hanging saddam...

over at zaneland , zane the lovely host , asked her blog readers our thoughts concerning the possible reaction to the death sentence recently handed down against saddam hussein --to which this observer replied (posted last night):

the bushites want saddam as dead as gerald ford because dead men tell no tales .
saddam knows too much and as long as he lives the Us role in creating and arming saddam --providing him with his infamous wmd -- is likely to be revealed .

we have said this before but it bears repeating again .
saddam was america's boy . he began his career at age 22 as a hitman for cia .
he was part of a cia assassination plot against iraq's leader colonel kassim .
kassim was viewed by the Us as too chummy with the soviets at the time .
kassim also was a populist who wanted to nationalize iraq's oil .
saddam and the other plotters ambushed kassim's car .
saddam was too impatient and blew it by firing too soon.
kassim was only wounded , his driver was killed and saddam had to flee the country.
saddam's cia handlers paid for his apartment in cairo for a year or so until another attempt on kassim succeeded and he was killed .

saddam returned to iraq , rode the coattails of an older cousin or uncle up the ladder of the baath party .
the Us saw the baath as the vehicle for carrying out its ambitions in iraq . iraq had a strong communist party then so the Us saw the nationalist baath party as an alternative to communism/socialism .
saddam was a thug . he was given the names of enemies of baath party --people labeled "communists" and "communist symphatheizers" by his cia handlers and saddam broke legs , saddam intimidated ,eventually , saddam made people disappear --people the baath wanted gone as well as people the
Us wanted disappeared too --and there were many the Us wanted gone .

to build popular support , baath party ironically adopted much of the populism that
characterized colonel kassim's regime . free universal education for all iraqis ; educational and employment opportunities for women ; universal free health care ; technological modernization ; access to clean drinking water --all of this was done for iraqis by baath party and paid for by state oil revenues .

iraq became a modern , secular state and raqis became the most literate people in the middle east--only the palestinians could rival the iraqis in literacy rates among the arabs .

saddam gradually followed his cousin up the ladder to become number two man in iraq . he then "retired " his cousin and became number one .

when neighboring iran's shah was overthrown in 1979 and Us embassy personnel held hostage by iran , saddam received quiet assurances that if conflict broke out between iraq
and iran that the Us would see it as in its vital interests that iran not prevail .

iraq and iran eventually go to war --after initial successes , things go badly for iraq.

iran has twice the population as iraq --the iranian army hurls human wave attacks at the iraqis--similar to the chinese army attacks against the americans during the korean war .

the Us and other nations provide iraq with chemical / biological weapons and it begins a horrific phase of the war with both sides using chemical weapons --at times on an almost daily basis .

the americans also regularly provided satellite photos and a team of about 60 defense intelligence agency analysts to saddam and tell him the satellite photos show the iranian troops are massing in this location and that location --"shoot your chemical weapons to those locations for greatest killing effectiveness"--if saddam committed war crimes he had help from his Us accomplices.

the war drags on for 8 years with a cost of about 2 million casualties . the Us through israel , sells iran weapons --playing both sides against each other . the Us and israelis secretly or not so secretly hope the iranians and iraqis kill each other off--and do all they can to help make it so .

the war ends in stalemate , iraq has huge bills to pay --in the meantime saddam turns his attention to the kuwaitis who have been slant drilling across the border siphoning iraq's oil .

many iraqis still view kuwait as part of iraq --around the first world war the british divided kuwait from iraq and set up the kuwaiti "royals" as monarchs .

negotiations fail , saddam eventually calls assistant Us ambassador april glaspie to baghdad and warns her iraq is not going to idly sit back and let kuwait steal its oil . the Us better talk to the kuwaitis or he will act .

glaspie tells saddam that iraq's border dispute with kuwait is none of america's concern --in effect a green light to invade kuwait has been given saddam .

but the joke is on saddam --the Us has long ago sceretly told the kuwaits that in any military
conflict with saddam --the Us has got kuwait's back .

