-Karim Qasim. Such operations were typical of US intervention in the Middle East during the early Cold War. After Qasim withdrew Iraq from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact, the United States saw danger in the possibility of a Soviet friendly Iraq pushing west towards US interests in Israel and Turkey. Rather than expose itself by attempting the assassination of a foreign leader, the CIA sought out six members of the Iraqi Ba'ath party to assassinate the Prime Minister. Among them was a young Saddam Hussein. Trained, housed, and armed by the Americans, Hussein's assassination attempt ultimately failed. Hussein was wounded,Qasim escaped with a minor injury, and Hussein became, overnight, a fugitive in his homeland. Though the pro-Soviet leader would ultimately find himself ousted by other US financed operations in 1963, his government wasted little time in pursuing his assailants. With CIA assistance Hussein went into exile but was sentenced to death in absentia by the government he'd been hired to overthrow. Upon his return to Iraq following the American orchestrated coup, he was imprisoned for three years before escaping and rising through the ranks of the Ba'ath party. It was a story played out in other countries with other assets and, like the others who shared Hussein's experience with the United States, the would-be revolutionary found himself at once indebted to and wary of his one-time benefactor.
Hussein's rise to power in the Ba'ath party brought with it a new set of interactions with the United States, at once entirely different and exactly the same as those he had already experienced as a hired killer for the CIA. Following the overthrow of Iraqi President Abdul Rahman Arif, Hussein rose to power as the right-hand-man of the coup's leader and new Iraqi President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Again courted by the United States, but this time as a political power rather than a trigger-man, Hussein saw the United States as again willing to overlook brutish methods and violence in exchange for the security of its interests in the region. As Hussein's power grew, so did his brutality and his obsession with party and social unity. Like Pinochet and many other useful monsters in contested states around the world, Hussein continued to enjoy a somewhat favored relationship with the Americans despite his almost Stalinist purges of Iraq and the Ba'ath party in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Hussein assumed power in Iraq in 1979 both for his own sake but also to the advantage of his American benefactors. President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr's agenda for Iraq had moved the contested nation further towards the Soviet Bloc and had actively attempted to marginalize Hussein's influence. With tensions between the two Ba'athist leaders on the rise, Hussein moved in 1978 to distance Iraq from the Soviets with the mass executions of numerous Iraqi Communists. Shortly thereafter he forced President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr into resignation and assumed the Presidency of Iraq himself. As in Nicaragua and Vietnam, Hussein's ascension brought an individual to power who was saw the United States as both benefactor and adversary, friend and foe. For Hussein, who had already experienced the rapidity of US disentanglement in his three year prison term, the United States was a benefactor unconcerned with brutality and oppression, always fit for exploit but never for trust. It was an outlook that was nearly endemic to US client-leaders around the world.
So long as he was needed by the United States, few in the west questioned Hussein's methods or inhumanity. As was frequently noted of Joseph Stalin during World War II, "he [was] a bastard but he [was] our bastard." The United States found use of "our bastard" with the overthrow of theShah in Iran. Overnight a staunch ally became a sworn enemy. The revolution of 1979 was so sudden and unexpected that it was an as-yet-unacknowledged act of industrial sabotage that kept a substantial complement of American F14 fighter aircraft (purchased by the Shah of Iran in 1976) from falling into Soviet hands. The United States, under Reagan, turned to an old ally.
Thus did Hussein's experience with the United States escalate to the third archetype of an American client: the Proxy War. Again the United States implicitly condoned Hussein's brutality and genocide in the name of regional interests and opposition to the Soviet Union and again America's Faustian pact with Hussein served it well in the eight year long Iran-Iraq war. The outbreak of war between Iraq and Iran gave the United States an opportunity to transform what should have been a decisive loss for Iraq and a debilitating blow for Hussein into a lengthy war of attrition that would destroy the economy of Iran at the expense of Iraq. Funneling chemical munitions and other weapons of mass destruction to Iraq, the United States prolonged the conflict, undertaking, as the US National Security Counsel said "whatever was necessary and legal" to ensure a bloody and costly Iranian defeat. Even when US satellites returned images strongly suggesting that Hussein was turning the chemical weapons provided him against the civilian Kurdish populations in the North of of Iraq, the destruction of Iranian military power was deemed more important and munitions continued to flow. As in instances from Panama to Vietnam, the monster created became the monster enabled.
