The crimes of Saddam, as we saw it in Iran was not limited to the ones during and after the occupation of Kuwait.

Saddam performed an ethical cleansing of all non-arabs in Iraq and anyone who had any "iranian" blood for over 4 generations back was deported out of their country.

Also, the main reason Saddam was kept in power after they were kicked out of Kuwait, was to have a reason to fool the Arab states of the Persian Gulf to buy more military equipment and pay for the American's deployment in the region.

The price US has paid for having their soldiers stationed in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is the lowest in the history of all US foreign bases, but the benefits of 100s of billions of dollars of military equipment and services sold to all the Arab countries was well worth a few soldiers life in Kobar and Cole attacks.

The same now goes for the occupation of Iraq, even thought a lot of people are talking about the 1000 billion dollar cost of this war, but in reality, most of this money comes back to the US via US companies, but the benefit of stealing 100s of billions of dollars from Iraq as well as the future benefits of the re-building the country is way over the small amount that is actually "used" in Iraq.

The big issue is that this money is taken from everyone in the US and given to a small group of people who are advocating this war.

Sadly, this is what most people do not see or understand,

Best regards,

/Farhad

This evil bastard was finally dispatched by his own people, and for good reason. Don't search for another scapegoat to pin it on. He brought on his own demise, no matter what the process. Good riddance!!

I agree with you.

Bloody disgrace to be screwing with peoples minds imposing their laws and the interpretation of same. Frankly it sickens me

SADDAM: VICTIM OR SCAPEGOAT?

by Uli Schmetzer

www.uli-schmetzer.com

   

Shortly after the attack on the Twin Towers the neo-cons peddled the message we must go to war in Iraq to safe the Western-Christian world from jihadi terrorism. Today the same spin doctors are peddling the message we cannot leave Iraq because if we do we will all be at the mercy of terrorism.  Doesn't all this sound familiar to those who remember Vietnam? If one substitutes terrorism for communism the equation comes out the same. 

The same spin doctors must be given credit for the latest bungle: The hanging of Saddam Hussein. Being executed to the taunts of Shiite fanatics converted the tyrant into a martyr. Millions of his fellow Sunni Moslems and Arabs in the Middle East today see Saddam as a hero martyred by the will of the new Christian crusaders. His execution assured America and its dwindling Alliance of the Willing an additional portion of hatred.  Skeptics might deduce it is more hatred and more violence that generates the neon-con argument the Alliance can not leave Iraq in the mess it is in (even though this mess was created by the very Alliance.)

Isn't this a macabre plan?

Even before the scaffold's trapdoor opened for Saddam terrorist experts, including the CIA, had already concurred that today the threat of jihadi terrorism is many times higher then it was before the Iraqi war in 2003. Of course we do not know if this is also true (lying to the public is a common official malaise these days) or if it is just another ruse to retch up the security industry which has enjoyed a boom since the Iraqi War and give another boost to the multiple secret services, moribund since the end of the Cold War but now resurrected and nurtured as never before.  More gadgets for the airports, for corporate entrances, more delays, more checking, more invasion of privacy, allowing the State ever more power over the individual with the excuse of protecting us against a terrorism whose activities have fallen well short of the doomsday predictions of our leaders.

In financial terms all this is worth hundreds of billions of dollars in business. Don't forget the ‘expensive' destruction of Iraq by sophisticated weaponry is accompanied by a nearly equally expensive service industry to look after our brave combatants and eventually, if things cool down, the fabulously expensive reconstruction of the country, often by the very same companies and corporations whose products destroyed Iraq in the first place.

Then there is all that Iraqi oil to be milked by the very dynasties who called for the war loudest.

What a sweetheart deal!

One of these days someone may ask the Bush-Blair tandem and their business partners why they really went to war in Iraq. Their justification ‘to liberate Iraq' has long ago evaporated in the exodus of three million Iraqis who preferred to be refugees then liberated citizen under the ‘occupation.' Right now 100,000 Iraqis leave their country every month and 90 per cent of Iraqis say their country's situation before the ‘invasion' was better, according to a just released study by the Iraqi Center for Research and Strategic Studies.