saddam invades --president george herbert walker bush unleashes a media blitz --paints saddam as the new hitler --sends in dick cheney to the saudis with faked satellite photos showing saddam;s tanks poised on the saudi border--scaring the saudis into supporting a coalition of arab and western nations that go to war and crush the "new hitler" ---and it's called gulf war 1

after a dozen years of economic sanctions against iraq where they can't even buy chlorine to purify drinking water 1,500,000 iraqis die --mostly children and the elderly --and mostly from diseases caused by drinking dirty unpurified water after bombs from the allied planes in the war deliberately target iraq's water purification and sewage treatment systems--a clear violation of the geneva accords --it's a war crime to destroy infrastructure vital to civilian life--but no trials are held for Us , british , french , saudi generals who deliberately targeted iraq's water systems and purification infrastructure .

to sum it up, saddam was america's boy .

they used him to kill off the "communists" in iraq. they used him against iran in the war in which the Us sold weapons to both sides .

they--reagan and george herbert walker bush --armed saddam --made him into a threat, made him into a boogeyman --and then set him up and george hw bush went to war against the very same monster he helped create . ---the defense contractors made a fortune-- first selling saddam weapons --then selling the Us government weapons to stop saddam ---just as prescott bush and his defense contractor buddies --decades earlier helped create another boogeyman--adolph hitler--armed him --and then when the nation went to war against him ---they sold weapons and war materials to both sides --before and during the war ---and made a fortune stopping hitler .

after the war they made even more money --6 to 10 trillion dollars worth by keeping the Us on a wartime footing for 50 years --ready to fight another created "boogeyman"--the red menace of the phoney "cold war " --until the "dreaded" soviet union turned out to be the inept "mexico of europe"

just to show the acorn don't fall far from the tree -- little georgie dubya bush found his "boogeyman" in bin laden, al qaeda--and threw in old saddam for good measure --a two-fer the price of one --now did anybody get rich in selling weapons to stop the new boogeymen ?

saddam has to die because someone might listen to him spill the beans about these guys' modus operendi --the merchants of death make their money creating "boogeymen" to keep us scared , then they convince us to go to war against the boogeymen that they armed and created --and then they make a fortune looting the public treasury --selling arms to both sides while the nations fight to stop the boogeymen the merchants of death let loose on the world --it's sort of like the fireman lighting fires to keep himself in business.

hey , you think its over just because the "dumbocrats" took a majority in congress in the recent elections ?

well look at whats going on in africa between somalia and ethiopia --the Us armed both sides...

"and the beat goes on ...the beat goes on ..."


(posted today)ok , it's been observed that my referring to saddam hussein as "america's boy" could be considered unfair...so in the interest of balance , since the news says his execution is likely imminent , let none say deskRat chronicles is biased .

here is a view of hussein from another perspective --that of blogger malcolm lagauche
http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html
Thursday/Friday, December 28-29, 2006

THE LIVING MARTYR

The decision to uphold the death sentence of Saddam Hussein by the sham Iraqi appeals court has gained worldwide condemnation, except for the U.S., of course. The court took two days to read 1,500 pages of documents presented by the defense. No court in the world can decipher this number of pages in such a short time, not even a legitimate court.

No one was surprised by the verdict against Saddam because of the knowledge this was a foregone conclusion. However, the court outdid itself by ruling on the Iraqi vice president, Ramadan. He was sentenced to life in prison, but the appeals court took it upon itself to change the sentence to death, even though his case was not on the docket.

From the time Saddam first set foot in court until today, the entire system was stacked against him and conducted so many breaches of the law that it would take an expert mathematician to give us a tally.

Dr. Curtis Doebbler, a noted international human rights attorney, was on Saddam's legal team from the start. I spoke to him today to get his opinion on the appeals court decision. He stated:

We're trying to point out that if an execution takes place, it will be an ex-judicial, arbitrary execution outside the law in violation of the law. It's somewhat ironic that this individual who will be executed has proven to have much more integrity than the individuals who are executing him, including the U.S. president who exhibits more evidence that he has committed crimes against the Iraqi people than there was against the president of Iraq in the first trial in which he was brought before the U.S.-created court and there has still has been no investigation of the U.S. president.

