Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘saddam hussein’

They did everything they could to prevent this war, but now France is “rejoicing” at the fall of Saddam:

But [Chirac] said in a statement released by the Elysee Palace Thursday: “France, like every democracy, is rejoicing over the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, and hopes for a quick and effective end to the battle.”

His foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, added: “With the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a dark page has been turned.”

The French daily newspaper La Liberation focused on the causes of the war, saying: “The successful military campaign in Iraq can only reassure the powerful U.S. that its vision of the world must be the right one.

Everyone loves to hop on the bandwagon of a winner. The war ain’t over yet, but France certainly seems to be changing its tune.

Today’s been quite a day, as the Americans and coalition forces made themselves at home in Baghdad, celebrating the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

I can’t help thinking of Churchill’s famous words in 1942 though: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” U.S. forces are warning us that the war isn’t over. And even after the guns and bombs stop, the toughest challenges still lie ahead.

Today was a good day, though, all in all.

For most of the Arab world, it’s a mantra of “Saddam bad, Americans and Zionists worse”, as they watch in disbelief the toppling of the Iraqi regime:

“It is irrelevant whether Saddam is dead or not. His memory will live on to inspire many Arabs to stand up against all the injustices committed by the U.S. and its friends in Israel,” Belqees Hamood, a university student, said.

“Saddam was not an angel to his own people but he will be missed since many Arabs see him as a leader who was not afraid to challenge the American and Israeli aggressions over Palestinians,” said Juma Backer, a businessman.

[ . . . ]

“Saddam is a terrorist but he’s not alone. Bush too is a terrorist but Saddam is weak and Bush is strong. That’s why he has won, because no one opposes a strong person,” said the 33-year-old Saudi government employee.

“How wonderful the world would be without Saddam and without Bush!”

This moral equivalence between Bush and Saddam is nothing new. The anti-war crowd loves to shout similar slogans during their protests even here in North America.

But the disbelief and shock with which most of the Arab world is watching the destruction of Saddam’s regime is another story. It brings to mind Germany’s shock and disbelief at losing World War I in 1918. Both disappointments were the result of controlled media and highly-successful government propaganda. Until this week, I have no doubt that most of the Arab states – especially those without a free press – were convinced that Saddam could and would win!

This is perhaps the largest tragedy of all. Because it has much broader implications. People don’t form their opinions in a vacuum. They listen to the news and the information that they obtain, and all of that serves to influence the opinion of the “street”. It is a lot easier to understand why so much of the Arab world hates America and Israel when we realize that they’re being fed propaganda and false information every single day.

What are the hottest names for Palestinian babies these days? A Jerusalem Post report says that hundreds of parents are naming their new babies after Saddam Hussein:

According to the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, the favorite name for Palestinian families in the city these days is Saddam. The paper said male infants born in local hospitals in the last few days have been named Saddam in honor of the Iraqi president.

“Many Palestinians are proud of this name,” the paper’s correspondent, Ala Badarneh, reports from Nablus. “Many families are also keen on keeping posters of Saddam Hussein in their homes. Usually you would find pictures of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat together at previous meetings between the two. Many people are buying these pictures in the market and keeping them at home.”

Nearly as disturbing was the big picture in today’s Gazette (sorry, no link) of a Palestinian mom holding her newborn daughter, named “Rachel Corrie”. I guess her mom has great hopes for her future, that she’ll run in front of a bulldozer like her namesake.

Thanks to Tom for sending me the link to his article in the London Times about Iraq’s national football team (that’s soccer to us North Americans). Tom interviewed Sharar Haydar, who played professional football for Iraq’s national teams for 12 years, and says he was tortured by Uday Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein’s son:

“He didn’t just torture us when we lost,” Haydar said when we met last Wednesday in a London coffee shop. “Even when we won. He started by shaving hair — I know in Britain it’s a fashion now but in Iraq it’s a big embarrassment. After that he started to put players in prison. He used to come to watch us, sometimes we won three or four-nil but still he (ordered his guards to) take three or four players, put them in prison and torture them because he didn’t like their form. Then he started to beat the coach, referees . . . ”

Food for thought the next time a high school basketball coach gets chewed out for making his team run laps.

Speaking of Gazette articles, Norman Webster gets it right about Saddam and why he’s got to go:

“He is the most dangerous creature God ever created,” an Iraqi woman living in exile shivered to an interviewer recently. For decades, Saddam has brutalized rivals, friends, mentors, Iran, Kuwait, Israel, the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, the poison-gas victims of Halabja, millions of ordinary Iraqis and the very environment of the Gulf.

The most chilling film clip you will ever see is the one where Saddam announces to an auditorium that he has discovered a plot and has the names of the plotters, including close acquaintances, read out. As they are named, they stand and are led away, never to be seen again.

[ . . . ]

In sum, this is a truly wicked man, deeply evil, as deadly and disgusting as his role model, Stalin. He just hasn’t had as broad a canvas to work on.

He has tried to remedy that defect, relentlessly pursuing the weapons that would make him a destroyer of worlds. He was almost there when the Israelis took out a reactor near Baghdad in 1981, and again 10 years later, when the first Gulf War interrupted a nuclear arms program that was only months from fruition – not to mention biological and chemical horrors.

The scary thing is that much of the world actually believes that Bush is more dangerous than Saddam. I suggest they try spending a week living near either one of them. Let them try voicing a dissenting opinion to both of them. Let’s see what they have to say after that.

Josh Freed thinks it would be kinda cool if we all had doubles, like Saddam.

Jean Chretien said it’s pointless to criticise the U.S. about Iraq, because it just plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein:

“At this point I think there is no use debating the reasons why some people think war is necessary and some people think it is not. We should not say anything that would comfort Saddam Hussein,” he told reporters.

Hmmm. Do you think Chretien is reacting to this:

Sometimes a picture does indeed say a thousand words.

It appears that Saddam Hussein might only be alive today thanks to the efforts of an Iraqi Jewish man who talked his pregnant mother out of committing suicide:

85-year-old Nassima Karush [ . . . ] relates how Saddam’s mother, Subha, had watched her first-born son die of what doctors said was cancer. Depressed from the death, she didn’t want to live and tried several times to kill herself and her unborn child, Saddam.

Karush, who immigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1951, said Wednesday she remembers her sister-in-law’s husband, Sallim Zirha, convincing Saddam’s mother not to commit suicide.

Man, the antisemitic conspiracy theorists must be frothing at the mouth on this one!

Saddam’s greatest cheerleader, Hans Blix, said that he doesn’t think Saddam will use chemical or biological weapons for fear of turning world opinion against him:

Iraq is unlikely to use chemical or biological weapons to defend itself from a U.S.-led invasion because world opinion would turn against it, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Wednesday. “Saddam Hussein has certainly figured himself to be a sort of emperor of Mesopotamia, and the leader of the Arab world,” Blix said. “So I think he very likely cares very much about his reputation.”

Wait a sec . . . I thought Blix assured us that Saddam didn’t have any of those chemical or biological weapons.