The Iraq War - Chapter 5

[Lei Liko]

Originally Posted by manoasurfer123

SADDAM IS DEAD!!!

I'll toast to that!

I'm watching Anderson Cooper right now and they're waiting on images of his execution.

Remind me not to watch TV or surf news websites because I sure as hell don't want to see them.

Please...everybody pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq right now. News sources say that they expect violent reaction from his supporters.

[WindwardOahuRN]

Originally Posted by manoasurfer123

SADDAM IS DEAD!!!

I'll toast to that!

:::Clinking glasses with Manoa:::

[Miulang]

Confirmation from Iraqi news sources that Sadam and his brother in law were hanged a little before 6 a.m. Iraq time.
Voices of Iraq
Al Jazeera
Yahoo News

One point of interest is that the news was first broadcast by al Hurra, a US government-backed Iraqi TV station. The execution itself was videotaped, so it will be interesting if some forensic guys get a look at this and determine that the man hanged was not Sadam.

Sadam's execution is said to be p'o'ing the British government, which doesn't believe in capital punishment.

Miulang

[damontucker]

Originally Posted by Miulang

The execution itself was videotaped, so it will be interesting if some forensic guys get a look at this and determine that the man hanged

YOUTUBE!!! BE the hero now!!!

I wanna see an old fashion lynching!!!!

Manoa the bloodthirsty beast is coming out!!!!!

I wanna see this thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(sorry! )

[tutusue]

I'll clink glasses with everyone else...however...I fear for our troops. I guess Hussein is the 3rd celebr...errr...person of notoriety...to die this week. That piece of trivia is in keeping with deaths of people with recognizable names that seem to come in 3s.

[Miulang]

Riverbend, the Iraqi woman who blogs from Baghdad, wrote the following yesterday, just prior to Saddam's death.

Why make things worse by insisting on Saddam's execution now? Who gains if they hang Saddam? Iran, naturally, but who else? There is a real fear that this execution will be the final blow that will shatter Iraq. Some Sunni and Shia tribes have threatened to arm their members against the Americans if Saddam is executed. Iraqis in general are watching closely to see what happens next, and quietly preparing for the worst.

This is because now, Saddam no longer represents himself or his regime. Through the constant insistence of American war propaganda, Saddam is now representative of all Sunni Arabs (never mind most of his government were Shia). The Americans, through their speeches and news articles and Iraqi Puppets, have made it very clear that they consider him to personify Sunni Arab resistance to the occupation. Basically, with this execution, what the Americans are saying is "Look- Sunni Arabs- this is your man, we all know this. We're hanging him- he symbolizes you." And make no mistake about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American. Some of the actors were Iraqi enough, but the production, direction and montage was pure Hollywood (though low-budget, if you ask me).

That is, of course, why Talbani doesn't want to sign his death penalty- not because the mob man suddenly grew a conscience, but because he doesn't want to be the one who does the hanging- he won't be able to travel far away enough if he does that.

Maliki's government couldn't contain their glee. They announced the ratification of the execution order before the actual court did. A few nights ago, some American news program interviewed Maliki's bureau chief, Basim Al-Hassani who was speaking in accented American English about the upcoming execution like it was a carnival he'd be attending. He sat, looking sleazy and not a little bit ridiculous, his dialogue interspersed with 'gonna', 'gotta' and 'wanna'... Which happens, I suppose, when the only people you mix with are American soldiers.


My only conclusion is that the Americans want to withdraw from Iraq, but would like to leave behind a full-fledged civil war because it wouldn't look good if they withdraw and things actually begin to improve, would it?

Here we come to the end of 2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis. We've all lost some of the compassion and civility that I felt made us special four years ago. I take myself as an example. Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them.

Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.


Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so.

Miulang

[Leo Lakio]

At the risk of drawing heat, I will publicly say that I respectfully decline in toasting the death of Saddam Hussein.

Don't misinterpret that statement, however. He was a tyrant and a sadistic murderer; if I truly believed in Hell, he would be sharing a room there with Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin. I do not mourn him at all.

But I am firmly against state-sanctioned murder of any kind. Saddam used his cruel power to slaughter thousands of innocents; his successors used their power to hang him and his guilty partners-in-horror. I would much rather he had been sealed up in a cell for the rest of his life, away from communication with the world at large, where his own rotten soul and twisted mind would have been his only real companion for the remainder of his days.