As you've seen the Iraqi president has maintained his dignity and also maintained his peace of mind in belief that he personifies the will of the Iraq people to continue to fight against this occupation, which they believe, and the majority of the international community believes, is illegal and the consequence of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

It's quite a sad day, I think, for international justice and, unfortunately, an another example of how the United States is unwilling to conform with international law; to show respect for international law. What hurts me most, as an American, is that we're the ones who benefit the most from respecting that law. When we set this example, we essentially tell people that the law cannot be used to try to get the United States to respect their rights. They have to use other means. That's what got us into many of the problems that we're in today.

Almost everybody in the U.S. is in the lynching mood. Pundits are frothing at the mouth while they discuss the upcoming execution. There is a collective air of insanity today in the U.S. Even former anti-war proponents are cheering on the future execution. Many Democratic politicians have said they were happy about the decision and that Saddam "deserves" it. Not one, however, has discussed the legality or the fairness of his trial.

Leftist journalists are trying to outdo each other in demeaning Saddam. Not only are they talking about his "brutal dictatorship," they are making up even new fables of atrocities committed under his regime.

I challenge all journalists who advocate the hanging of Saddam Hussein to take a few hours and research reality.
The standard figure of deaths attributed to the Ba'ath regime during the Anfal campaign is 182,000. Why have there not been any bodies found? If 182,000 people were killed, there must be piles and piles of bodies, yet none has appeared.
If 148 people were sentenced to death in 1982 for attempting to assassinate the president of Iraq, why are at least 24 still alive? And, those who were executed received a lengthy and fair trial that lasted about three years. They were fighting on the side of Iran while Iraq was engaged in a war with its eastern neighbor. In the U.S., this would be considered high treason. With Saddam Hussein, it was called mass murder. George Bush himself signed off more execution orders while the governor of Texas than did Saddam in the Dujail case.
If Iraqi military personnel gassed and killed 5,000 Kurds in Halabjah, why were only 300 bodies found? And, why was the gas used to kill the citizens cyanogen, a gas that Iraq did not possess but Iran did? Why have the CIA, the U.S. Army War College, Greenpeace, the main CIA analyst in 1988 (Stephen Pellitiere), the late Jude Waniski, the U.S Marine Corps Historical Report, and various other individuals and organizations blamed Iran for the gassing of the Kurds?
Why has not one Iraqi come forward and stated he was part of the gassing campaign? Today, with the Ba'athists out of power, one cannot use the excuse that no one would step forward because of threats of death from the Ba'ath administration. Huge sums of money have been offered for someone to state that he knew about or was part of the gassing: a pilot, or a supply specialist, or an observer, anyone. Not one person has emerged to claim the bounty.
In November 2003, the U.S. stated that 400,000 bodies were found in mass graves in the south of Iraq. The following June, Tony Blair admitted to the press that only 5,000 bodies were found. He "mis-spoke" when he used the original figure of 400,000. Subsequent investigations showed that many of the 5,000 were killed by U.S. bombs in Desert Storm. Why has no one taken the ball and run with this story?

I have reported extensively on the above anomalies. Unfortunately, few others have. To me, investigating and disproving accepted myths are the marks of an astute journalists.

No, today we still hear all the beastly acts attributed to Saddam Hussein from the mouths of people who should know better. Many people have stated that George Bush has lied about everything to do with Iraq: weapons of mass destruction; the Bin-Laden/Saddam link; the Iraqi involvement with 9-11; the fictitious biological weapons trailers; the imprisonment of an American POW since 1991; etc. Yet, the same people broadcast the myths about Saddam Hussein's barbaric actions. I again issue a challenge to the leftist press: Please explain if Bush has lied about everything, why is he telling the truth about Saddam's brutality? That's a hard one for the pundits to answer. For someone with any amount of intelligence and logic, it is easy: Bush lied about Saddam as well.