Yet even the most tame of beasts remains, to one degree or another, wild. The United States has found itself on the wrong side of innumerable one-time-allies, from Diem in Vietnam to Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Hussein would prove no exception. As border disputes with Kuwait flared, Hussein met with the US Ambassador to his country as well as then Secretary of State James Baker and received conflicting messages from Washington. With a decade of interaction and billions of dollars in aid behind them, Hussein took US statements of apathy and indifference towards aggression as more of the same policies that had supported him in his purges of the Iraqi government and his chemical attacks on the Kurds.
Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait, and within days Iraq went from an ally of the United States to a pariah state.
Thus began Hussein's long slide from friend to foe, client to condemned. Once laid bare before the world, his atrocities cast into the limelight and his agenda no longer beneficial to the United States, Washington disavowed its storied and decades long association with the Iraqi despot, consigning him to the status of a madman, a rabid mongrel, and a menace to Western Civilization. Through war with the United States, sanctions, corruption, and intrigue Hussein clung tenaciously to power. It would take an invasion, occupation, and a nation-wide manhunt to finally take the forty-year CIA asset, broken, battered, and bedraggled, into custody.
In Hussein's execution there is no victory. Wrongs righted too late and justice delivered to those long dead are of no comfort. Even in death, Hussein's experience is that of a failure of American Foreign Policy: an incarnation of nearly a century of arrogance, complacency, and indifference.
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{"commentId":456977,"authorDomain":"killfile"}
The world is unquestionably, in my mind, a better place without Hussein in it; but such benefit does not and should not glorify the United States, both complicit and complacent in Hussein's brutality, oppression, and genocide.
{"commentId":456977,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"killfile"}
- 4 votes
#1 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 10:58 AM EST{"commentId":457006,"authorDomain":"Byronsnake"}
The world would be a better place without Hussein except the United States took a bad situation in the Middle East and made it worse. Make no mistake, the world is a better place without Hussein, but the ends do not justify the means.
{"commentId":457006,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"Byronsnake"}
- 4 votes
{"commentId":457187,"authorDomain":"breacadh"}
I suspect that sectarian and ethnic violence is being cynically stage-managed by the Bushiosi as a means of controlling the population, and as an excuse to set up a US garrison state in Iraq. Our mentor in the imperialism business, the British Empire, long ago mastered the technique of dividing and conquering along religious and ethnic lines -- separating Hindu India from Muslim Pakistan, Israel from Palestine, the north of Ireland from the south -- to great advantage for their hegemonic agenda.
We'll probably see Iraq divided along sectarian lines to weaken a unified opposition to the US oil-grab, but I don't think enmity among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds is anything like as natural and inevitable as it's being reported. Like Protestant and Catholic neighbors living side by side in Dublin, I think it takes work and intention to maintain hatred among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds of Iraq.
{"commentId":457187,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"breacadh"}
- 8 votes
{"commentId":457221,"authorDomain":"breacadh"}
Oops. Got lazy with the last sentence above. What I meant was: Compare Protestant and Catholic neighbors living side by side in Dublin with the walled and guarded enclaves between the sects in Belfast -- there is a force at work promoting sectarian strife in Belfast that doesn't have the same power in Dublin. Left to their own love of life and peace, people tend to live together amicably.
{"commentId":457221,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"breacadh"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":458251,"authorDomain":"ISPY"}
The world is most definitely a worse place Because of the Way in which Justice was meted out by the USA in Iraq. Sorry Killfile
The world is unquestionably, in my mind, a better place without Hussein in it;
It should Have been better but America @!$%#ed it up Again. and Here is what ST George Has to say on it, LINK
{"commentId":458251,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"ISPY"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":458605,"authorDomain":"incredulous"}
His death brought to a close, not just a chapter in Iraqi history, but a bloodstained metaphor for the continued failings of US foreign policy throughout the middle east.