Any time we find cause for celebration in killing another human being, no matter who, no matter why, we diminish ourselves as a species and as thinking, loving, compassionate creatures.

With head bowed, I leave your table.

[Lei Liko]

Originally Posted by Leo Lakio

Any time we find cause for celebration in killing another human being, no matter who, no matter why, we diminish ourselves as a species and as thinking, loving, compassionate creatures...

Leo Lakio, I agree 100%. I also cannot celebrate the killing of any human, regardless of who he/she is, which is probably why I don't want to see still images or the video. EVER.

[damontucker]

Originally Posted by Leo Lakio

At the risk of drawing heat, I will publicly say that I respectfully decline in toasting the death of Saddam Hussein.

Don't misinterpret that statement, however. He was a tyrant and a sadistic murderer; if I truly believed in Hell, he would be sharing a room there with Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin. I do not mourn him at all.

But I am firmly against state-sanctioned murder of any kind. Saddam used his cruel power to slaughter thousands of innocents; his successors used their power to hang him and his guilty partners-in-horror. I would much rather he had been sealed up in a cell for the rest of his life, away from communication with the world at large, where his own rotten soul and twisted mind would have been his only real companion for the remainder of his days.

Any time we find cause for celebration in killing another human being, no matter who, no matter why, we diminish ourselves as a species and as thinking, loving, compassionate creatures.

With head bowed, I leave your table.

Originally Posted by Lei Liko

Leo Lakio, I agree 100%. I also cannot celebrate the killing of any human, regardless of who he/she is, which is probably why I don't want to see still images or the video. EVER.

I will respectfully take there drinks and get more drunk! I get to many relatives served to many terms....and lost a few friends in the last few years.... for this...

I will take yours leo and lei liko... (what... you still gonna pay the tip though yeah? you just leaving your drink on the table huh?)

[Mike_Lowery]

Originally Posted by tutusue

That piece of trivia is in keeping with deaths of people with recognizable names that seem to come in 3s.

Yup. I was watchin for that. Mike Evans, James Brown, and Gerald Ford.

[Miulang]

This sounds just waaaay too convenient to me. Turns out Saddam was not executed in Baghdad in front of his people, but on the grounds of the heavily US-fortified Green Zone with only US and Iraqi officials present. So no Iraqi civilian witnessed the event at all.

Saddam Hussein was hanged early today for his crimes against humanity. The former dictator of Iraq was hooded, led to the gallows in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, which houses his former presidential palace, before being executed without ceremony in front of Iraqi and American officials.

While all of you are celebrating his "demise", please remember that it was the US Government who put him in power in the first place, and it was the US Government which turned its head the other way while he was murdering Kurds (the second trial for which he was never to be tried). All we did by getting rid of Saddam was to get rid of our "mistake". This is typical of the US Government...set up puppet governments so we can control oil or other strategic resources, and then when those leaders become uppity, find some excuse to get rid of them.

Good job, Dubya. Now that one man who committed crimes against humanity is gone, will you, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld be next???

Miulang

[tutusue]

Originally Posted by Mike_Lowery

Yup. I was watchin for that. Mike Evans, James Brown, and Gerald Ford.

Ok...I'm too lazy to google!!! Who's Mike Evans?

[Mike_Lowery]

Originally Posted by tutusue

Ok...I'm too lazy to google!!! Who's Mike Evans?

He played Lionel Jefferson on "The Jeffersons" and "All in the Family"

[joshuatree]

Originally Posted by Miulang

This sounds just waaaay too convenient to me. Turns out Saddam was not executed in Baghdad in front of his people, but on the grounds of the heavily US-fortified Green Zone with only US and Iraqi officials present. So no Iraqi civilian witnessed the event at all.



While all of you are celebrating his "demise", please remember that it was the US Government who put him in power in the first place, and it was the US Government which turned its head the other way while he was murdering Kurds (the second trial for which he was never to be tried). All we did by getting rid of Saddam was to get rid of our "mistake". This is typical of the US Government...set up puppet governments so we can control oil or other strategic resources, and then when those leaders become uppity, find some excuse to get rid of them.

Good job, Dubya. Now that one man who committed crimes against humanity is gone, will you, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld be next???