(Words like ‘invasion' and ‘occupation' have been banned by the American media which also calls the war frequently ‘a conflict' and has been debating for weeks whether the murderous massacres between Sunnis and Moslems could be called a ‘civil war.' A study by three British universities, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, found 80 per cent of the media ‘unerringly' followed the government line on Iraq and only 12 per cent challenged the wisdom of the ‘conflict' (‘conflict' being one of the media's verbal camouflages for the trail of blood in Iraq.)

 In the meantime for those of us whose brains have not yet oxidized or been re-programmed by the propagandists Saddam's hanging was an act of colonial-style vengeance. It was a smokescreen for a war already lost. Worse, the hanging was an act of abject hypocrisy.

Forget the orchestrated show trial, a legal process the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch defined as ‘a farce.' Forget the fact not a single mention of gassing of Kurds and Iranians during the trial since this would have inevitably led to the origin of the components of the gas, the West. Forget the fact the accused, a dictator who sent to death tens of thousands, was a loyal ally of America and the West when he committed his worst crimes including the chemical gas attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja. Forget we eked him on to attack Iran, a war that cost 1.5 million lives. Forget he never was told clearly to lay off Kuwait, a booty he considered as his legitimate reward for keeping the Iranian revolution within its border. Forget the West never censored his gassings - just as the European Union never protested Saddam's execution even though the Union officially deplores capital punishment.

One can also forget our reasons to go to war against Saddam – the presence of weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaida – reasons that proved false and fabricated but were still being touted as late as last year by such stalwarts of the Alliance as Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer.    

What we can NOT and MUST NOT forget is that under these flimsy excuses we deprived a nation for years of essential goods. Debilitated, we then bombed this nation cruelly with bombs of depleted uranium (leaving horrid effects for future generations) laser guided missiles and phosphorous and bunker-busting bombs at Fallujah and Najat. We then committed violations of human rights and abuses on captured Iraqis as bad as those committed by Saddam's regime.

In our much vaunted effort to bring peace to Iraq we left half a million Iraqi civilians dead or maimed, precipitated a civil war between ethnic and religious factions and claimed we were doing all this for the good of the Iraqis and as our duty to humanity.

Finally, after committing all these crimes against humanity, we hang Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity.

If that is not the ultimate hypocrisy what is?

 

Hope someone is listening.

Mariam Russell:

Puppets, puppets everywhere.  For some words of resistance by an anti- or counter-puppet: "Full text of Supreme Leader's message to Hajj pilgrims," IRNA, December 29, 2006.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA  

 

This question you pose is obviously a wrong question, it should had been about who else should had been executed.. btw we'll get to Muhammed as soon as you can tell us when Bush is finished writing his version of Main Cramp..

They did it. They gave this Ummah a sacrifice on the day of Eid ul Adha. What an unforgettable Eid!! A human sacrifice. Not a sheep or goat. What a message!! Wow!! What a powerful message that I am sure has shaken all the thrones of the puppets who are watching the events. Poor puppets!! .................

 

............ I write this post I am reminded of the Arabic legend of the White Bull: At Thawr il Abyadh

Once upon a time three bulls lived in the forest. One white, one brown and one black. They were brothers and lived together in harmony. In that forest also lived a tiger who had his eye on the bulls. But every time he attacked one of them the others came to his aid and together they drove the tiger away.

The tiger decided that he needed to change his strategy. So one day when the Black Bull was away, he went to the other two and said, "You know, the Black Bull is black and dirty and evil. Why do you keep him with you? His is a disgrace to you. You are beautiful and noble. If the Black Bull is no longer there, you will have all the grazing to yourself. He takes away your food and adds no value to you." The two bulls listened to the tiger's spiel and said, "Well, you know, he is our brother. What can we do?"

"You need not do anything at all," said the tiger. "I am your friend. I will do what needs to be done. Just don't come to the aid of the Black Bull when he calls you." The others agreed.

The next day, they heard the voice of the Black Bull calling for help in anguish and fear. They listened to him and went back to their grazing. Gradually the calls stopped. The two brothers could not look each other in the eye but then, nice green grass wipes away memories and after a little while it was as if the Black Bull never existed.

Then one day the tiger came to the White Bull when he was alone and said, "So are you happy with the advise I gave you? Didn't I advise you well? Now here is another advise. You are the real king of the forest. You are White and clean and pure and holy and beautiful. You are wise and good. You deserve to live in solitary splendor like a king. Not with some dirty brown trash who you have to share your food with. Why do you need him? He is a liability and an embarrassment to you."

