The Soon Departed Saddam

Hey folks,

Well, it’s officially a countdown now. Soon Saddam will no longer be with us. For some, not a second too soon. Some see it as a closing of a chapter. Some see it as a healing. Some vengeance. Any way you look at it, it will be soon. According to the AFP,

"Iraq was preparing for the rapid execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein, with the US-backed government eager to bring his chapter in the country's bloody history to an end.

As another deadly car bomb hit Baghdad Wednesday and the shooting of a Shiite politician triggered anti-American protests, the fate of the ousted tyrant threatened to deepen still further the rift between Sunnis and Shiites.

Justice Minister Hashem al-Shibli said Saddam's death sentence for crimes against humanity -- upheld by an Iraqi appeal court on Tuesday -- would be rubber stamped by the presidency and the prison service would hang him."

I’m glad to see that he received a trial by the Iraqi people. He was found GUILTY by the Iraqi people. THEY sentenced him to death. I DO feel the world is better off without him. But this is not the whole story. This is a perfect example of what we are dealing with in the war on terror. This is a perfect example of who "Little Hitler" is. What they, the enemy, think. How they truly see what they believe to be reality.

Saddam is an evil guy. I’m not saying this as an abstract, but as an absolute. He was evil personified. In the flesh. Here is a excerpt from the Weekly Standard, by Erin Montgomery 12/16/2003 12:00:00 AM,

"MAKIYA DESCRIBED THE FOUNDATION as being based on three tools: "the paper trail of atrocity," which consists of 2.4 million pages of official Iraqi documents captured by the Kurds after the 1991 Gulf War and 725,000 pages of Iraqi documents captured in Kuwait upon its liberation by coalition forces in 1991; films of interviews with survivors and witnesses of Saddam's brutality; and artifacts--works of art, poetry, books, songs, films, and architecture--produced both by members of Saddam's regime and those who protested against it.

The foundation seeks to digitize, index, and classify all recovered documents, many of which describe tortures, executions, mass graves, even rumors about Iraqi citizens collected by Saddam's repressive officers over a span of seven years. "We have documents on the sublime to the mundane to the ridiculous," director of documentation Hassan Mneimneh said, though the foundation has less than 1 percent of the 300 million documents it is seeking for a comprehensive archive. The foundation also plans to archive oral histories and filmed interviews with survivors.

One filmed interview, shown during the presentation, tells the story of Shaoul Sasson, an Iraqi Jew imprisoned by Saddam in 1968. Now 98 years old, Sasson spoke of his year spent in Saddam's Qasr Al-Nihaya, or "Terminal Palace." There, he was blindfolded, brutally beaten, and burned by Saddam's henchmen. The film, just one example of Saddam's cruelty toward Jews, is reminiscent of those shown at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In fact, the foundation's director of oral history, Mustafa Al-Kadhimiy, is in the United States at the invitation of the Holocaust Museum, where he is learning how the museum acquires and conserves its materials and makes them accessible to the public. Makiya, however, is quick to distinguish his future museum from the former: "Unlike the Holocaust Museum, we are not 50 years removed [from our atrocity]--we are right at the edge.""

From dripping acid on naked prisoners, dripping melted rubber hoses on their bodies and ripping it and their skin off, dismemberments, to electric shock, Saddam enjoyed torturing his own people, as well as others. Now that he has been sentenced to death, is he remorseful? NO. He truly believes he has done nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, he said,

"I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, He will place me among the true men and martyrs," wrote Saddam in the letter, which his lawyer said was penned last month for release if his death sentence was upheld.

And,

"Here I offer myself in sacrifice," Saddam said in a letter obtained from his defense lawyers in Jordan on Wednesday. "If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity."

Now I’m a little confused. Both AFP and Reuters are talking about this letter. According to Reuters, Saddam said,

"O brave, pious Iraqis in the heroic resistance. O sons of the one nation, direct your enmity toward the invaders. Do not let them divide you ... Long live jihad (holy war) and the mujahideen against the invaders."

But then I see this article from the AP,

"Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate U.S.-led foreign troops in a goodbye letter posted on a Web site Wednesday, a day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence and ordered him hanged within 30 days."

Accord to them, Saddam said,

"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking," said the letter, which was written in Arabic and translated by the AP.

"I also call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us,"

So, if this is the same letter, you can see that he does not equate torturing and killing what he perceives as his enemy with hatred. Even if it is two different letters, this shows that this guy is just plain nuts. He sees nothing wrong with it. He even believes that he will be rewarded by his god. You cannot negotiate with someone like this.

So you can perhaps get a better understanding of "Little Hitler" as well. Who also thinks he is on a mission from his god. Who also believes that he will be rewarded. Who also is evil.

Yes folks, we are soon rid of Saddam Hussein. He will pay for the crimes he committed. Soon, very soon that chapter will be closed. Now we need to get the Iraqi people ready to take over. Now we need to concentrate on Iran. They {Iran} MUST NOT be allowed to get nuclear weapons. They WILL use them.

Farewell to you Saddam. I truly believe that when you actually meet God. You will not be all that happy.
Peter

Sources;
AFP- "Iraq prepares for rapid Saddam execution"
The Weekly Standard- "Remembering Saddam's Iraq"
Reuters- "Facing gallows, Saddam offers "sacrifice" for Iraq"
AP- "Saddam says don't hate U.S.-led forces"