I am certain that many lovers of a good bloodstained metaphor will be saddamed saddened to learn of its demise, but I have no doubt that others will rise to the challenge, and concoct new ones.
In so doing they must, unavoidably, document the jagged blade of American Foreign Policy held too long against the necks of countless pivotal states in the struggle for global supremacy against the Soviet Union.
Florid nonsense. Many "pivotal states" were more than happy to relieve the burden imposed by their Soviet "alliances". If you like the "jagged blade" metaphor, you might also consider the rusty razor wielded by the Soviets.
...and opposition to the Soviet Union and again America's Faustian pact with Hussein served it well in the eight year long Iran-Iraq war. The outbreak of war between Iraq and Iran gave the United States an opportunity to transform what should have been a decisive loss for Iraq and a debilitating blow for Hussein into a lengthy war of attrition that would destroy the economy of Iran at the expense of Iraq. Funneling chemical munitions and other weapons of mass destruction to Iraq, the United States prolonged the conflict,...
Much to simplistic, even naive, analysis as the Soviets were virtually their the only military supplier in the early '70s, competing against the French well into the '80s. The French provided attack helicopters, artillery, vehicles, laser guided missiles, air to surface missiles and more. Not to be outdone, the Soviets maintained their lead as the number one arms supplier to Iraq in the '80s, including supplying them with their most advanced fighter, the Mig29. Hussein began the Iraq-Iran war uncertain only about the military prowess and capability of the Iranian air force which was equipped with the some of the most advanced American aircraft.
i.e. the ones you note failed to fall into Soviet hands.
For that reason, Hussein engaged in a preemptive strike on Iranian airfields.
"The United States has found itself on the wrong side of innumerable one-time-allies..."
Wrong side? Compared to what? What a charmingly naive notion. You mean like Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Russia, China, Mexico, just to name a few? Flipping and flopping alliances. That's life. Even Canada-US relations were held in suspicion at one time. Who'd I leave out? You know, somehow I have a feeling that the Great Britain of pre-1776 would not have helped with an Iraqi invasion.
Btw, Middle East, not middle east. Western, not western, meddlings, not meddleings.
President President Ahmad Hassan al-Bak's agenda
the man's name was al-Bakr...this error is made throughout, and only one President.
endemic to US client-leaders
poor word choice; maybe endemic to their relationships.
{"commentId":458605,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"incredulous"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":458624,"authorDomain":"incredulous"}
Btw, what do you find so praiseworthy about Hussein that would prompt you entitle your essay Eulogy for a Tyrant? Eulogy?
Quite a strange sentiment.
{"commentId":458624,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"incredulous"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":458668,"authorDomain":"killfile"}
{"commentId":458804,"authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
If he had any argument worth standing on its own merits, killfile, he would not have bothered to bring up grammar errors.
{"commentId":458804,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":459913,"authorDomain":"ISPY"}
Killfile
Wow. You seem to have missed the point(s) entirely.
#1.8 - Fri Jan 5, 2007 4:49 AM EST
Nicely done KF :)
{"commentId":459913,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"ISPY"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":460632,"authorDomain":"incredulous"}
Wow. You seem to have missed the point(s) entirely.
You seem to be laboring under the notion that the Soviets brought darkness and death with every step across the globe while the Americans were handing out lollipops and puppies.
There is nothing in what I've written in response to your eulogy (note the commonly understood definition of the word "eulogy" as a formal expression of praise) that should lead you to such a generalization. To the contrary, you seem to believe that wherever the US went they sowed death and destruction and ill will, while the Soviets distributed chocolates to their grateful beneficiaries. Actually, you have largely missed my point, and you seem oblivious to the implications of your own opinions. You have offered an entirely one sided and biased representation of history. That said, you are entitled to do so; you wrote it, you can say what you'd like, but you shouldn't deny it. And maybe you're not denying it. It's not clear. But recognize that you are making an analysis, wittingly or not, that is incomplete or inaccurate. I merely contradicted your specific statements and conclusions.
Let's see.