"Well, what should I do?"

"You know the score. Nothing at all. I am there to take care of everything for you. Just relax."

Next day, the White Bull heard the dying screams of the Brown Bull and closed his ears and went back to his grazing.

The White Bull lived for a few days all by himself, grazing where he wanted and drinking from the clean streams of the forest. Then one morning the tiger came again. From the look in his eyes, the White Bull knew that this visit was different. All his life flashed before his eyes. He recalled the time when the three brothers stood together, shoulder to shoulder. Then he recalled all the incidents since then. As the tiger sat before him, not in any hurry, knowing that the result was pre-determined, the White Bull said to him, "I have one last wish. Will you grant it to me?"

"Anything at all my friend", said the tiger.

The White Bull then climbed a hill and when he got to the top of it, he called out to the people of the forest, "O! People, I do not die today. I died the day the Black Bull died."

 

POOR, POOR, PUPPETS. 

Friend:

I believe your request is disingenuous. -- Besides, as long as you hide behind the mask of Comical Anonymity, it will only enhance this belief.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

Can reporter please try to get a comment from past Iraqi Information / Misinformation Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf on the execution of Saddam Hussien? He probably has a different perpective on who was actually executed.

Farhad:

I myself am impressed by the evidence of how committed to the regime of Saddam Hussein the "Western" states remained straight through its August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait and then beyond.  Though we can quibble over exactly when the U.S. support for the regime began in earnest, clearly the most important event was the overthrow of the Shah and the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. (See "Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein," Juan Cole, Informed Comment, December 30, 2006.)

A lot of people overlook the fact that the period after the seizure of Kuwait facilitated a permanent U.S. military presence in the region which has never been reversed.  Moreover, once the regime of Saddam Hussein was driven from Kuwait (January - February, 1991), the American military helped to keep it in power during the critical next few months, when if it was ever going to overthrown by an indigenous rebellion by the Iraqis themselves, this was the time.  Recall that at the end of the 1991 war, the first Bush regime urged Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein.  Recall the U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's protest that he had advised that the military drive all the way to Baghdad, there being no opposition on the ground, but that Washington's decision to call a ceasefire left the remaining Iraqi forces "some escape routes open for them to get back out" ("Schwarzkopf Says Truce Enabled Iraqis to Escape," Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, March 27, 1991).  Instead, the remaining Iraqi forces still loyal to Saddam Hussein spent the month of March 1991 crushing the Shiite rebellions in the south, and the month of April crushing the Kurdish rebellion in the north.

The military reason for Washington's decision to spare them was explained by the Time's Thomas Friedman ("Decision Not to Help Iraqi Rebels Puts U.S. in an Awkward Position," April 4, 1991): "Administration officials say their priority is to prevent Iraq from fragmenting…. Administration officials say their policy is to allow President Hussein to restore the central Government's control over Iraq…."

Friedman continued:

Many experts have argued that the Administration's approach is based on the seemingly contradictory assumption that President Hussein can be allowed to remain in power for now to hold Iraq together, but can be toppled in the long run when his domestic iron fist is no longer needed.

But the Grand Chessboard sort of reason for remaining committed to the regime of Saddam Hussein was explained by the editorial voice of the New York Times after the USS Stark incident (which I've already quoted in this discussion area): The longer-term fear was "encroachment by Iran" (May 19, 1987 -- where the word 'Iran' must be read as a proxy for all political-religious groups opposed to the American role in the region).

This remained the thinking in Washington and elsewhere over the course of the 1980s.  It remained the thinking in the critical first-half of 1991, as the Iraqi regime regrouped to crush rebellions in the south and the north -- when the regime's iron fist still was available.  And it remains the thinking today, post-Saddam Hussein.  When the iron fists have multiplied in number.  And the Americans have lost control of them.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA
   

And it is intresting to read about the various pack alpha dogs and how they got there and how much some families will do to be included in the alpha dogs group. It would be intresting to know how the power plays out at the top....who is the real alpha dog?

