December 28, 2007
After Saddam Hussein’s execution, some writers mocked him and again, re-wrote history. In "So Long to
'Our Tyrant,’" Andrew Cockburn stated:
Though he was expelled from Kuwait and his economy wrecked by sanctions, Hussein was allowed to survive because
Washington for a time continued to believe that he was useful as a bulwark against Iran abroad and militant Shiism at home
in Iraq. When that policy was discarded by the neoconservatives after the 9/11 attacks, the dictator’s days were numbered.
Cockburn, of all people, should know that after Desert Storm, many plots to get rid of Saddam emerged.. For
instance, even Scott Ritter, once head of the U.N. inspection team, has stated that the goal of the U.S. personnel on the
inspection contingent was to overthrow Saddam. He admits that he was a part of the plot. In 1996, Kurdish fighters were about
to embark on Baghdad to overthrow Saddam. The group had the blessing of the U.S., although the Americans withdrew their promise
of air cover at the last moment. In 1995, one of Washington’s former "saviors" of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, a CIA operative,
ordered terrorist attacks in Baghdad in the hope the ensuing chaos would help dump Saddam. More than a hundred Iraqi civilians
were killed in this operation, but the Iraqi government soon discovered the plot and stopped it. Allawi was the head of an
Iraqi exile group called the Iraqi National Accord. The organization was supported by the U.S. government.
John Simpson of the Sunday Times relayed more historical revision in his piece "Tyrant Met His End
with Fortitude:"
Every important step he took was a disaster, from the attack on Iran in 1980 which started a hugely debilitating
war that lasted for eight years, to the foolish invasion of Kuwait, which brought him into open conflict with his former friends,
the Americans. Yet he knew how to appeal to ordinary people across the world. He was hated by most of his own people, but
loved by the poor and disinherited of the rest of the Arab world.
He ruled Iraq by relying on the Sunni minority. His ministers were mostly Sunnis and so were most senior officers
in his army and police force. Tens of thousands of Sunnis died as a result of his repression and the wars, but since his overthrow
by the British and Americans in 2003, Sunnis have tended to identify more closely with him.
The glaring mis-representation in this piece is the depiction that his ministers, the officers in his army
and police force consisted mostly of Sunnis. In fact, 60% of the Republican Guard officers were Shi’ite. As were two-thirds
of the Iraqi ambassadors assigned to the U.N. during Saddam’s tenure. Iraq’s mouthpiece to the world in March
and April 2003, Mohamed Sahaff (the Iraq Information Minister) is Shi’ite. In the infamous deck of 55 playing cards
created by the U.S., 35 individuals were Shi’ite. Justice could have been better portrayed if Simpson took a few minutes
to research facts before he made such erroneous allegations.
In the article, "Rule of Noose," Bruce Shapiro wrote:
If Iraqi executioners have a particular expertise with the gallows, it is because Saddam gave his country
so much practice. Hanging, shooting, gassing, beating, Saddam and his agents were masters of them all. Saddam, depraved and
sadistic, was the polar opposite of the banal bureaucrat evil Hannah Arendt famously saw in Adolph Eichmann.
Shapiro packed much vile into such a short span of words. "Depraved and sadistic" stick out. I doubt that
Shapiro has an education and background in psychology, but he tries to dissect Saddam Hussein’s brain. On December 30,
2006, the only "depraved and sadistic" Iraqis we saw were the ones who taunted Saddam and those who pulled the lever for his
hanging.
On the other hand, some articles contained realistic information. According to Robert Dreyfuss, in his article,
"The Consequences of Killing Saddam:"
An overwhelming majority of the Sunni Arab population of Iraq now supports the resistance, and its intensity
is likely to grow significantly in the wake of Saddam’s death. Earlier this year, 300 Sunni tribal leaders met in Anbar
to issue a demand that Saddam Hussein be released from prison, just one indication that support for the former president of
Iraq was widespread. "The execution of Saddam means that the flame of vengeance will be ignited and it will hurt the body
of Iraq with unrecoverable wounds," a Sunni tribal leader told the New York Times.
Michael Boldin spoke of the lies and deceit of the U.S. administration in his piece "Saddam Was Right and
Bush Was Wrong:"
The non-existent weapons of mass destruction weren’t the only falsehood. There were the phony uranium
purchases, lies about al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq, mobile weapons labs, and drones that were going to attack the East
Coast of the U.S.
Remember the lies about babies being thrown out of incubators? The propaganda started years ago. Even the
claims of Saddam’s brutality are suspect. Why? Because most of these claims come from the same people that have already
discredited themselves.
Boldin is one of the few writers who went right to the core of the problem of the demonizing of Saddam Hussein.
If those who accused Saddam of myriad atrocities had already been exposed as liars about virtually every aspect on Iraq, how
could they transform themselves into purveyors of truth in describing Saddam Hussein and his regime?