The implications of paragraph two of your essay are that, though historians will document Hussein's brutality, you want to remind us that to get a complete picture,we should be aware that the US threatened countless states for the purpose of countering Soviet intentions worldwide. Okay, I get it. This will be an anti-US piece. You'll have nothing to do with the Soviets' meddling; it's the US that meddles. As I said, you might wish to consider the rusty razor wielded by the Soviets IF YOUR INTENTION is to remind future historians that, in other words, the US made Saddam what he was.
(at which point, now I can just hear some readers saying: "well, that's right, isn't it?" Ans. No, that's wrong, unless you believe that a cake makes itself. It must have something to do with the ingredients, how they were mixed, and how long it was baked or at what temperature, correct??
Funneling chemical munitions and other weapons of mass destruction to Iraq, the United States prolonged the conflict
Prolonging the conflict? As I've already explained, the Soviets and the French provided huge quantities of military supplies and equipment. At the same time,the Soviets made diplomatic nods to Iran. In fact, significant technical help for Iraq's chemical program at that time was afforded by foreign powers, not the US. French, Germans, Soviets, all helped Iraq with their chemical weapons. Might it be that THEY prolonged the war? The Gulf states provided massive funding to Iraq, and the US, guarantee loans. (we're making a cake, remember?) You should also be aware that Rumsfeld made a second trip to Iraq to put Saddam on notice that the US knew he was using chemical agents, and that the US didn't like it. That was in March 1984, after he gassed the Kurds and already used them against the Iranians in November 1983. During that time it is certainly true, the US spoke only privately and did not condemn it publicly. On March 3, before Rumsfeld went to Iraq, the State Department stopped a US company from shipping eleven tons of phosphorous fluoride to Iraq, and the administration instructed State to complain to Iraq's foreign ministry and put it on notice that (in their words) "we anticipate making a public condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the near future," and "we are adamantly opposed to Iraq's attempting to acquire the raw materials, equipment, or expertise to manufacture chemical weapons from the United States. When we become aware of attempts to do so, we will act to prevent their export to Iraq."
Does this complicate your understanding at all?
You may want to read your Cold War history a little closer before dismissing my analysis as "simplistic, even naive." Iran's vaunted F14s were minus their targeting computers and various other parts crucial to operation the day after the Shah lost power. They were pretty show planes at that point.
Pretty show planes? No, that is incorrect, and irrelevant to my point. Yes, they had limitations. For that matter, the Iraqis used their tanks without the capability that existed for complex calculations required for ground location. They didn't know how to use it, and employed their tanks in an entriely unrealistic fashion, using them basically as standing gun platforms. And that is also irrelevant. Everyone supplied everything to everyone else amid secret deals and negotiations. My point is that all the players in the mix give a complexity to reality that is nowhere reflected in your essay.
There's more but I don't have the time or inclination to take this piece apart any further. Reality is complicated; your essay isn't.
Absent those poorly informed comments I see you objected to some typos and my use of metaphor.
re: typos and such, my pointing them out was in no way meant to be critical, just factual, and was only meant in an editorial sense. (1) We all mkae tupos. (2) your skin needs thickening.
Perhaps after I review your own lengthy catalog of original contributions I'll have acquired some of your obviously superior style and poise.
I have no intention of competing against such a voluminous output as yours. I am quite content with the likelihood that even a newsvine neophyte as myself may have something to teach an old veteran like yourself, notwithstanding the apparent paucity of my original work.
Bottom line: Believe it or not, I like your writing. Still, it makes me wince to read some of your "analysis". If you ever decide to write a piece in an area with which you have real familiarity and expertise (I mean really real), I have no doubt it will be superior and notable.
Without malice, and more good nature than you might infer, I am, outta heeya.
{"commentId":460632,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"incredulous"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":460794,"authorDomain":"killfile"}
{"commentId":457022,"authorDomain":"azsky13"}
Good article, I wasn't aware how far back our relationship was with Hussein. The Cold War with the Soviets and the shortsighted US policies created many of the problems the world faces today. I am not an isolationist, but I wish the US would work a little more on cleaning up more of the problems here at home rather than creating more worldwide.
{"commentId":457022,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"azsky13"}
- 3 votes
#2 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 11:30 AM EST{"commentId":457120,"authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
well... see that does not work out politically... Carter tried doing that and look at what happened with him.