Here are a few questions that are not heard today, but should be crucial in discussing Iraq:
Why don't we hear about Iraq being designated "free of illiteracy" by the U.N. in 1982, when in 1973 the country's literacy rate was below 40%?
Why don't we hear about the proclamation of the U.N. in 1984 that Iraq's education system was the finest the world had ever seen from a developing country?
Why don't we hear about the New York Times calling Iraq the "Paris of the Middle East" in 1987?
Why don't we hear about Saddam Hussein visiting houses in the south of Iraq in the 1970s just to make sure each one had a refrigerator and electricity?
Why don't we hear about the several million foreign Arabs who went to Iraq to take advantage of the land program the Ba'athists instituted in which the person would be given land to create crops?
Why don't we hear about the Iraqi educators and doctors who were sent to Arab countries to assist them in developing their own programs?
Why don't we hear praise from Arab countries for Iraq having lost so many soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War, all for the defense of these countries who were scared about Iran exporting its religious fundamentalism to their shores?
Why don't we hear about the several approaches made to Saddam in the 1990s by U.S. sources to recognize Israel and allow U.S. military bases in Iraq in trade for lifting the embargo?
Why don't we hear that every U.S. person on the U.N. inspection team from 1991 to 1998 was a spy, not an inspector?

The list could go on and on. In my upcoming book, The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War, I go into detail about these and other matters left untouched by the cliché-ridden, myopic and gullible media.

The current scenario just does not make sense. The people who lied through their teeth (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Bremer, Powell, Rumsfeld, et al) and stole tens of billions of dollars that belonged to the country of Iraq, are proudly speaking of creating a new Middle East or conducting booksigning tours for their memoirs. The results of their lies led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; a cost of about a trillion dollars so far to the U.S. public; and the destruction of a country's culture and infrastructure. Even the history of Iraq has been re-written by people in Washington D.C.

On the other hand, the guy with the moustache who told the truth about all the lies and adhered to the U.N. request for inspections, as well as supplied a 12,000-page report that documented in detail every aspect of Iraq's former WMD programs, sits in a jail cell awaiting execution. Something is fundamentally wrong when things can get so far out of hand.

Today, Saddam Hussein is the freest man in Iraq, although he is behind bars. His mind is clear and his integrity is nothing short of incredible. He awaits death with dignity. Not once has he cracked under torture or pressure. Even when offered a "get out of jail free" card by the U.S. if he stopped the resistance, Saddam refused to capitulate.

Other leaders, such as Ghadaffi and Noriega did succumb to U.S. pressure. Ghadaffi, once a revolutionary, today is nothing more than the head inspector of the transfer of his country's oil to the capitalist giants. He no longer has a grand view of society. He may not be in jail, but he is a slave.

Noriega quickly began singing when the U.S. put on the pressure. He admitted to trafficking in drugs, despite the U.S. being his partner. And, he made a big deal of stating that he had found Jesus after he was incarcerated. He is a slave behind bars.

Saddam Hussein is not a slave, although his incarceration keeps him imprisoned. He is not allowed to see his family, unless, like his sons and grandson, they are shot to death with hundreds of bullets. The U.S. prides itself on "family values," but not for foreign individuals. A U.S. family is sacred, but an Iraqi family is merely cannon fodder.

On January 17, 1991, Saddam Hussein proclaimed to the world, "The mother of all battles has just begun." Despite two U.S. presidents declaring victory over Iraq with a New York parade and a U.S. aircraft carrier celebration, the mother of all battles now roars more fiercely than ever.

In about three weeks, it will be the 16th anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Iraq. Despite U.S. denials and proclamations, the battle still rages. The bombing did not stop with the signing of a cease-fire agreement on March 2, 1991. It continued until March 2003 from the illegal "no-fly" zones the U.S. created.

Soon, Saddam Hussein will be hanged. He will be dead, but his legacy will not only survive him, it will be enhanced. The mother of all battles is a long way from being terminated.