this morning in north bagdad

we are not allowed to talk politics but
i wish a certain "someone" will have his turn next

.... not literally

Sorry I wasn't aware of the rule against political conversation..but do you wish Apo executed? Maybe I'm bad with hints

Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America
Published: 30 December 2006


Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.

Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.

"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth. His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.

I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.

But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.

But we will have got away with it.
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Snowdrop sorry I meant Abdullah Öcalan since he was mentioned right after your post so nevermind

Well there is a kind of irony ... the US created him, then destroyed him!

well, i can never believe that a plane could come that closer to pentagon...

whatever it is, saddam or bin laden, in these democracy games there is an another side of the madallion...

I just can say that I am really sad for Sadam execution. No one in this wonderful world deserve tto be killed by anyone.

Quoting aenigma x: Quoting SuiGeneris: well, i can never believe that a plane could come that closer to pentagon... whatever it is, saddam or bin laden, in these democracy games there is an another side of the madallion... Yes, we all saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and I admit being quite convinced by it all. But I was only saying that in Saddam's case, it has not really ever been a secret that he was in the US's pocket

snow drop
u have a rich fantasy about who thought what of whom.
how do u know the worlds opinion? the whole world actually seems like doesnt care much about this event.

it's not a fantasy it's a reality and don't ever think that your country or his or hers are away and safe from that too because if usa needed to use that same technique with anybody it will use it but ofcourse your presedints are too smart protecting themselves from usa by following it

but that is quiet obvious, what i had to say a long time ago, is what azade just said
so now its clear for u why it makes fun of muslims

Wouldn't want a war to break out on tc

I don't want to justify either side but I understand why some muslim people have strong feelings about traditions.
But something is missing in this...I mean those responsible for hanging Saddam are shias right? How come they don't oppose to it being executioned now?

Does Saddam always have to be a subject everywhere? every damn front page "saddam to be hung"
In the newspaper The Times (british newspaper) it said he was to be hung 6am (3am Englands time) but thats not even right! he died at 4am English time. Iraq is 2 hours ahead of England not 3! (God the media can't even get it right!)

Anyway back to my point, does he have to be everywhere? when his death will probably cause 10x much more damage to what was such a beautiful country anyway.

I ask again, what is our world coming to?

so powerful usa cannot control bombers? wheres its power then?

snow drop
why do u pretend irish?

Bad decision!
It will just cause one civil ward of huge proportions...
and I am against capital punishment, no matter which person we are talking about !
Hanging...could there be a worse way to die?

It was a quick and wrong decision for me..

personally i would have rather watch him rot behind bars the rest of his days...no punishment if he felt no pain..slightly mentally disturbing i know

however it would not be safe for him or the people living there for him to be kept under high security.....think.....he is a rich man and still has many followers that were working with him, it wouldn't be long until he would have people attemting to set him free. i am not saying this choice was the best but u got to think of it from both sides and what is right for the people living there. as kai said...there have already been car and bus bombings, which i think may have been his peoples attempts to prevent the hanging......i'll shut up now hehe

NO!!! .. to the Death Penalty!

i am not saying that i agree with this penalty but what else could they do?? i don’t think there government could run the risk of such an escape.....again as i said, i do not entirely agree with the law, but to 'let him rot in prison' still costs the people...i know that in my country our tax's pay for prisons and the people within. Would you like your money going towards him? i know i wouldn’t....especially with the risk of him able to escape.

he wouldnt be executed if there were not the CP in iraq.
i remember iraqies protesting against handing him over to the international court in haggue. they decided to judge him according to their own laws. what can be said? all the muslim countries have CP.
strangely he was accused only for 147 people's death, while he and his family murdered many. its obvious that he couldnt be accused for the death of 300 000 kurds for the sake of the rest iraqies (political correctness).
cheers

Whether we like it or not Saddam has been hung and people have been before and probably though unfortunatly will be in the future.

No one can overide what should happen because there is always more than one side to it and unfortunatly the people are not heard of what they think. For i.e. yes many Iraqi's are happy that Saddam is dead because of what he did, but many are also unhappyh because of the fear of what it will do to their country.