{"commentId":457120,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":457883,"authorDomain":"jaybutler"}
If that is what Carter was trying, he is more incompetent than I previously thought. I attributed the sorry state of domestic affairs under Carter to his preoccupation with getting Begin and Sadat to shake hands.
{"commentId":457883,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"jaybutler"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":457079,"authorDomain":"danish"}
Killfile, I like your writing style and I largely sympathize with the political stance you have come to represent. You know that.
The article is an appropriate summary, but I am surprised that I don't find any mention of OPEC in here. That organization is one of the major sins against US oil hegemony, and Qasim is thought to be targeted for his role in that, as well as the reason you give:
After Qasim withdrew Iraq from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact, the United States saw danger in the possibility of a Soviet friendly Iraq pushing west towards US interests in Israel and Turkey.
Just wanted to stress that :)
{"commentId":457079,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"danish"}
- 7 votes
#3 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 12:11 PM EST{"commentId":457124,"authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
I would say that the formation of OPEC was a major Cold War event. I meant that the US could not secure energy assets against the Soviets and had to move to more extreme and ultimately more poisonous methods such as those described in "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
{"commentId":457124,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"behindmyscreen"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":457164,"authorDomain":"vassleer"}
I was going raise the same point about OPEC. I will say that although you may have a historical bias towards the Cold War, your writing remains excellent. I especially liked the narrative style. It involves the reader much more than a straight analysis would have.
Excellent article as always.
{"commentId":457164,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"vassleer"}
- 4 votes
{"commentId":458018,"authorDomain":"ignoblus"}
The article is an appropriate summary, but I am surprised that I don't find any mention of OPEC in here.
Interesting. Doesn't that suggest a limit to American hegemony, though, and maybe a different way into this article?
{"commentId":458018,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"ignoblus"}
{"commentId":457216,"authorDomain":"surya"}
Terrific article Killfile. There were even some references in there that I didn't know about, and the things I did know about you have presented in a very succinct way. Once again I got smarter.
I would add that a major step in Saddam's journey to the end of the rope was when, during the 1st US invasion under Dubya's Dad, he lobbed scud missiles into Israel.
And then there is the whole sorry, shambolic story of his trial under US-appointed judges where his defense counsel were assassinated, etc.
This article was just published in the Guardian (although this link is to another news web site).
Saddam was held in US custody right up to the end and handed over to the Iraqis only for the distasteful deed, his body whisked away immediately afterwards by a US helicopter for a hasty burial. Yet this was billed as an independent decision of a "sovereign state", as if any such thing were possible under occupation. The fact that this was the act of an Iraqi Government dominated by Saddam's Shiite enemies made the final outcome a foregone conclusion. Yet the Arab states stood by, swallowing their humiliation in silence and letting US/Iraqi "justice" take its course, hoping no one would notice how some of them had supported Saddam's war on Iran in the '80s, fought to a large extent on their behalf.
But the West should also be ashamed of what was a clear miscarriage of justice, carried out in the face of its strident demands of the Arabs for democracy and the rule of law. The trial judgement was not finished when sentence was pronounced. Saddam's defence lawyers were given less than two weeks to file their appeals against a 300-page court decision. Important evidence was not disclosed to them during the trial, and Saddam was prevented from questioning witnesses testifying against him. Several of his lawyers were threatened or actually assassinated, and the trial was subjected to continuous political interference.
Any pretence that this was an exercise of due process is farcical. Of course, Saddam himself was a brutal tyrant, but the kangaroo court that tried him lacked any serious legal credibility. Yet no Western leader (or Arab one, for that matter) was prepared to say so, or exert any pressure to have the defendant tried by an international court.
{"commentId":457216,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"surya"}
- 7 votes
#4 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 1:49 PM EST{"commentId":457302,"authorDomain":"PamelaDrew"}
Hussein's experience is that of a failure of American Foreign Policy: an incarnation of nearly a century of arrogance, complacency, and indifference.