Miulang

I think they said relatives of those massacred by Hussein also got to witness the execution. Keeping it low-keyed is actually a good move for once.

I'm well aware how Hussein was propped up by the US. I have no qualms for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield being tried as well. But until then, I'll take what I can get.

[Miulang]

Originally Posted by joshuatree

I think they said relatives of those massacred by Hussein also got to witness the execution. Keeping it low-keyed is actually a good move for once.

If that's true (and I haven't seen any reports that that is what happened). then there would have been only relatives of 148 Iraqis present. Absent were the relatives of the 100,000+ Kurds who were also massacred by Saddam.

I really really fear for the safety of our troops now, and also for the safety of innocent Iraqi civilians...both Shia and Sunni...who will now become more numbers in the death toll.

Miulang

[damontucker]

Originally Posted by Miulang

While all of you are celebrating his "demise",

Miulang... you are so kind hearted.... even to saddam after he's fracking dead.

See you around...

You know how to get a hold of me if you need to...

one of my x-mas wishes I wished for about 2 - 3 years ago got answered tonight.

Hugs Mlang...

matter of fact.... that's my new HT nickname fore you m...

is "M-lang"


hugs tita....

Damon

[joshuatree]

Originally Posted by Miulang

If that's true (and I haven't seen any reports that that is what happened). then there would have been only relatives of 148 Iraqis present. Absent were the relatives of the 100,000+ Kurds who were also massacred by Saddam.

I really really fear for the safety of our troops now, and also for the safety of innocent Iraqi civilians...both Shia and Sunni...who will now become more numbers in the death toll.

Miulang

I read that earlier before the execution actually happened so who knows if things got changed last minute. At this point, it's better to have a few witnesses to confirm the execution but not too many to add fuel to the fire that's become daily life there.

Whether there was an execution or not, our troops have been in harm's way for the last several years. Doing it now right before the holidays could be strategic, it could damper the reprisals. I don't see how locking him away would do anybody any good, every time he had a chance to speak in court, all he did was speak of inciting further rebellion.

[tutusue]

Originally Posted by Mike_Lowery

He played Lionel Jefferson on "The Jeffersons" and "All in the Family"

Aha...thanks. I was expecting a sports celeb! I never did follow The Jeffersons or Good Times so was not familiar with Mike Evans. I followed All In the Family a bit but not enough to remember Lionel.

[Miulang]

Originally Posted by joshuatree

Whether there was an execution or not, our troops have been in harm's way for the last several years. Doing it now right before the holidays could be strategic, it could damper the reprisals. I don't see how locking him away would do anybody any good, every time he had a chance to speak in court, all he did was speak of inciting further rebellion.

I agree with international legal experts who say that executing Saddam before the completion of his genocide trial for the slaughter of 100,000 Kurds will probably not help to unify the country. The Kurds represent about 1/3 of the population and the numbers of their relatives who were massacred far outweighed the 148 who were killed in Djail. The speedy execution of Saddam kind of implies that the Kurds are inconsequential compared to the 148 Shia killed. So for the Kurds, there can be no justice or vindication.

Was the timing of his execution meant to quell reprisals? Depends. It may just postpone the increase in violence against our troops and against the Shia until after Eid (which ends either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on whether you're Shia or Sunni). Almost immediately after the execution was announced, a car bomb in Kufa (a Shia town) killed at least 30 civilians and another in Baghdad killed at least 36.

Miulang

[Kahalu'u Kid]

Originally Posted by Miulang

This sounds just waaaay too convenient to me. Turns out Saddam was not executed in Baghdad in front of his people, but on the grounds of the heavily US-fortified Green Zone with only US and Iraqi officials present. So no Iraqi civilian witnessed the event at all.



While all of you are celebrating his "demise", please remember that it was the US Government who put him in power in the first place, and it was the US Government which turned its head the other way while he was murdering Kurds (the second trial for which he was never to be tried). All we did by getting rid of Saddam was to get rid of our "mistake". This is typical of the US Government...set up puppet governments so we can control oil or other strategic resources, and then when those leaders become uppity, find some excuse to get rid of them.

Good job, Dubya. Now that one man who committed crimes against humanity is gone, will you, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld be next???

