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Robert Scheer: A Monster of Our Creation

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Posted on Jan 2, 2007
Saddam Hussein
AP Photo / Marco Di Lauro, Pool

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at his trial in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad last May.

By Robert Scheer

Someone has to say it: The hanging of Saddam Hussein was an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim it was “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy.”

Instead, the rushed, illegal and unruly execution of a former U.S. ally after his conviction in a kangaroo court blurred the line between terrorist and terrorized as effectively as Saddam’s own evil propaganda ever did.

In the most generous interpretation, the frantic killing of Saddam abetted by the United States was the third act in a morality play of misplaced vengeance for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks— in which the first act was the invasion of Iraq, based on trumped-up lies linking it to al-Qaida, and the second was the killing of the tyrant’s sons, whose bloody corpses were hypocritically displayed to the world like war scalps.

At worst, the handling of Saddam is just another example of an Imperial America under President Bush that recognizes no boundaries of national sovereignty or any restraint of international law.  A nation that posed no threat to U.S. security was conquered for a range of base motives, from oil plunder to industrial profits to naked political gain.  Of course, these are the same rationales that despots always use to explain their murderous wars, such as Saddam’s genocidal invasion of Iran and greedy occupation of Kuwait.

The president says the execution was warranted because Saddam received a fair trial even after Bush decided to bypass an international tribunal designed to handle such trials of national rulers and instead turn Saddam over to Iraq’s dominant partisan faction in the midst of a nascent civil war.  While Saddam’s guilt of “crimes against humanity” may have been accurate, it was not, in fact, established by his trial, which was pushed through even as his lawyers were being assassinated.  This, quite opposite to the spirit of the Nuremberg war crime trials (established by the United States but not repeated today by President Bush), where the accused had competent and unintimidated attorneys, free to make a complete case.

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The trial dealt only with alleged crimes that occurred in the Shiite village of Dujail after an assassination attempt on Saddam.  His bloody reprisals occurred 15 months before Donald Rumsfeld, then President Ronald Reagan’s emissary, traveled to Baghdad to initiate an alliance with Saddam.  Rumsfeld conceded in classified memos that he was familiar with Saddam’s unsavory past, yet advocated forming an alliance with the dictator.

In fact, the most heinous crimes allegedly committed by Saddam, including the use of poison gas against Shiite Iraqis he suspected of being sympathetic to his Shiite enemies in Iran, were carried out during the years that he was our ally.  With the United States having now put Iraqi Shiites with long political, military and ideological ties to those same Iranian ayatollahs into power in Baghdad, the bizarre circle of this foreign policy disaster is now complete, with Saddam’s broken neck a fitting coda.

The video images now broadcast widely on the Internet show, as The New York Times reported, that the execution proceedings deteriorated “into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect . . . of making [Saddam] appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites, who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.”  As the executioners chanted “Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!,” in reference to death squad leader Moqtada al Sadr, Saddam may have claimed for his Sunni followers an undeserved martyrdom.

“Is that how real men behave?” Saddam asked, smiling contemptuously.  In the end, Sadr was presented figuratively with the head of Saddam by reluctant U.S. officials—the former dictator was in U.S. custody, after all—in order to placate the Shiite radicals running Iraq, even though Iraqi law bans executions on this past weekend’s religious holiday and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani refused to sign a decree upholding the death sentence, as is required by the country’s new constitution.

Fittingly, U.S. officials appeared in this spectacle as hapless Keystone Kops, morally implicated by their tepid support of a lynch mob.  It perfectly mirrors decades of U.S. meddling in the history of Iraq, beginning with U.S. support for Saddam’s Baath Party when it overthrew Iraqi nationalist Abdul Karim Qassem because we feared he was tilting ever so slightly to the Soviets.  In fact, Saddam, like Osama bin Laden and the other Islamist fanatics our CIA recruited and helped to wage holy war against the Soviets, was a monster at least partially of our creation.

Those deeply unsavory connections between Saddam and the United States would have been exposed in any honest trial.  Presumably, this is the real reason why the Bush administration so assiduously undermined any equitable judicial accounting of Saddam’s criminality, right through his shamefully and illegally rushed execution.


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By Brian, June 25, 2008 at 12:08 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

If you look further back in this Blog, you will see an entry as “Brian” making statements about Saddam and his regime.

He was a brutal sadistic sub-human thing.  Period!!

As too the number of deaths, I will NOT dispute that, but how would have died under Saddam if he had been left alone. 
As to “Saddam Hussain’s was a midemeanor” is an uninformed statement.  Research what he has done over time to his own people (his tribe), his own countrymen and his neighbors (ask Kuwait & Iran).
Over time Saddam had killed a hell of a lot more people.

As for “crimes committed in their name”, I personally don’t see them as crimes and I still fully support President Bush.

As I have stated previously, don’t just stand behind the numbers, research ALL of the facts, not just the ones that sound disgusting independently.

I knew Saddam was less than human BEFORE 9/11/01.

Also, check out the almost total lack of media attention on the positives happening in Iraq.
That the Iraqi people are glad Saddam is gone, that the military personnell believe that what they are doing is working in a positive way.  This is evidenced by the fact that a good percentage of the military over there are on their second or third tour.  Do you think they would expose themselves to harm or death if they didn’t believe in what they were doing was good and working?

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By Peter RV, June 24, 2008 at 3:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Brian C McGlynn,

Before you get carried away with Bush-Patriotism, have a look at the statistics of the Iraqi mortality since we started to ‘democratize’ those unfortunate people- with our shock and awe method.
  Over one million two hundred thousand human beings would be alive today if our Bush has restrained himself from ‘liberating’ them.
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/)
  Saddam Hussain’s was a midemeanor compared to Bush’s Crimes against the Humanity.
  Americans should be aware of the crimes committed in their name, not to be in denial of them.
  Chickens might eventually, come home to roost.

Report this

By Brian C McGlynn, June 24, 2008 at 8:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

adrienrain,

You talk about Saddam’s “personal courage” as he died, could that have been his defiance, rather than courage?

As to the number of people that Saddam either killed or in some way caused to die, Saddam is still way ahead on that count.
And I don’t want you to believe me…
I want you to actually do research and see how many had died under his regime.  He was a brutal vicious dictator who would kill you in a heartbeat if he even suspected you were against him.
There have been from a couple of hundred thousand to as much as a couple of MILLION of people who died because of Saddam Hussein.