Outstanding and exactly what we've become spoiled enough to expect from a Killfile piece. I'd take a bit different view of the end of the end, really falling a bit short of the whole picture. It is a the complacency and arrogance borne of corporate goals being met that sets the stage. I'm one who very much sees the invasion as a response to moving oil trade to euros and believe as long as the money flows to Wall Street, Washington will look the other way. It is a hierarchy with dollars on top, when they flow its all good and until and unless there is a threat to profits, Uncle Sam doesn't care how many die, who's running the show or anything else. Close that money spout, it's war.
{"commentId":457302,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"PamelaDrew"}
- 6 votes
#5 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 2:47 PM EST{"commentId":457339,"authorDomain":"ApostleZeruel"}
You are one of Newsvine's greatest assets, Killfile.
{"commentId":457339,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"ApostleZeruel"}
- 2 votes
#6 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 3:04 PM EST{"commentId":457939,"authorDomain":"PrimarySources"}
I hate to just chime in with my two cents, but....ditto.
{"commentId":457939,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"PrimarySources"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":457951,"authorDomain":"egyptian"}
Bloody fantastic article, Killfile. As usual. Thank you very much-- I learned something and this is an area of the world I have spetn my whole life studying, so that is really saying something. ;-) I wish I had been able to come to the discussion I received an invite to, but unfortunately this is my first time at a computer in a long while.
I think an interesting ending to all of this was the fact that his execution was, quite amazingly, held on Eid al-Adha-- as you no doubt know, a major Muslim holiday. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that this date was picked by Iraqis, even if the vast majority of Iraqi Shiites applauded his execution. Instead, it's more likely that it's another in a long series of stupid decisions made by the US vis-a-vis our Middle East policy. Viewed in that light, it makes perfect sense that we would make a martyr of Hussein in killing him on the "feast of the sacrifice" rather than simply allowing him to rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life.
{"commentId":457951,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"egyptian"}
- 2 votes
#7 - Wed Jan 3, 2007 11:13 PM EST{"commentId":458274,"authorDomain":"incredulous"}
I find it incredibly difficult to believe that this date was picked by Iraqis, even if the vast majority of Iraqi Shiites applauded his execution. Instead, it's more likely that it's another in a long series of stupid decisions made by the US vis-a-vis our Middle East policy.
Typical US bashing supported by nothing but speculation, and contradicted by facts.
see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html
{"commentId":458274,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"incredulous"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":458287,"authorDomain":"keld"}
A neat example of how the NYT tries to wipe the blood from the US government's hands. The US could easily have prevented this lynching, if they wanted to. They handed Saddam over to the Iraqis, they flew the witnesses to the execution place in a helicopter, they searched them for video cameras [sic], and they finally flew Saddam's body to his place of burial. The only thing they didn't do, was to put the rope around his neck.
{"commentId":458287,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"keld"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":458477,"authorDomain":"keld"}
Here's more: Americans allowed the mobile video of the hanging:
-
Evidence from a senior Iraqi court official provides compelling evidence that Americans took all mobiles except two used openly by "high-ranking government officials". This confirms that the mobile phone video was not recorded secretly, but was done openly and with government approval, and that the Americans controlled who was allowed in with any mobile phone. This reinforces the belief that both the making, and the leaking of the video, was deliberate black propaganda to further inflame the civil war.
Tragic copy cat hangings: 3 Children Dead on the Noose.
{"commentId":458477,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"keld"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":458169,"authorDomain":"keld"}
Juan Cole has written two very interesting articles related to the American engagement in the rise and fall of Saddam:
I think that's about the closest we can get to the real facts — for now at least.
{"commentId":458169,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"keld"}
- 5 votes
#8 - Thu Jan 4, 2007 3:05 AM EST{"commentId":458906,"authorDomain":"Truewater2"}
I enjoyed very much the article you posted.
I found it interesting you noted the policies of the U.S. Government mimic that of the British. We know the end results of the latter's divide and conquer strategy.
So, based on precedence, should we expect "more of the same," or should we perhaps entertain the possibility of wholesale rejection of those policies and ultimate failure by the "student" to achieve its objective?
{"commentId":458906,"threadId":"65280","contentId":"503562","authorDomain":"Truewater2"}
- 1 vote
#9 - Thu Jan 4, 2007 2:46 PM EST{"canLink":false,"threadId":"65280","isPrivate":false}
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