Miulang

I'm with you, Miulang. It's kinda like mafia action where they "off" the middle man who did all the dirty work for the big man. I bet you Cheney, Rumsfeld and George W are probably indirectly responsible for waaay more deaths. Typical American shenanigans, though, not surprising.

I'm totally feeling Leo Lakio and Lei Liko's sentiments too, though. I think it's really cruel and ironic to celebrate someone's death. To me, it's a bad indication of how brain-washed, programmed, and inhumane we've become. I'm not supporting Hussein at all, but since you can't change the past, just let him live his years out working in jail or something. Aloha.

[speedtek]

I don't know why but I feel the execution of Saddam was wrong.
I am normally a person of revenge. But I find his hanging hard to digest.
Especially the fact that there is no proof of collabration between Saddam and Bin Laden in 9/11
To me Saddam was just a BS artist with lots of American $$$.
Bush and his adminstration is a bunch of BS Artist with our $$$.
But to me the Iraqi war stinks. I feel like it is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
There is something wrong with all this Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield & whoeverelse
running the war effort. What are we really fighting for? Everytime I turn around I
hear another scam going on. I cringe everytime I hear the word Haliburton.
Everytime I hear the H word there is always $$$ attached to it. Also the high price of
gas and the record profits the Arabs and Oil companies are making. and here we are
us common people are struggling to make ends meet.

After 9/11 I was pro-war. pro-revenge. Now I have a headache just figuring out what
the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites really are. Plus the link to Palestine and the fight against
the Israelis....very confusing.

I was a history flunkie. Now all I do is read the internet learning about history.

[Terranova0]

I'm with you,Speedtek-- it all seems like a bigger mess now than it was to start. What have we accomlished there beyond taking Saddam out of power and now killing him? We've surely made him a martyr in some circles. I have no love for Hussein, but I'd like to have seen us do something more constructive in Iraq since we've (apparently) given up on balancing the budget and have decided to spend our grandchildren's taxes on "bettering" the world at large (while neglecting our own communities at home). Lovely.
Oh well...

"When you get up in the morning and the light is hurt your head
The first thing you do when you get up out of bed
Is hit that streets a-runnin and try to beat the masses
And go get yourself some cheap sunglasses..."
Oh yeah

Praise be the internetz! There is so much to learn (and a lot of garbage out here, too). Gotta love google!

Blessings*

Barb

[glossyp]

From an article published today in the NYT by John F. Burns about Saddam Hussein:

"At that instant, I felt sorry for him, as a man in distress and perhaps, too, as a once almighty figure reduced to ignominy. But the expression of that pity to the Iraqis present marked the distance between those, like me, who had taken the measure of Saddam’s terror as a visitor, shielded from the worst of it by the minders and the claustrophobic world of closely guarded hotels and supervised Information Ministry trips, and Iraqis who lived through it with no shield."

"That I could feel pity for him struck the Iraqis with whom I talked as evidence of a profound moral corruption.[emphasis added] I came to understand how a Westerner used to the civilities of democracy and due process — even a reporter who thought he grasped the depths of Saddam’s depravity — fell short of the Iraqis’ sense, forged by years of brutality, of the power of his unmitigated evil."

The entire article is well worth reading. The world is a better place with Saddam dead alongside Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Kim Il Sung, just to name a few in more recent memory. Those who flatter themselves with the thought that Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld are somehow morally equivalent to a man who strangled his mistress with his bare hands in front of her child, reveled in the brutal rape and torture of women - never mind the hundreds of thousands who were exterminated at his behest - should take a serious reality check.

[joshuatree]

Originally Posted by glossyp

From an article published today in the NYT by John F. Burns about Saddam Hussein:

"At that instant, I felt sorry for him, as a man in distress and perhaps, too, as a once almighty figure reduced to ignominy. But the expression of that pity to the Iraqis present marked the distance between those, like me, who had taken the measure of Saddam’s terror as a visitor, shielded from the worst of it by the minders and the claustrophobic world of closely guarded hotels and supervised Information Ministry trips, and Iraqis who lived through it with no shield."

"That I could feel pity for him struck the Iraqis with whom I talked as evidence of a profound moral corruption.[emphasis added] I came to understand how a Westerner used to the civilities of democracy and due process — even a reporter who thought he grasped the depths of Saddam’s depravity — fell short of the Iraqis’ sense, forged by years of brutality, of the power of his unmitigated evil."