As for your comment about President Bush.
Number one, please check how many politicians supported going into Iraq.
Number two, research just how little space is needed for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.  There could still be some in Iraq or he could have easily shipped them to Syria before the war started.
Third, Saddam stated that he tried to make everyone believe that he had wmds to protect his country from invasion by Iran.

And if Bush were so evil, how easy would it have been for him to “plant” wmds to shut everyone up.  He has been more honest than you realize.
You want to assign blame, don’t forget the agencies responsible for information gathering, that the president has to rely upon.
The sad fact is that very few countries had decent intelligence in regards to Iraq or other middle eastern countries.

And you admire this poor excuse for a human being?
Don’t just look at youtube and think that you know of everything that is going on.  There is more to the world than a video clip or a sound bite.

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By adrienrain, June 22, 2008 at 5:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I saw Saddam’s execution on youtube. He may have been a monster, but his personal courage was awe-inspiring. “Nothing became him so much in this lifetime as his leaving of it.”~MacBeth

I wonder now if he was responsible for the deaths of fewer or more human beings than W is guilty of. I wonder if W on the scaffold would be so brave.

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By Disgusted, October 23, 2007 at 3:46 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Unfortunately, and sadly, Bush is not what is wrong with this country.  It’s people like you Mr. Scheer.  Your ramblings, whether true or false, bring out some of the worst hatred in people.  You ARE unamerican. 

I am so sick and tired of people complaining about this war.  If I looked out my window and saw my neighbor beating the hell out of his wife and children, you can bet your backside I’d be the first to do something about it.  Want to know why?  Because I’m human, and my neighbors are human and no one deserves to be treated that way…and because it’s my responsibility as a human to make sure violence like that is not allowed to happen.  So if the President of our country stands up like a human being and protects our neighbors from violence, why do you say it’s so wrong?

Oh, I get it, you just want to complain!  I’d be willing to bet my life that when the election rolls around, and there’s a new president in office, you’ll be right here complaining and whining about everything he does as well. And why not?  There hasn’t been one single president ever elected into office that hasn’t completely ticked off people like you.

I feel sorry for you and anybody remotely like you.  Is your life so sad and unsatisfying that you must constantly find fault in everything around you?  It’s people like you that I pray for every day because it’s people like you that continue to destroy the morale of this country. 

You may have so-called facts to back up your stories, but remember, not everything you see on TV is real!  You’d do good to remember that.  You’d also do well to remember that just because you don’t like something someone does, doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.  Stop acting like a two year old, stand up for your country, stand up for your military, and for God’s sake, stand up for a fellow human being!

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By none, October 12, 2007 at 2:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

if we had killed Saddam in the first gulf war we would not be in the mess we are in now. i know we could have because i have a friend who’s dad was a ranger in desert storm and he said that they had found the real Saddam but had been ordered not to take him out

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By Brian, April 9, 2007 at 9:42 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Mary, it would be nice if you were a little more coherent.
If you are referencing what the US is doing in Iraq & Afghanistan, then you really don’t have a clue what’s going on.
Do you really think that the US could take control of these two countries, sugjugate the people and just give the land away to whomever we feel like?
The people of these two countries would not let us do that, plus the rest of the world would never allow the US do anything like that either.
Afghanistani people fought the USSR for years, even though the Russians could be very brutal.  So again, this could never and would never happen.  Throw in how many countries have tried over the millenia to subjugate these countries with no success.

As for Israel, we help them, but they will do whatever is necessary to keep their neighboring countries from destroying Israel. Most of the Arabic/Islamic world have professed that Israel should be wiped from the face of the earth, which is the reason they will defend themselves, just as YOU would if YOU were put in the same position.

So please think it out a little better and be a little clearer in sharing your thought on this matter.

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By mary, April 4, 2007 at 2:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

do all of you really think the u.s. is keeping israel secure? they are ready to give the land and divide it to the highest bidder who are backed by the elite of gov’ts. around the world. would any of us be willing to give our land to people who want to annahilate us? the principalities in high places around this world want all truth thinking people confused and brainwashed so they can take control. the great deception of our time has come to completion. when powers dehumanize themselves, preaching peace and freedom, blindly, and murder other people, while others look away,blindly,will fall into the pit.sooner or later these power elites will destroy themselves and all who agree with their lies, injustice and unrighteousness.a little leaven leavens the whole lump. it may be too late, may god have mercy on us all.

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By Eleanore Kjellberg, January 15, 2007 at 11:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Just another day in Iraq—-in the same execution chamber where Saddam was hanged Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam’s half brother, plunged through the trap door and was beheaded by the sudden jerk of the rope; the body came to rest on its chest while the severed head lay a few yards away, still wearing the black hood pulled on moments before.

Iraqi officials seemed anxious to prove they hadn’t mutilated Ibrahim’s remains.

The hangings came as a suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing seven people and wounding 40 others—a total of at least 55 people were killed or found dead across Iraq.

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By Brian, January 15, 2007 at 2:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

45606 Rogelio’s reply to my comments “Yes, Hussein will go down in history as a “bad guy.” The

problem I have with Hussein’s death was that he was not given a fair trial.”
__
My reply to Rogelio
You probably also consider Adolph Hitler just a “bad guy”?
Do some research, Saddam Hussein is so much more than just a “bad guy”, he was a ruthless sadistic

murdering bastard and deserved to die.  Period!
When you do your research you’ll discover that he killed or had killed a very large number of people,

on top of the Iraqi military that he killed by throwing them at coalition forces in both the first &

second Gulf wars.
As I tell people, don’t believe me, look it up for yourselves.  Also don’t believe

sensationalist columnists like Scheer.

