Saddam’s Death: Beginning Of New Era. Let’s Be Real: Saddam Was No Democrat, No Role Model For Anyone
Saddam’s Death: Beginning of a new era.
A.K. Enamul Haque Ph. D.
About 15 minutes ago as I write this, the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed and his death marks the end of a chapter in Iraq. I think some people are going to be celebrating his death. Governments of the US and UK are definitely going to be happy. The Iraqi Government is going to be happy. As I write this news commentaries coming from BBC TV are seemingly everywhere.
First, his execution is an Iraqi affair according to the US (but deep inside Mr. Bush is happy). Second, politicians who were once oppressed by Saddam are very happy because they thought until he is dead he remained a formidable enemy. Third, Iraqi Shiites and the Kurds who suffered during Saddam’s brutal regime are also happy. Nobody knows what the rest of the Iraqis are thinking. All we can do is wait and see.
The so-called “elected” government of Iraq again made some errors while executing this judgment. Unfortunately it was executed on one of the Holiest days in the Muslim world. It was also done on flimsy ground. He has not faced any of the major charges that led to the US intervention in Iraq.
It was interesting to note that contrary to the convention where the execution of the death penalty is usually delayed until all the other trials are completed this trial was completed so that his death sentence was executed quickly. Clearly Bush and his gang did not want his trial on the Kurd Rebellion where Saddam killed some 8000 man and women using chemical weapons (allegedly supplied by US). Many still think that if that trial had gone ahead many western governments would have been implicated. .
India, Russia, human rights organizations have condemned the killing and many people around the world including many in Dhaka came out in the street and protested the incident. Clearly many became emotional. While many of them have forgotten the brutality of Saddam many are comparing this with the current situation in Iraq.
Saddam is charged for killing innocent civilians of Shiite origin. As I was watching news telecasts from around the world it was evident that the western media was quick to label his execution as justice accomplished and his trial was also labeled as a crime against humanity. How many were killed? According to the trial document about a thousand. What he did is known as community punishment often used by Israel on Palestinians. Definitely it is a crime. But why not try the Israeli government too? His other major crimes remained unearthed like the killing of 8000 Kurds using chemical gases. Why? The press has said that it was because the US was involved in that. Therefore, it is safer to kill him on a lesser charge and bury the other more dangerous crimes under it.
It is precisely for this every one in the eastern world would question the killing of Saddam by the Americans. However, with Saddam dead the situation in Iraq is likely to get more difficult for US troops. All opposing forces will now join hands to oust the occupying army. The puppet government in Baghdad will now find it difficult to negotiate with those who are opposing them and the occupying army.
My analysis is that Saddam’s death is the beginning of a new era of fighting. Iraqi’s will find it easy to form a united front against the invaders. His death will not solve the puzzle in Iraq. However, we should consider the more than 100,000 cases of civilian deaths in Iraq since Bush’s army occupied Iraq. I presume that there shall be another trial and it will be held against the US government and its forces, another trial against humanity. I hope that it is done soon.
Saddam in his last letter to the people of Iraq has asked them to continue their fight against the occupying forces and has said that they (the Iraqis) should not hold any anger against the people of the occupying army because it is the rulers, who are responsible for this. I wonder why he said that?
Let’s Be Real: Saddam Was No Democrat, No Role Model For Anyone
By Philip Shaw M.Sc.
In Canada there is no such thing as “capital punishment.” Do something heinous here no matter how bad it is and the worst you can do is spend the rest of your life in jail, albeit with a DVD player. Just like most western democracies outside of the US, putting a noose around a criminal and letting them hang, isn’t part of our lexicon.
I’m old enough to remember the day it all changed. I was working in a pile of rubble. When the news came over the radio about the abolition of capital punishment in Canada, a certain benign sense of relief came over me. So when I saw the once powerful Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck about to be condemned, I felt sorry for him. How barbaric. But that’s in another part of the world, many cultures away. The Iraqi butcher is now gone, in a blink of an eye.
I must say I don’t get it. Yes, I get it about Saddam and his crimes. I’m not so sure about the trial. However, he was a very bad man in a world where nobody has a franchise on it. My question is about “community punishment”? How can we reduce the slaughter of teenagers and children down to something akin to a term within the genre of sociology? Why is there a default mechanism within some in this world to compare every horror to “what Israel does” and not some of the political butchers of Africa? Nothing in this world compares to them. The people in the Congo bleed too.
Could Saddam have played his cards a bit differently? Oh yeah, but of course hindsight is always 20/20. In some ways I believe how he played his cards had a lot to do with the “raison d’etre” of this column. People see things differently within different cultures, geographies and places. Through every dirty window the outside world looks a bit different. In Saddam’s case his vision out that window was very clouded and so was that of many western democracies. However, from the vantage point of any dirty window in the west, his moves couldn’t have been more lacking.
Case in point was the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. I remember very clearly the night Saddam invaded Iraq. I was sitting in front of what now is an old computer on a very hot southwestern Ontario night. The news reports flashed that Iraqi troops were pouring into Kuwait. Oh man, I thought, how would the world react to this?
It’s all history now. In the 1991 Gulf War Saddam was forced out of Kuwait but he survived. In the 2003 war he wasn’t so lucky. Regardless of how you feel about the justification for the 2003 war, Saddam could have played the whole thing differently.
How about if he had withdrawn from Kuwait in 1990 or 1991 under the pressure, which was exerted on him before hostilities started. How about if he had succumbed to all the American pressure, co-opted American media sources for a tour of Iraqi nuclear facilities just before the 2003 invasion. Yes, it’s a long story. He didn’t know or he didn’t get it or he had another agenda, which went astray. Libya’s Qaddafi hasn’t made the same mistakes.
Enamul asked why Saddam said for the Iraqi people not to hold any anger toward the occupying army before his death. Of course we’ll never really know why he said that but let me offer up one theory. It might have something to do with the “Stockholm Syndrome.” That’s when the captive due to the close proximity and constant pressures involved, begins to relate to, and empathize with, the captors. Maybe, in short Saddam grew soft.
Enamul writes that we will surely see increased fighting in Iraq in the aftermath of the Hussein execution. He surely might be right. What will be the end game now? We are still waiting to see what steps the Americans will take next to “get out or Iraq.” That sentiment is pretty strong now. It was substantiated to some extent by the late President Gerald Ford who recently past away. He said in an interview only released upon his death that he disagreed with the Iraq invasion. Coming from an ex-Republican President that should resonate within conservative circles in the United States.
Surely, the Americans have made many mistakes in Iraq. The military victory was never in doubt, but the peace after has been very elusive. For Saddam, those last few hours in the underground bunker on the farm near Tikrit must have been trying. What was he thinking? Whatever. He’s now relegated to history. It is what it is. He was what he was. He was no democrat and he was certainly no role model.