As for my opinion I am not sure because I also have these opinions in my head. But enough about Saddam, there have been many people executed before and in one case i know about a man being proven innocent after he was hung. I am not saying Saddam was innocent but I am merely pointing out another reason why we should question hanging people in general.

I don't think anyone is doubting his guilt. I just hate the hypocrisy. It has been said many times on this thread, but I repeat again that the US were happy to finance and support Saddam when it suited them, and then after 9/11 it suited them to invade Iraq, whilst declaring a "War on Terrorism" - what did Iraq have to do with 9/11?

How can we support this kind of action?

In addition,capital punishment is banned in the EU and we should not support this action.

Oh hell, I wrote Japan instead of China. Please correct your thread quoting me !!!! I dont want protests from any Japanese here

its an opportunity for future,so everybody have to put hat front of himself/herself for understand whats wrong or true and what we have to do more for more peacfull and respectfull tomorrows...

i think it should be noted that the usa did not come up with the concept of an 'eye for an eye'. the code of hammurabi is one of the earliest sets of laws and it originated in mesopotamia....which is now iraq.

i find it very frustrating that the us is blamed for all the ills in the world and yet the usa is the first called upon when disaster strikes somewhere else in the world......a call the usa always answers.

one thing most of u forgot, namely: dont cook a poridge mixing the religous laws with the secular laws. the statments like 'eye for an eye' or 'turn the other cheek' must be used in ur personal relationships according to ur own religous moral values, however the first statement must not be applied today at all by anyone in any case (nor anywhere).
a constitutional law is a law created on no religous basis by the legislative bodies. normally in a more civilized country the religions are not allowed to be applied due to which the conflicts on the religous background are avoided.
law is a law not a fairy-tale

saddams executed in first day of Bayram is another slap to the human rights,not only to Muslims or iraqis.
Whether with the death penalty or not,but doing this in first day of Bayram is another show of the power of some countiers who so called free and democratic countries.

Again whether we like it or not,Saddam was a leader.
And has people who believe in him,beside he got his own family too.
İt's so unfair for them each year people celebrate Bayram,new year and remind them of his death !

İ don't argue what he did,or wether he deserve or not,but also,why do we judge the toy,and break it,and leave its creator ?!
And what irony it is that the creator,is the one who is judging the toy,or lets call it the robot,and executing it .

Guys,it was just a ROBOT ,then what about the criminal ?!

And destroying it in Bayram,and new year ?! Very Sad

... the trial was a travesty, the hanging was barbaric, but I pray that the Islamic world do not turn this man into an innocent martyr

Absolutely agree. And I would like to add something - if it's concerning us adults, we have right to choose. But when it's concerning children and other innocent victims who are unable to defense themselves, I think we just do not have right to turn the other cheek. Any politics or deed which produces new deaths is wrong. So, if Saddam's death produced new deaths, it was wrong. For as Dostoyevsky said, there's no Paradise that is worth one tear of a single child.

I am proud to say my country was one of few that supported Iraq against foreign intervention from the very begining. The opinion was that each country has right to solve its own problems and that Iraqis are able to deal with Husein themselves. The foreign interventions - and I know it from my own experience - always mean "divide and rule". Not one country was destroyed that way. Including mine.

1st thing - Everyone has mentioned terrorism, bombings etc and has named the three countries Iraq, USA and UK.....errm what ever happened to Iran exactly?

2nd thing - this post is about Saddam and look what corruption it has made between this forum! Does people like Saddam have to become the center of every argument?!! God let all people have an opinion or just let it go! there is enough arguments etc in the world, do we really need more?

And finally 3rd thing - Will people stop saying MY country and MY people!!! Whether we like it or not, there is no such thing! Just because we are not a native of a certain country does not mean it's not part of us! Allahim! We are all part of one race the DAMN HUMAN RACE! and this is OUR world not this is MY country and that is THEIR country. All countries make up ONE world and that is the world we ALL damn live in!


OOF!