——————
45597 TAO Walker’s reply to my comments “looks like most everything Brian himself “knows” about

Saddam Hussein he learned from the MOCKINGBIRD-bent media…..not a very sound place from which to

leap to any reliable conclusions”
__
My reply to TAO Walker
I learned about Saddam Hussein BEFORE 9/11/01.  What I discovered is that he had been a brutal,

merciless, cutthroat dictator.  While a lot his people were at a poverty level or worse, he built

even more palaces for himself AFTER the first Gulf war.  This was after a lot of the country was

devastated from that first Gulf war.  Is that someone that you’d be proud of or stand behind?  Throw

in the billions of dollars that vanished from the Iraq’s coffers to who knows where, from the sales

of “oil for food”. (talk to the UN over that one!)
And he trained his sons to be just as or more brutal than himself.
From the one son who routinely kidnapped, raped and murdered girls that caught his eye, to the one

son that was a drug dealer making 10’s of millions of dollars a year.  To when one son tried to kill

the other son using a helicopter gunship at an Iraqi state event.  He didn’t want his brother to be

next in line to succeed Saddam.  Dad just destroyed a building that housed a multi-million dollar

collection of cars (bought with the drug money!) as punishment.  Or the time when the one son visited

a prison holding approximately 2000+ political prisoners and when told that it was overloaded, he

told the warden to execute every single prisoner.  He had every guard & worker in prison to take part

in the firing squads.

So while I don’t know everything, I know enough about Saddam Hussein, his sons and his regime to know

that what he got was easy, compared to the suffering that he caused for sooooo many people, both

inside Iraq and outside.

—————
45681 Lefty’s reply to my comments “Bush’s sole interest in public office is self service. Bush

knowingly and purposely lied about intelligence that Iraq had WMD as a subterfuge for war in Iraq for

personal financial gain. Bush is worse than Hussein, and deserves worse than what Hussein got. What

part of that don’t you understand? In addition, Bush is also a fascist pig and a corporate pimp (a

redundancy, actually).”
__
My reply to Lefty
Please tell me what “self service” is removing Saddam Hussein from power and letting the Iraqi

government execute him?
Bush did not lie about the intelligence. It’s very easy to second guess anyone after the fact.
In WW 2, would you have been against the US dropping one or both atomic bombs on Japan to try and end

that war?
If you read what I wrote, Saddam stated that he tried to make the world and especially Iran think

that he/Iraq did have or was building weapons of mass destruction.  Again, if someone tells me they

have a gun and are going to pull it out and kill me, I will defend myself to the best of my ability.
By your comments, you just don’t like Bush.  What kind of financial gain will he have from this war?
You seem to enjoy seeing your insults in print online.  Why ramble on with name calling, rather than

discussing an important set of events in your lifetime.

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By Ben, January 14, 2007 at 1:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I am a little hazy on the exact history, but heard something somewhere… that we actually invited Saddam in to occupy Kuwait. Thus he did, and that was our pretext for “Desert Storming” him.

Bob, can you clear this up? Thanks.

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By Dr. Susan Block, January 8, 2007 at 7:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

So the Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral has climaxed with the Snuff Film of Saddam Hussein. And the important international question of “Who is the bigger dickhead, Bush or Saddam?” has been answered, sort of…

read more:  http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/article181.html

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By dreaming of peace, January 7, 2007 at 5:28 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Repeat after no one!  Find the truth within!  No one has the answers for you.  You must search and find your own from within your own being.

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By davr, January 7, 2007 at 5:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I watched Saddam’s execution on Live Links. Saddam’s behavior was exemplary. He sincerely thanked the American troops, Guards and Doctors who attended him before he was turned over to the Iraqi executioners.

The U.S. personnel were really impressed by Saddams presence of mind charm and dignity. Saddam Hussein acted like a man. Several newsmen on site commented on this.

During the execution, which was conducted and viewed by mostly Shiites, Saddam maintained his calm and reserve. The Shiites acted like a bunch of squalling little kids out to beat up on a Jew or a nigger or a defenseless little cripple kid.
They howled and screamed and cursed at Saddam, throwing insults at him throughout the execution and even after he was dead.

They acted like a bunch of undisciplined little brats. They even dropped the trap door under him while he was in the middle of his last prayers.

Saddam Hussein Died like a Man. I know that. I know when a Man dies like a Man. That is the Truth.

Those squalid, vicious, nasty, irresponsible little people who executed Saddam Hussein and all the Iraqis like them are not worth one American life, not one American dollar, not worth one American concern and not one concern for their Jewish oppressors.

The Bush/Republicans agenda in the Slaughter of Iraq was oil, military bases, a puppet government, a giant embassy and to protect Israel.

The people of the United States of America are not getting one lousy thing out of this terrible misadventure.

The Rich Bitches, Politicians, Military Commanders, Iran, Construction Companies, Private security companies and employees are getting rich off of this terrible mess and we are getting to pay for it. Lock stock and barrel.

We will pick up the whole tab in lost lives, wounded soldiers, the worlds hate and ridicule and our money, which we need to pay for our own failing infrastructure.

Saddam Hussein died like a man. How are our glorious leaders going to die?

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By Boggs, January 6, 2007 at 3:41 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Toc,
What the U.S. spreads is not the fruits of democracy, but instead it places the chains of corporate fascism.
Rae2,
You got it all right, and I will add….
The human race is so infected with the cancer of greed, the scab of power and the spirit of disrespect. You are right, we really do need to start over.
And Paul Shauver,
You must be saying that you stand with Bush?
Bush, the mass murderer, the mocking executioner, the cowardly chickenhawk who refused to serve his country. He is a hypocrite.

Report this

By della dempsey, January 6, 2007 at 2:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, (people places and things) the courage to change the things I can (myself) and the wisdom to know the difference.

I believe in an Infinite Being who is REALLY in charge here, if we would stop long enough to listen, and accept responsiblity for ourselves, and surrender to the power of love within.
It all begins with me.  I accept responsiblity for my own actions.  That is the best each of us can do.  I hold the light thought that says, I choose highest and best good for me, and for all beings.
It is a pity to me, that there is so much ignorance (lack of education).  If we want a differnt world, it is up to us to be the example, and it works. Truly.
Hastened death through anger is neither loving or logical.
Repeat after me - I surrender to the love of God flowing through my life.  I am at peace, I am peaceful, I accept peace, I express peace.  I refuse to take any part in warring.  I choose only peace in my life.

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By dreaming of peace, January 6, 2007 at 12:12 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Oh, have I got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!  “Peace” is not profitable!!!!!!!  What a dreadful realization.  Let’s find a way to make “Peace” profitable, and “warring” unprofitable, please!!!!!!!!!

Report this

By dreaming of peace, January 5, 2007 at 11:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Regarding comment #45609:

“the rope wasn’t tightly secured around his neck….....
I think he is stll alive somewhere”.