The entire article is well worth reading. The world is a better place with Saddam dead alongside Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Kim Il Sung, just to name a few in more recent memory. Those who flatter themselves with the thought that Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld are somehow morally equivalent to a man who strangled his mistress with his bare hands in front of her child, reveled in the brutal rape and torture of women - never mind the hundreds of thousands who were exterminated at his behest - should take a serious reality check.

I agree, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld have their share of travesties but they are no where at the level of Hussein. Just because the US backed Hussein in the past don't mean the US backed and directed Hussein to commit the massacres that he did. He got what he deserved.

Originally Posted by Miulang

I agree with international legal experts who say that executing Saddam before the completion of his genocide trial for the slaughter of 100,000 Kurds will probably not help to unify the country. The Kurds represent about 1/3 of the population and the numbers of their relatives who were massacred far outweighed the 148 who were killed in Djail. The speedy execution of Saddam kind of implies that the Kurds are inconsequential compared to the 148 Shia killed. So for the Kurds, there can be no justice or vindication.

Was the timing of his execution meant to quell reprisals? Depends. It may just postpone the increase in violence against our troops and against the Shia until after Eid (which ends either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on whether you're Shia or Sunni). Almost immediately after the execution was announced, a car bomb in Kufa (a Shia town) killed at least 30 civilians and another in Baghdad killed at least 36.

Miulang

There is vindication for the Kurds. The man got hung. I guess the Kurds didn't have a chance to personally beat up, spit on, or mutilate the body. In that regards, than yeah, they didn't get justice or vindication.

Letting Hussein live his life away in prison on someone else's dime would have been no justice or vindication. That would have said, "So you killed masses of people brutally? Here's a slap on the wrist, now go live your live peacefully in seclusion."

[Miulang]

Well, the Bush family certainly got their vindication, didn't they? It's been pretty well established that Dubya has had a vendetta out for Saddam ever since the despot hatched an assassination plot against Bush 41 and his wife and Laura Bush (Dubya conveniently stayed home on that trip because he was preparing to run for the governorship of TX at the time).

...the history of animosity between the Bushes and Saddam is hard to ignore. The relationship actually began as one of pragmatic friendship in the 1980s, when Saddam was at war with the main U.S. enemy in the region, Iran, and George H.W. Bush was vice president in an administration that offered him help. A 1992 New Yorker article suggested that Bush, through Arab intermediaries, advised Saddam to intensify the bombing of Iran.

Saddam soon became too much to handle. "People came to understand him as someone who was much less stable and someone who could not be trusted," said Craig Fuller, chief of staff to the elder Bush when he was vice president. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 proved a strategic miscalculation that put him and the Bushes forever on opposite sides.

The elder Bush wrongly assumed that Iraqis would overthrow Saddam, and his decision not to march to Baghdad after freeing Kuwait would haunt him and his son. An unbowed Saddam defied the international community, and in April 1993, when Bush went to Kuwait for a hero's welcome, a group of Iraqis crossed the border in what was called a thwarted attempt to blow him up. Bill Clinton launched 23 Tomahawk missiles against Iraqi targets in retaliation.

Among those on that trip who could have been killed were Barbara Bush and Laura Bush. George W. Bush had stayed in Texas, where he was preparing to run for governor. Some later questioned the seriousness of the assassination attempt or its connections to Baghdad. But the incident clearly was a searing moment for the Bush family.

By the time the younger Bush ran for president, he appeared determined not to repeat the mistake he believed his father made with Saddam. "No one envisioned him still standing," the candidate told BBC in November 1999. "It's time to finish the task."

At a debate a couple of weeks later, Bush was more explicit. "If I found that in any way, shape, or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take him out," he said.

...Bush later talked with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., aboard Air Force One about assassinating Saddam, saying he would repeal the executive order banning assassination of foreign leaders if intelligence gave him a clear shot.

"The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man," Bush told interviewers in March 2003. "And he not only tried to kill my father and wife, he's killed thousands of his own citizens." But he denied a vendetta. "Nah, no," he said. "I'm doing my job as the president, based upon the threats that face this country."

From Riverbend's blog today, this entry commenting on the final moments of Saddam's life as he stood at the gallows waiting to be hanged:

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

And sadly, the American death toll reached 3000 killed today.


Miulang