The players like Saddam know the game when they get in it so that  his fellow players turned and killed  him and used his death to further the game was not a shock to him.

money talk, these murderer dont even losse sleep over their crimes.. /Farhad, if you look at what going on in palestine Abbas is collaborating with the occupation Army of israel against the palestinian people.. Abbas now benefit of military supplies from the US against Palestinian.. providing that Abbas wins against hamas , what is the likely hood, The Occupying Army of Israel and the US turn their back on him as soon as he is finished murdering his own people? 100% likelyhood is my answer.

Check out this excellent anti-war video, and please help to spread it;

Guernica Iraq
http://blogs.zmag.org/node/2926

The shame of Iraq-Iran war is not end with the US, it involves almost ever single "democracy" in the west. US, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Denmark also did their best to support the brutality of Saddam to go on for years.

 

The shame of supporting Saddam, also goes to the pathetic Arab states like Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, UAE all other Persian Gulf nations. Those ass-holes not only supported Saddam, but also send troops and material to him and cheered him up when he gased the Iranians and the Kurds.

/Farhad

if you cut across the humour it undelay the fundation of the truth and the truth is like hugo chavez said: GWB is the devil.

it was a complete sham, saddam hussein died for the Bushes sins..his death means nothing really, his execution appear to have been aimed at pitting a civil war, the american do not want the mullahs to run Iraq. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6222975.stm Iraqis should be smart enough to keep the eyes on the ball, the guilty are the rich US and UK oil and chemecals corporations..( and the saudis as usual close their eyes) Fisk down here say basically the same thing as D. Peterson

http://globalresearch.ca/audiovideo/presaddress1.wmv

it was a complete sham, saddam hussein died for the Bushes sins.. his execution appear to have been aimed at pitting a civil war, the american do not want the mullahs to run Iraq. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6222975.stm

Apparently, there is no end to Western hypocrisy. Saddam was a monster, to be sure. But by all means, let's forget his most heinous crimes (such as the Iran-Iraq war) which were encouraged and supported by Western powers, . Not only do we not condemn him for those crimes, because God forbid that would bring American saintliness and purity into serious question, but we also completely ignore them, as if they never happened. Instead, we hand over his sham trial and mockery of an execution to the same criminal masterminds who created this monster and who are, as he was being hanged, ravaging what was left of his country, as they remain safely ensconsed within the Green Zone, preaching about a new, democratic Iraq, and other such hallucinations. Now, I'm not denying that Saddam was evil (but not any more evil than Western war criminals, of which there is an abundant supply), but at least he kept his country unified. Iraq, in its heyday, was the most developed of all the Arab countries in the Middle East in terms of education, defense, social services etc, etc. And whatever one might say, it was the most democratic. Even under the mostrous 10-year U.S-led genocidal sanctions, Saddam kept his country from slipping into pure anarchy. Plus, of course, he pretty much told the West to go straight to hell, as he stood by and supported the Palestinians against the illegitimate Zionist entity. No one, except the truly maniacal and insane can claim that Iraq is infinitely better now than it was under his rule. But apart from this charade, has it escaped everyone's notice that he was hanged on Eid-al-Adha, a Muslim festival commemorating Abraham almost sacrificing his son to God before God forgave him? In essence, this festival is one that celebrates forgiveness. In memory of that near-sacrifice, every Muslim family has to sacrifice a lamb and feast on it, as well as distribute a portion of the meat to the poor and needy. Of course, the irony is ridiculoulsly obvious. While Muslims lead the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, Saddam is being led to the gallows to be hanged. The mountain of insults added to the decades of injury inflicted on the Muslim world by the West just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Shameless does not even begin to describe this humiliating, monstrous gesture!!! Furthermore, while retired war criminals such as Gerald Ford and Pinochet die of old age and natural causes, Saddam is tried by a discredited government and hanged as one of the most notorious war criminals of the 20th century. I'm sure the New York Times had a field day gleefully recording every minute detail of this grotesque farce. On top of all of this, they cynically hang him on one of the holiest events in the Muslim calendar, as if to say to the Muslims, "we won't even let you enjoy this." But he had the last laugh, as he stoically marched to the gallows like a martyr, and for all his atrocities, this is how he will be remembered. This is truly a clash of civilizations. Let it not be said otherwise...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you as well....and to everyone else

It is Amazing to see the amount of information that can be shared on Znet, thank you Victor and David.. ( happy new years to you and to all znet bloggers and commenteers)

Victor:

When an Exocet missile fired by an Iraqi Mirage fighter jet struck the U.S. Navy Frigate Stark on May 17, 1987, killing 37, the first official word from the Pentagon that Sunday morning called the attack ''inadvertent.''  (By the way: I only mention the names of the Iraqi weapons systems because, as you can plainly see, Iraq had been purchasing weapons from many foreign suppliers who, within a little more than three years, would turn on it.)