What a bizarre thought!  And, was Jesus really dead when he was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb?

Report this

By old benjamin, January 5, 2007 at 11:01 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

You vilifiers of your own government are a study in mental illness. You have such amazing insight into the psyche of Bush, Cheny, et al. One can only understand your disease by reference to the idea of defense mechanisms. You project your own sick psyches onto some authority figure and thereby disown them. Thus, you are able to get rid of your unacceptable selves and condemn them vicariously. You don’t know Bush or Cheney. You just know your pathetic, frightened selves. And most comically, you see Sadam as somehow a victim, when he was in fact a vile murderer, rapist and torturer who would cut your throats in a heartbeat. It takes a truly deranged mind to call good evil and evil good. You and Karl Marx deserve each other.

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By dreaming of peace, January 5, 2007 at 10:53 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The hanging of Hussein seemed more like a lynching to me than an execution.  It was barbarity at its most depraved level.  I decry such heinous barbarism.  It was a shameful spectacle in spite of whatever crimes against humanity he was guilty of committing.  I found it appalling and an abomination.  And, who exactly, is responsible for the 3,000 US military lives lost in Iraq, the maiming both psychologically and physically of untold numbers, and the deaths of 12,000 Iraqi civilians at last published account?

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By z, January 5, 2007 at 3:39 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Mr. Scheer is the I.F. Stone of our generation!

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By Sylvia Barksdale Morovitz, January 5, 2007 at 2:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

One tyrant down.  One to go.

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By A Khokar, January 5, 2007 at 6:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Too late; for the hero
   
The shake hand with Rumsfeld which sent Saddam over the moon; resulted adversely into mass killing of his opponents; but it did bring in some good results in the field of job assigned by his god father; He achieved a marked success in containing Iran and depleted her in a long war of attrition. He proved himself to be the best US ally and a staunch Proxy.

While he was walking on the air; he took this bliss to be an ever lasting and was blinded to think beyond.

The mission of god father was accomplished as per plan. It was time to say; good by to the valued friend and accordingly plugs were pulled. He had come to know this, in Kuwait attack drama. He was horrified to find that he may not see another full moon. But when he had realised it; it was too late for him. He found his regime lost and Iraq the dream land of his empire; reduced to the rubbles smouldering of some stone age.

In an obvious play let of his prosecution; it was irony of his fate that the whole World knew in advance; the out come of his show trail. Although; he kept the might of his self pride high till last and he did not bend his head till his neck snapped on the gallows.

He left a lessons for all the dictators and monarch of Arab world that while performing as proxies; (active or may be passively); beyond the life of their bliss; only one thing is certain; a colossal betrayal by their master;  bringing them only the humiliation; deprivation for their people and a gallows awaiting at the end. 
——————————————
Love for all, Hatred for none

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By Lefty, January 5, 2007 at 1:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Hey Brian,

Bush’s sole interest in public office is self service.  Gaining public office for self service has been the Bush family business for 75 years.  Bush knowingly and purposely lied about intelligence that Iraq had WMD as a subterfuge for war in Iraq for personal financial gain.  Bush committed the biggest breach of public trust in the history of America.  Bush is an illegal eves dropper, a liar, a torturer, a mass murderer and a crook.  Bush is worse than Hussein, and deserves worse than what Hussein got.

What part of that don’t you understand?

In addition, Bush is also a fascist pig and a corporate pimp (a redundancy, actually).

Report this

By Ralph, January 4, 2007 at 11:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

As an outsider, everything that has happened since 2001 has been like watching a train crash in slow motion.

This light of dawn and awakening among you is heartening, but there is a great sadness at the price of torture and death that has been paid.  The men, the women, the children.  Each one with a story.

The time for wringing your hands is short and what has been done is done.  Cast aside the past, stand up and pray that God is merciful.

The time is apon YOU!

Your moment is almost here.

The timeless call to justice is sounding in your midst.

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By mark, January 4, 2007 at 10:51 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Bush has a disturbing record for bizarre executions going back to Texas and a woman he ridiculed during her execution.

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By Toc, January 4, 2007 at 10:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The problem with Americans, left and right is their constantly doing missionary work among the heathens.  Instead of being like Bush, bringing the natives the fruits of democracy, why don’t you but out from how Iraqis treat their dictators.  It is none of your business.

Your and Dubya’s opinions seem to be two sides of the same coin.

Before closing I would like to say one thing.  I oppose capital punishment on the grounds that if you give the state the power to kill, they will use it. The Execution of Hussein was a real exercise in futility. The fact that you and Bush are continually sticking your nose in their business doesn’t help matters.

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By David Caputo, January 4, 2007 at 10:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Nice article Mr. Scheer, as always.

I’ve been inspired by your work in the past and reached similar conclusions to you in my article Saddam Hussein - RIP

http://totallyfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/saddam-hussein-rip.html

Again. Your work is always exemplary.

Thanks.

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By J of Hollywood, January 4, 2007 at 9:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

This my very first time visiting this site and my very last time.
A lot of you folks out there would give Fox Mulder a run for his money!

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By rae2, January 4, 2007 at 8:43 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I can’t read any more of this pornography… the whole thing, on BOTH sides, makes me so ashamed, so sick of being associated with “the West.”

The “East” folks aren’t any more moral or forthright, for sure, but they ain’t any worse.

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the complete destruction of the human race would NOT be a “bad thing.” We cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form. The universe sure doesn’t need us and wouldn’t be any worse off if we didn’t exist. Where’s that vengeful god when we need “him.” How about another world-wide, 40-day flood. Let’s start over… this try didn’t work.

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By Paul Schauver, January 4, 2007 at 7:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I cannot believe the amount of rightwing, boo hooing that I read in these comments.  I find it extremely hard, as an American, and as a retired military veteran, to believe that Americans would actually stand up for such an a**shole as Saddam.  Thank God that you weren’t around in the late 1930’s, early 40’s, or because of people like you, we would all be speaking German.  I will say this one more time:  You do not speak for the majority of military. I have friends and relatives in Iraq, and to a man, they all support the president 100%.  If I could return to active duty, I would in a heart beat.  And, on another matter, talking about Chickenhawks.  Yeah, like Clinton was such a big war hero.  Remember his little trip to Russia, to demonstrate against Vietnam?  Geez, you people really need to get a life. 
I knew that there was something wrong with your types, when you blamed the president for Katrina.  Now he’s responsible for the weather too.  And, once again, you don’t speak for me.