Ahhh that feels a little better getting that off the chest

how did all this happend? i find myself going too far back with its history.
then let me start just with the latest events where the senior bush who lost his wars in that area after saddams being maneuvred into the conflicts with iran and kuweit. he coudnt force much on clinton, so that he could come back to sort it out.
then one day 9/11 muslim martyrs blowed up thus stirred up mess in usa. that was a great excuse a great chance for junior bush to accomplish dads deals left in past. they quickly fabricated "nuclear" weapons which was enough to send troops. soon they turned the danger of "nuclear" into "freeing" iraqies and bringing the democracy.
failure after failure!
the most important and interesting thing is that at the beginning it was declared that w.bush was tracing terrorists in iraq while the real terrosists were in afganistan and paskistan which was obvious then and today.
i remember reading reports (back far years late 80 and 9 on saddams regime that bothered me much. and as far as i knew it was the problem of united nations. this organisation could do nothing about saddam. sactions after sactions were imposed on iraq and people suffered just because of this one person.
it was a big mistake, a total disaster, a bloodshed, a sort of a curse to usa and uk, an absolute waste of money!
no lesson taken from vietnam and all the wars in the near east!

canli
1. i dont know u, even if i knew u personally i cant say i knew well. 2. i dont need to know u, i know ur mentality, thats enough for me to judge ur posts.
3. a history of ur country? tell me about it!
4. my role is to un-close ur sweet stories that u keep telling here.
5. i dont like being called miss, that doesnt suit me.
6. im not keen being loved or adored, like many adore here each other.
7. so, cheese from al-jazeera

canli
u have a short memory, it was u who promoted al-jazeera in here. and now suddenly u r not a fan of it?
it was u who educated me that it can be received overseas, even in the usa.
a story about a rock (hope not rock n roll)? i know it by heart. thank u, so kind of u.

Somebody please plan a cease fire summit between Canli and Femme-Fatal.

Where's that dumb Condeeleeza Rice when ya need her?!?!?!?!?!!

hang on...let me give her a call...

should i get kofi annan in on it as well????

No need for shouting. (That's impolite.) Legally, child is any person under 18 (or 21 in some countries), but that's not the point. I have son of your age and I was of your age myself, so I know what "child" means, and that word absolutely doesn't mean underrating. But you see, my son had been watching wars and war consequences for seven years. I wish he never heard for the word "war" and I would like if all the children could be spared from it, including you. That's why I joined this topic, for I never discuss any politics; I do not think even I am mature enough for that. Discussions about wars and capital penalty are not kidding, they are very serious for one single misinterpretated word can add the fuel. Intelligence and knowledge are one thing; maturity and experience are quite different thing. And one of evidences of maturity is that you never ever use any word that would offend or hurt somebody. (When I say "you", I mean "any person".) Maybe somebody was offended when you asked "When will people stop saying MY country?" I am not offended because the country I was born in doesn't exist anymore. But some people are dying for their countries - or because of some other countries - at the moment. You can approve or disapprove, but in spite of your nice wishes about one world - I would like the same - it was not a mature gesture.

Anyway, this is not the topic. I would like to read comments about Iraq happenings here, not my own comments about maturity and immaturity. If you are relly sure you wish to discuss so horrible topics, then try to concentrate to Saddam's death and Iraq, though I still don't see why do you need so badly to spoil your young soul with that. Besides, this topic has certain gravity, so it definitly requires serious comments. If nothing else, then out of respect to all that killed people. And I wouldn't use any smilies here, from the very same reason.

D.

i couldnt read what u all write and think about this subject but here is mine

saddam is created by usa and again killed...he left hundreds of murders behind him but now in iraq...there r hundred thousands of ppl murdered...nobody can judge the murderers..just wish them to be judged one day...

that must be the way of the world...

but its a good clue to show whats gonna happen to the ones like saddam,they ll be used and when they complete their mission they ll be executed..

Only if they are smart enough and can see this !

Excellent post duda

femme_fatal, you are a don cossack, aren't you? I think you are.

Don Cossack - Is it a person or a regiment enlisted into the German Cavalry in WW2 - enlighten us less knowledgeable on the ins and outs of Cossacks, or were they Russians?

Not sure what is has go to do with Iraq? but then again that is normal for this site is it not.......

If Ali Awalli has his way then the problems in Iraq will be solved with the help of surrounding nations including Turkey. And not with the help of the UK and USA who created this havock - lets hope he can restore some kind of normality with the help of his neighbouring nations. and lets hope that a bit of normality can be resored here too.