This attack on the Stark was the very first of any gravity upon a U.S. military target by the forces of Iran or Iraq during their then-seven-year-old war in which the Americans officially had observed a policy of neutrality.

Within 24 hours of the incident, the President of Iraq issued a statement that it also sent to the Reagan White House: ''I hope this unintentional accident will not affect relations between Iraq and the United States of America.''

Through its Press Secretary, the White House shared this reply with the world media (May 18): ''We feel this does represent an apology.'' 

And Reagan himself stated (May 18): ''We remain deeply committed to supporting the self-defense of our friends in the gulf and to insuring the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz." 

Striking a U.S. naval vessel with a missile is a pretty serious offense.-- Can you imagine the American response, had it been an Iranian fighter jet that fired the Exocet that struck the Stark?

But at the time (and for a very long time -- even, in important ways, after August 2, 1990), "our friends" included a particular regime in Baghdad. 

The editorial voice of the New York Times (May 19) characterized the incident as "Iraq's blundering attack on the frigate Stark," and counseled that it "should not change America's aims or means in the Persian Gulf.  A military presence is needed to reassure the Gulf states against encroachment by Iran, and warships play a necessary role."

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

These two are extremely pertinent to the Saddam execution and why Saddam might have been executed so quickly. The first is a TruthOut article: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123106D.shtml The second is an article written by Robert Parry for ConsiortiumNews.com in which Parry reveals some of the dark history about Bush and his colleagues over the Reagan years - history that has been declared State Secrets by his son, George W Bush, soon after 9/11 and covering papers involving both Bushes (and inclusive of anyone who acted on their behalf during their terms of office), and sealed in perpetuity. We might never get a view of the real history of the Bush family, one of the most secretive families in American history: http://consortiumnews.com/2003/022703a.html The third is from the above article and contains a statement taken from Howard Teicher, former NSC, and contains accusations of deep complicity on the part of Bush/CIA/Reagan/Gates in the arming of Saddam Hussein against Iran. Apparently this document also was subsequently classified a State Secret by the Clinton Administration upon request by the senior Bush, a fellow Skull and Bones frat - threatens US crime secrets....uh...National Security..... of course. Very interesting reading. http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/hidden/teicher.htm This shit just keeps getting deeper....And I'm convinced that this is just a tiny bit of the tip of an enormous iceberg that we are likely never to see. I continue to believe that the cover of National Security is being used (abused) to hide major crimes against the people of the United States by treasonous elected individuals since the early days of the Cold War, and that the Bush family has been right in the middle of much of it these many years - and more. The utter corruption of the US government at the highest levels for the last hundred years (since the Robber Barons period) is one of the greatest tragedies of the American people, second only to the tragedy that they don't see it.

I thought this article from TruthOut was good as well: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123106A.shtml

I think that because saddam execution could had generated potential retaliations , The Bush intelligentia went on fast with the execution because that what it just wanted, that is to pour more oil on the the civilian war in Iraq , just to keep the civil war going on. I do agree with Paul Street tah the war in iraq is not entirely lost, Bush suceeded in gaining a civil war. David, the biggest outcry I've seen is the regret that Bush did not hang at the same time..

Cyrano:

Plus, the rush to execute the toppled dictator has angered a considerable segment of the human rights and international justice crowds. ("Iraq: Amnesty International deplores execution of Saddam Hussein," Amnesty International, Dec. 30; and "Hanging After Flawed Trial Undermines Rule of Law," Human Rights Watch, Dec. 30.) -- By liquidating the gentleman with such haste, the Iraqi Special Tribunal has left several of the more monumental charges against him with no king upon whom to pin its ultimate "command responsibility" crown of thorns.  

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Exactly David, why the rush with his execution ? I don't know it look like Saddam is paying for US crimes in the region..