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By aviewerofthevideo, January 4, 2007 at 7:39 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

cell phone videos have even less resolution than the Zapruder film. What I saw was:

1. rope wasn’t tightly secured around his neck
2. some sort of scarf was placed between rope and skin (why?)
3. He was immediately put on the floor instead of letting him ‘hang until dead’.
4. he seemed very calm for someone who knew he is about to die.

I think he’s still alive somewhere.

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By Rogelio, January 4, 2007 at 7:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Hussein’s execution is a travesty. Was he an unruly dicatator? Of course, all we agree that he committed “crimes against humanity.” However, are his crimes any different than those of our nation’s aggressive, imperialistic, murdering of 600,000 plus/minus Iriqi’s?

I am proud to be an American. Unfortunately, it saddens me that our nation overuses its power to enforce their will globally. What gives us the right to kidnap Manuel Norriega and then force our tax dollars to pay for his imprisonment.

Yes, Hussein will go down in history as a “bad guy.” The problem I have with Hussein’s death was that he was not given a fair trial. If we are imposing our so-called American style democracy in Iraq, then how can we rush so quickly to murder a man?

It makes you wonder if his quick death had anything to do with the upcomming trials of these damn Republicans who started this whole f-ing mess to begin with. We never got to hear what Hussein had to say. Was “W” administration afraid that Hussein would implicate his corrupt Republican regime?

Hussein’s death, whether warranted or not, is an embarassment to humnaity and our so-called righteousness.

Our nation has set a wonderful precedent!

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By TAO Walker, January 4, 2007 at 7:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

So happy to have you singing and dancing and playing along, “blues.”  Hope you’ve brought some friends, too.

            **************

Not “everyone” is attacking Bush (Brian #45512).  But most of those who do, judging by the generally off-target aim of their thrusts, have evidently been successfully decoyed into mistaking the shill for the actual gang of murderous con-artists he so half-wittingly fronts for.  It looks like most everything Brian himself “knows” about Saddam Hussein he learned from the MOCKINGBIRD-bent media…..not a very sound place from which to leap to any reliable conclusions.

That the Zionists are in as far over their heads here as their Anglo/American co-conspirators seems almost too obvious by now to need mentioning.  What maybe does is the ought-to-be alarming fact that the entire criminal enterprise has now run completely out-of-control of even its most high-level hidden perpetrators. 

Institutionalized insanity is on an unalterable course to a spectacular collision with the lethal limits of its own internal contradictions…..and the sociopaths who set it all in-motion have contrived to take virtually the entire civilized world along for the ride with them.  “What’s in your wallet” is a one-way ticket to EREHWON…..that’s NOWHERE, to us primitive savages who’ve had the common sense to stay on the free-and-wild side of “the looking-glass.” 

Maybe there’s still a little time for some of you to jump off, and live to tell about it.  But there’s no chance of doing that now without getting at least seriously banged-up in the attempt.  You can count on us whole human beings, though, to help you pick-up-the-pieces.  “Are you willing to risk it all?”  If not, we’ll catch ya on the flip-flop, good buddy.

HokaHey!

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By MarkF, January 4, 2007 at 6:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

“The holocaust is a hoax” by Joe Splink:

My grandparents and two aunts, babies at the time,  were murdered in the gas chambers and my father survived Auschwitz. You can express how this war was a grave mistake, but to spew baseless lies is truly unconsciounable and hurtful.

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By Matthew Dodson, January 4, 2007 at 6:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Mr. Scheer is right. 

In my view, Bush’s Iraq policy and the “realist” response is bad for America.  No one but a few self-important think tank geeks and meth-smoking evangelical preachers ever really believed that America could transform the Middle East into a new Garden of Eden by killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, turning Sunni against Shia and ramming a comically-naive Constitution down the throats of shell shocked survivors. America’s democracy was created at the barrel of American muskets. It appears that the “neo-cons” expected to create Middle East democracy at the barrel of American warheads. Democracy doesn’t work that way.

Let’s face it, we are an occupying colonial power. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The Greeks, Romans and Brits did it for centuries. Let’s just not pretend we’re something that we’re not. (Newt Gingrich has pointed this fact out on national television recently in what appears to be an almost erotic glee. Good for him… not that he’s right but because he had a little thing poking around in his pants at the thought of himself as Viceroy of Iraq, I mean.)

So I guess what I’m saying is that all the nice talk about promoting democracy, and all, from the “neo-cons” was really about promoting American imperialism. Hmm. But aren’t all those authoritarian governments in the Middle East pro-American (at least when they’re not funding terrorists)? Hmm. So let me think this through since I get confused so easily. The “neo-cons” want to overthrow the authoritarian but pro-American Middle East governments in order to create a group of American colonial possessions in their place. I’m not the most sophisticated guy around but is seems like a lot of work to get us right back to where we already were at the dawn of this decade.

Why don’t we try a new approach.  Let’s accept that our current policies have failed.  We can work together with other nations to forge a new Middle East that promotes civil rights, freedom of speech and equality for all.  Instead of war, we can try a novel approach… the power of persuasion.

One final note, can we please keep the anti-Jewish comments to a minimum.  Mean-spirited comments about one’s ethnicity does not raise the level of discourse.

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By Peter Marshall, January 4, 2007 at 3:58 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Instead of the United States in a cameo appearance a la Keystone Cops….consider a much more trenchant and historically significant parallel to Pontius Pilate. I explicitly reject any Christ/Saddam unity in this statement. I merely suggest that the premagistrate of Rome “washed his hands” in a public spectacle much the same way the George Bush “cleared brush” or “slept” throughout the process. As an aside, how does Bush sleep through such an event. In Canada we have have a name for such dysfunction: Paul Bernardo.

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By Peter RV, January 4, 2007 at 3:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I reject Scheer’s idea that Saddam was a monster and I am quite disappointed that Scheer has fallen so low as to demonise another victim of our barbarism.
Saddam was a naive man who has trusted our perfideous and treacherous promises. He has never realized that behind Washington’s american facade stood Israel- a mortal error of any ally of the U.S.
Besides,how can anyone whose president is Bush,
dare call anybody a monster? Have we lost completely our moral standards?

