WHY SADDAM HAD TO GO
"Torture is used systematically against political detainees in Iraqi prisons and detention centres. The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from the acceptance of its use at the highest level. There are no attempts to curtail or prevent such violations or punish those responsible." ~ Amnesty International, 15 August, 2001, Iraq: Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners.
From Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, there are a few must-see videos from the Saddam regime. That site will give you plenty of warning about "GRAPHIC VIDEO MATERIAL" and all that.
However, I recommend that you force yourself to watch, especially if you are one of the following types of fatheads (of course I have a different F-word in mind for all of those who fall into one of the following categories, but I'm trying to be polite):
1. Fathead who opposed the war (i.e. a Saddam supporter).
2. Fathead who thinks Americans know how to torture (Most likely a Saddam supporter).
3. Fathead American isolationist (You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto).
4. Fathead who just doesn't care (You are already dead, you just don't know it. Go ahead and kill youself now).
5. Fathead who thinks Western lives are more valuable than other lives (You're a racist).
I think I object to all the warnings about graphic material and not letting children see these videos. There were no graphic warnings for Kurdish or Iraqi schoolchildren who were hustled out of the classroom to line up on the playground in time to watch their teachers and school administrators get tortured or executed. There were no graphic warnings for Kurdish or Iraqi children who were rounded up in their villages to watch their relatives, friends and neighbors get tortured and/or executed. There were no graphic warnings for Kurdish or Iraqi children just before they were lined up in front of the ditch that would become their mass grave.
I think Westerners are way too sensitive about things like protecting their children from all the graphics of life. I think they are way too overprotective. Especially if they fall into any of the fathead categories listed above. Either that, or Westerners think that the kind of treatment in the videos is perfectly acceptable for non-Westerners to engage in with each other, especially when this treatment is encouraged, reinforced and supported by the West.
And, yes, if you don't give a damn, if you are simply feckless, if you love wallowing in your own ignorance, if you deny or ignore . . . you are as guilty as Saddam.
Am I angry? Do you really need to ask?
3 comments:
I first saw these videos more than a year ago, they were circulated by "Benador Associates"...Not sure why they weren't more widely discussed back then.
What always strikes me are these smug, confident mustachioed men in the uniforms...How many of them took home bonuses, awards, and other perks for a good day of torturing or murder? How many kids, cousins, good pals depended on those paychecks? The ## must be in the many hundreds of thousands. Now since OIF they are not only out of a job, but they are by definition enemies of the state/traitors...It puts a clarifying light on those polls where a certain portion of Iraqis "want the Allies to leave NOW."...Of COURSE, then they'd have a better chance to go off scot-free, maybe even get the old job back... :- (
I still believe the biggest mistake the Allies made was not selecting a few hundred/thousand of these degenerates in the first days after liberation, and handing them over to local "Iraq Retribution Committees" for summary public execution. I think it wd have deterred a lot of this "insurgency"
terrorism.
Of course, it's never too late to do the right thing. ;- )
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/01/sectarian_violence.html
Another article.. about which you'll get angry.
Philip, I know that some of these video clips were out in 2003. There was some discussion in Kurdish groups about them, but these things were not a surprise to Kurds. You are right to be surprised that there has not been more discussion about them, in Western circles, I guess you mean. I think they should be watched and commented on by Westerners. But I have made my views on that clear.
Apparently, the Ba'ath were rewarded with promotions if they murdered enough Kurds. I imagine it couldn't have been too different if they murdered Arabs too.
These are the same people that the US now wants to negotiate with, and they have held "secret" negotiations with them, against the wishes of Baghdad.
Gee, thanks, Vladimir, something else to make me angry. Well, I think everyone knows my opinion about this kind of nonsense. It is media propaganda used to indict the American administration for going into Iraq. None of these journalists gave a damn when Saddam was in power, and now they are the tools of the Ba'athi remnants. I have no respect for them at all.
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