Al-Quds of al-Arabi assessed the situation in a logical manner. Its editor, Abdel
Bari Atwan, told Aljazeera News:
Arab public opinion wonders who deserves to be tried and executed: Saddam Hussein, who preserved the unity
of Iraq, its Arab and Islamic entity and the coexistence of its different communities such as Shi’ites and Sunnis …
or those who engulfed the country in this bloody civil war?
The pundits had a great time writing about Saddam Hussein’s execution. Many work for huge publications
with limitless resources for research, yet they chose to re-hash old discredited information and add a few new untruths as
well.
These represent only a few statements made in the Western press. But, in newspapers from Brazil to Russia,
from India to Indonesia, from Pakistan to Venezuela, and many other nations, the media were much kinder to Saddam Hussein
and the barbaric end he experienced.
Many Western observers are not aware that Saddam Hussein was well-regarded in much of the world. Brazilians
remembered that thousands of their countrymen were recruited by Saddam to build the advanced highway and bridge systems that
once crisscrossed Iraq. Egyptians did not forget that a few million of their countrymen owned and worked land in Iraq prior
to January 1991. Indians did not forget the reciprocal dealings with Iraq and how the Ba’athists gave support to Indian
causes. The Lebanese remembered the dozens of Iraqi trucks that showed up daily at the Lebanese border during that country’s
civil war. They were laden with food and clothing for any Lebanese person in need. The convoys’ recipients included
all Lebanese, not a certain faction of those battling in the civil war. Most Palestinians display a picture of Saddam Hussein
on their walls. Over the years, many nations have temporarily supported the Palestinian cause, only to withdraw aid once threatened
by the U.S. Saddam Hussein, even during the embargo years, supported the Palestinians with no exception, while other Arab
regimes did not want to get involved because they did not want to upset their puppeteers in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Maliki may be happy that he expedited Saddam’s execution by, along with U.S. collaboration, forming
phony courts for mock trials. The mirth soon gave way to panic. Saddam Hussein made Iraq worth fighting for. The outsiders
and the traitors dismantled his Iraq.
It didn’t take long for the world to see how quickly the bogus court that tried Saddam became unraveled.
On March 9, 2007, the headlines for Al-Jazeera News read, "Saddam Judge Flees Iraq." Raouf Abdel-Rahman was the judge who
sentenced Saddam Hussein, Barzan al-Tikriti (Iraq’s former intelligence minister) and Awad Hamed (former head of Iraq’s
Revolutionary Court) to death. All were hanged.
Abdel-Rahman was the second judge on the trial in which the defendants were accused of crimes against humanity
for the execution of 148 people from the city of Dujail in 1985. The first judge, Rizgar Amin, resigned. He accused the U.S.-allied
Iraqi officials of scripting the trial for him. When Abdel-Rahman came on board, the so-called trial turned into a fiasco.
He constantly kicked the defendants and their lawyers out of the court room. He made public statements before the end of the
trial in which he stated that Saddam was guilty. When a defense witness came forth with a video tape showing how the head
prosecutor, Jaafar al-Musawi and a prosecution witness, Ali al-Haidari had lied, Abdel-Rahman confiscated the video tape and
had the witness, along with three other defense witnesses, arrested and tortured.
When the appeals court turned down the request of Saddam’s defense team about the death verdict, Abdel-Rahman
had to set an execution date within 30 days of the appeal verdict. Saddam was hanged within four days, on the date of the
beginning of a Moslem holiday.
For a few months, Abdel-Rahman relished in his image as a no-nonsense, tough judge. The truth differs. He
stood against everything a judge is supposed to represent: to find the truth. He lied and he was a fraud. He was brave while
he was protected by the U.S. Army in the Green Zone, but once the hangings were conducted, it appears that Abdel-Rahman must
have lost some of his protection. He fled to Great Britain.
There is one aspect of this mockery that is confusing. Abdel-Rahman asked for "political asylum" in Great
Britain. Political asylum is usually requested by citizens of countries in which they are not allowed political, social or
religious rights that other citizens enjoy. Abdel-Rahman was a product of the quisling Iraqi government. He was right in the
middle of all the shenanigans and violence the pretenders thrust on Iraq. Why did he ask for "political asylum" when he was
a mainstream player in the sordid politics of Iraq?
It is probable that there were many Iraqis who were offended by Saddam Hussein’s show trial and hanging
and some were probably picking up the stench of Abdel-Rahman’s scent. Even the U.S. and the Iraqi stooges would have
been unable to give him enough security to ensure that he would be alive at retirement age.
Abdel-Rahman may have been the temporary victor because of his actions in an unfair Iraqi courthouse that
led to the hanging of Saddam Hussein. But, in death, Saddam Hussein won the battle against him as Abdel-Rahman made a secret
and cowardly exit from Iraq.
Saddam Hussein knew how his life would end. He never capitulated, not even at the end when he was offered
chances to be freed from prison. He knew that if he sold out, he would have sold out Iraq.
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