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By Joe Splink, January 4, 2007 at 3:12 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I’m a big fan of Sheer’s, but as long as we have Jews analyzing the Iraq war we will get the Zionist perspective, and not the truth.  Thus Sheer cannot bring himself to mention the real reason for the war, as Fritz Hollins says “The US started the war in Iraq to secure Israel, and everyone knows it”.

But the real howler in Sheer’s piece is the following “This, quite opposite to the spirit of the Nuremberg war crime trials (established by the United States but not repeated today by President Bush), where the accused had competent and unintimidated attorneys, free to make a complete case.”

The holocaust is a hoax and Nuremberg was a show trial on the Soviet model.  The prime evidence was a sworn statment by the commander of Auschwitz written in English, a language he neither read nor wrote.

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By Dedicated Hosting, January 4, 2007 at 2:30 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Well,there shouldnt have been the execution of Saddam because taking someone’s life away like that is awful.However,there could be imprisonement would have been more preferable in his own country.But now i guess the situation has provoked and anything cant be assumed of what is going to happen in now.

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By Brian, January 4, 2007 at 2:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Why is everyone attacking Bush?
Saddam Hussein revealed under interrogation that he tried to make the world and especially Iran believe that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction”. 
Why would he do that you ask?  Well, he figured that if he didn’t put on a strong front that Iran would attack Iraq and either take part of the country or take over Iraq totally.

To put it into another perspective, imagine a police officer that comes upon a person that he has encountered before and that person was a vicious criminal who had killed previously and usually carried a deadly weapon. 
Then that person put his hand in his pocket and told the police officer that he was going to kill him.  Should the police officer wait till he’s in jeopardy or dead before defending himself?  The officer should draw his weapon when threatened by a known deadly criminal.
Hmmmm…  I kind of think that Saddam Hussein was a known deadly criminal, who had murdered people and used wmds, who by his own admission wanted people to believe he had wmd.
So do we wait until a nuclear or chemical/biological weapon is unleashed on our country BEFORE defending ourselves?
Am I missing something here?
I do know that if Saddam had the chance to use a wmd on the US there would have already been a lot of dead Americans.

As to how Iraq treated Saddam’s execution, it was the decision of the Iraqi government, pure and simple.  The international community, like the Iraqi people wanted to handle this themselves.

As to the references about how the US connections with Iraq and Saddam Hussein would show up at a trial and how the execution will help cover-up this history is crap. 
We all know that the US has done stuff that it should not have done.

But you’re making it sound like it is Bush’s fault for previous administrations actions.
That’s like blaming me for slavery!! I and my parents and my grandparents and great grandparents and probably great-great grandparents have never owned anyone!! In fact slavery may have ended before my forebears stepped on US soil

So people can make sure every lunatic has their rights upheld! 
Image if someone had stood up to Adolph Hitler early on, just how many lives could have been saved and how much destruction would not have happened.
If he had been around today, he probably would have killed even more people and caused more destruction, as people made sure that his rights were upheld.

Bottom line, everyone who reads this should do research THEMSELVES!! Do not let me or anyone else tell you their version of what’s happening in the world, go out and find out just what Saddam Hussein and his kids did to the country of Iraq and the surrounding countries.

Considering that depending upon sources, he is responsible for killing anywhere from a couple hundred thousand to 1.5 million plus.  Which makes it very important for YOU to know more before deciding where the right and the wrong is in the world.

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By Louie Koester, January 4, 2007 at 1:01 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I sure do miss the days when Americans were the “good guys”.

Wonderful article, Mr Scheer, as always, and thanks for it.

Thanks also for the great comments that the article stirred.  It’s nice to realize that I’m not alone.  I look forward ,now, to the Bush trial.  If only.

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By Allan Scheer, January 4, 2007 at 12:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

All of this handwringing over the death of a butcher doesn’t surprise me one bit.

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By Bruce G. Richardson, January 4, 2007 at 12:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Why is it that those who have never heard the crack of an angry bullet nor wretched from the smell of rotting flesh in a village destroyed by bombs, finds playing at war so irresistable?  This administration, staffed and led as they are with and by psycopaths, draft dodgers, and war criminals will no doubt provide decades of research for psychiatrists and doctoral aspirants.
Bruce G. Richardson
Author: “Afghanistan, Ending the Reign of Soviet Terror.”

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By Roberto Bouret, January 4, 2007 at 12:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The United States has become a criminal empire. Its collapse will be a good thing for all of humanity, including the clueless American people. How to avoid such a fate? Quit being an empire, recall your military from abroad, and impeach the criminal Bush cabal for crimes against humanity, and do it now! Chances of this happening? Nil!

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By Matthew M, January 4, 2007 at 10:06 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

As is usual for Mr. Sheer, he omits mention of Israel and the US Zionists Lobby as a principal instigator in our invasion of Iraq, which, in its unraveling, has led to this horrific end. Hanging Saddam cast a blight on all that is America. Israel’s role aside, the rope used in this sordid and shameful act was our own.

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By Paul Lozowsky The Diplomatic Alternative Project, January 4, 2007 at 9:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The US government helps create and develop an organization (Al-Qaeda) to get foreign military invaders (the Soviets) out of Muslim Lands. Today that foreign military invader and occupier of muslim lands is the US. Why should the US Government be surprised that Al-Qaeda is now fighting the US Military Occupiers of Muslim Lands.
      After the cold war the US government/military/industrial complex searched for a new world war and they think they have found one. Don’t let them!! Contact The New House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer who appears to support this continued occupation at phone number 202-225-4131 or fax him at 202-225-4300!
DEMAND: STOP Funding This War and Get US Troops Out of Iraq’s 1000 year civil war

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By ekarhu, January 4, 2007 at 9:48 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I hope somebody remembered to ask Saddam what happened to all them WMD’s.

As for the video and the taunts; this paradox of a civilized execution is ridiculous. If that was the worst thing that happened to him that day…

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By James Ertl, January 4, 2007 at 9:16 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Besides murdering Saddam for crimes that happened before Raygun provided him with poison gas to be used against the Iranians and the intelligence to maximize the kill, the execution swept from the headlines Ford’s diktat against Bush that Woodward could only make public after Ford’s death.  I guess Ford was too frightened of Bush to take his stand while he was alive.

Ford was always a water-carrier for the fascists.  He pardoned the then most criminal, murderous, degenerate and corrupt president the US ever suffered up to that time, Nixon.  This was propagandized as healing the nation.  What drivel.
What would have healed the nation would have been the trial and imprisonment or execution of Nixon for his war and other crimes.

The sadistic psychopath Bush has already gotten himself pardoned for his war crimes, crimes against humanity, war-profiteering, utter corruption, incompetence and gross violation of the Constitution, US law, international law that the US bound itself by treaty and his oath of office.

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By Mia, January 4, 2007 at 4:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

You seem to forget that the murder of Saddam happened during a bloody USraeli ockupation.

It´s a USraeli official murder of another states president, legitimate or not.

We all know that for those crimes that the former friend of Tel Aviv/Washington, Saddam was “convicted” all american presidents after Bretton Woods would be executed as well.

Not to mention all zionists ruling the apartheid state since it was forced on another peoples territoty.

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By Kaddish, January 4, 2007 at 4:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

“America needs to take a hard look in the mirror if it is to avoid the slide into criminal fascism, experienced by the people of Germany, Japan, and Italy in 1945.”

Or Belgium and especially Britain in the 1800’s, when their imperialist activities and colonization brutalized tens of millions of people in Africa and Asia even as they themselves were defeated and expelled from places like Afghanistan or South America, with creeping decline at home.

If anything, the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq has more in common with the imperialists of the 19th century than the fascists of the 20th—both were vicious, murderous collections of regimes, and perhaps the only good outcome of the early 20th century was that they effectively bankrupted each other and took each other out, especially as they were further humiliated in and after 1945 by the very people they had scorned and colonized for 200 years—Algeria and Vietnam expelling the French, while the Irish, Cypriots, Egyptians, Indonesians and Yemenis all defeated the British and Dutch and expelled them from their countries in disgrace. 

It’s an interesting footnote that the British themselves also attempted to colonize Iraq in the 1920’s, and failed miserably—they were all but evicted by 1945, and after a brief occupation later, Qassem effectively kicked them out for good.  This was also Mohammed Mossadegh’s unpardonable “crime” in Iran in 1953, and Nasser’s in Egypt in 1956—both expelled the British soldiers and corporate interests from their countries, and although the Machiavellian Allen Dulles was the engineer of Mossadegh’s overthrow in Iran (which is why the Iranians hate us so much), it was Winston Churchill who provided the main impetus for the coup against Mossadegh, in his second stint as Prime Minister in the UK.  (Anthony Eden obviously tried the same thing against Nasser, though it was Nasser who won that stare-down.)  Churchill was also one of the main officials in the British Protectorate in Iraq and hated the Iraqis so much that he urged mass terror-bombing against them (which that idiot Arthur Bomber Harris carried out), and even then, the British met disaster.

So now, the US, and ironically Britain again, tread again where Britain trod so disastrously in the 1920’s—in the consuming desert of Iraq.  (And also in Afghanistan, which was a House of Horrors for Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries—Afghanistan is the only country to defeat the British in three different wars, and may well do so again with this latest operation.)  It’s naked imperialism, plain and simple.

The real reason for Saddam Hussein’s execution wasn’t “taking on a dictator,” but because this dictator—whom the USA had once supported—was bought by us, but didn’t stay bought.  The irony is that Saddam basically wanted an alliance with the USA even after the First Gulf War, and Saddam—cruel as he was—was probably the most grimly effective figure in the Middle East at both weakening Iran and containing and thwarting the radical Islamists.  The Baath Party, after all, was secular, and women, Christians and other minorities paradoxically had more rights and privileges in Baathist Iraq than almost any other Middle Eastern nation.  In taking out Saddam like this, the United States, Britain and Australia have effectively taken down one of our most reliable counters to much tougher adversaries against us. 

Strategically, as well as economically and morally, the Iraq War is a disastrous defeat for us.  On superficial analysis it’s not on the scale of Vietnam, but in terms of political, economic and strategic costs, it’s a far more damaging defeat for the Anglosphere countries.

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By Huncha, January 4, 2007 at 3:46 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

From the moment Saddam was sentenced on the eve of the US Congressional elections, my disgust with the US gov’t has deepened, and I am a US citizen by birth, tho no longer in spirit. The video of the hanging was so chillling and repulsive that I don’t understand how anyone could see the act of hanging the head of state of another gov’t as something that could reinvent the US reputation in the world. The travesty of a sham trial in a nation occupied, and the Clear involvement of the US in all affairs Iraqi since the 1950’s, is enough to sicken the heart of justice sane human beings demand. We have become doomed as a nation in this travesty. The nightmare just gets worse. All the rest of the world can do is watch as the US hangs itself. Saddam’s hanging and his taunting is the perfect reflection of what has taken over the soul of America. Cognative dissonance is all around in this nation ruled by thieves and the criminally insane.
Thank you robert for your brilliant insightful article,
and for confirming the rumors of all the bribed and bought off dictators who have been in the pay and purvue of the US covert agencies over the past 60 years or so.

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By Eleanore Kjellberg, January 4, 2007 at 12:08 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

“Fittingly, U.S. officials appeared in this spectacle as hapless Keystone Kops, morally implicated by their tepid support of a lynch mob.  It perfectly mirrors decades of U.S. meddling in the history of Iraq, beginning with U.S. support for Saddam’s Baath Party when it overthrew Iraqi nationalist Abdul Karim Qassem because we feared he was tilting ever so slightly to the Soviets.  In fact, Saddam, like Osama bin Laden and the other Islamist fanatics our CIA recruited and helped to wage holy war against the Soviets, was a monster at least partially of our creation.”

They say three Iraqis were arrested today, for filming and distributing the video of Saddam being executed—-is this the democracy we formed; one that imprisons Iraqis for showing the truth—-3,000 U.S. troops died to establish a government that is a repressive chaotic mess, controlled by street gangs on the move, or perhaps they are a Wild West posse having a good old lynching party.

The Iraqis who distributed the video should be commended rather than convicted—-why hide Saddam’s execution, his trial was expedited, Bush wanted him executed, so it is significant that we see the handiwork of those responsible.

The public is tired of being patronized—-the Iraq War is not a movie set, real people die, 660,000 Iraqis are dead, a figure not much talked about by the Bush Administration, just like those flag draped coffins of U.S. troops that are hidden from MSM cameras, why are those in the White House frightened to show the effects of their policies—-let all see the price that some pay for corruption. 

The tall stately statue of Saddam was torn down three years ago three men set-up a ladder, climbed up the pillar, and draped a long rope, noose style, around the statue’s neck.  They climbed down, and a few others, swung away at the pillar with a hammer.  The pillar was about 30 feet high and 6 feet or so in diameter. The statue stood about 30 feet high. A couple of American Abrams tanks were loitering about; they could easily topple the statue in a minute, but they seem disinclined—leaving the task, to the Iraqis; with the help of some ropes.

Three years later, a rope was once again used by Iraqis to tear down all remaining reminders of the previous regime, however, this time they had the actual head of Saddam in their hands, but yet he stood just as noble and calm as a statue, refusing to be shrouded by hood, wanting to see how he was to die, surrounded by masked men chanting and tormenting him until the very end.

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By sebsainclair, January 4, 2007 at 12:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

US on Saddam: “We would have done it differently”.
By lethal injection instead?

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By HeadlessHessian, January 4, 2007 at 12:00 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Back in the early 70s…I recall the news of the Watergate break in.  A little voice way deep in the cobwebs of my muddled little mind said that something was not right and that the WhiteHouse had its hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
Oliver North hearings….little voice
Noises about Iraq in 2002….little voice
Valerie Plame….little voices keep coming
Now Saddam rushed to execution….I’m hearing things again…but just a bit louder now and more often.


Why were we out in the streets during the VietNam fiasco, but not during this one?


Headless

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By Trigger Finger, January 3, 2007 at 11:13 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Very true, The Monster of our Creation is George W. Bush and his gang of thugs. He has been allowed to get away with whatever he pleased from the age of two to this very day. No one has ever had the balls to stand up to him and no one ever will.
He and his gang of thugs put all that thoughtful planning and organization into stealing the 2000 election, without anyone in authority standing up and asking what the hell is going on?  What made us think they would challenge his Iraq WAR emergency?  They blindsided Al Gore, the democrats and the American people with the same baseball bat thuggery that they hit Saddam with a couple of years later. Saddam paid with his life.  The people of Iraq have paid, and will continue to pay for many years with millions of their lives. The American people are paying with a loss of dignity, a loss of pride and respect for a once great country, and their growing hatred of the corrupt, spineless, gutless do-nothing leaders of America. Where the hell are the well educated real leaders that this country was once able to produce?  I suggest if the United States cannot create intelligent leaders, then we should in-source them.  The whole world can’t possibly produce an entire population this STUPID!
And George the “decider” should move his office to Baghdad, take up residence there and with all that love in his heart, lead those people to HIS promised land!  Why hasn’t the “thinker” thought of that?

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By blues, January 3, 2007 at 10:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I would be so honored to walk with you, TAO Walker.

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By Jeanne, January 3, 2007 at 9:36 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was nothing more than a lynching. It wasn’t justice served. It was a lynch mob taking over the civility that barely existed.

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By PAUL CHRISTIE, January 3, 2007 at 6:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

IT SEEMS TO ME, MR SCHEER, THAT THE MONSTER OF OUR OWN CREATION IS GEORGE BUSH. SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD NOTHING ON GEORGE BUSH WHEN IT CAME TO LYING AND DEVIOUS CONDUCT.
 
I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT WERE GEORGE BUSH OPERATING IN A POLITICAL SYSTEM LIKE IRAQ HE WOULD HAVE ACTED EXACTLY AS MR. HUSSEIN.
AS IT IS MR. BUSH, WHOM I CONSIDER AN OUT AND OUT WAR CRIMINAL, HAS PUSHED THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM HAS EVER ALLOWED.
 
COVERTLY, THIS PRESIDENT HAS ENGAGED IN NUMEROUS CRIMINAL ACTS. THE MOST OBVIOUS OVERT ACTION IS THE IRAQ WAR WHICH HAS LED TO THE DEATHS OF 3000 AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND HALF A MILLION(?) IRAQIS.
 
TRULY, GEORGE BUSH DESERVES THE SAME FATE AS THE DESPOT HUSSEIN. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM IS THAT MR. HUSSEIN DIED LIKE A MAN; I BELIEVE MR. BUSH WOULD GO DOWN SNIVELING, AND ON HIS KNEES…

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By chronicler, January 3, 2007 at 6:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Only George Bush could find a way to make Saddam Hussein a sympathetic and dignified figure…

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By A Khokar, January 3, 2007 at 6:47 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Justice demands;
In Iraq; if Saddam is punished to death for killing of some 148 Iraqis in 1982 in a small town of Dujail.

Who all will be hanged for?

American killed 3000+
American wounded and impaired over 15000
Iraqi killed 6,50,000+
Number Iraqi wounded and maimed are countless.
Iraqi fled for safety to other countries—- over one million
Destruction to infrastructure and properties….No limit
US invaded a sovereign country on (proven) false pretext.

Where as Almighty God teaches its believers;

“Whosoever killed a (defenceless) person-it shall be as if he killed all the mankind; and who so ever saved a life, it shall be as he had saved the life of whole the mankind”

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By TheLastPsychiatrist, January 3, 2007 at 6:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Whether it was wrong or right is less relevant than what will happen now, and why what will happen will happen.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/12/this_is_not_a_narcissistic_inj.html

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By Pablo Corazon, January 3, 2007 at 5:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I go back with you a long time Robert Sheer. You’re my hero. I read your “Primer on Vietnam” book back in Berkeley in those exciting and wonderful “Love ‘67 Hippie Heaven” days, and as usual, you’re right on the mark and I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing from the “Ramparts” (Magazine) days to these incredible times right now.

My remark is simple. Today’s “Bush Spin Cycle” is that they “Would have done it differently”. That’s obviously a lie because Bush & Co “did it” and no one else is to blame. Pushing blame anywhere else is absurd. Bush did it and that’s exactly the way they “wanted it done”. The whole world see’s and know’s this truth.

Maliki is/was nothing but the surrogate executioner for Bush & Co and Maliki’s day’s are obviously numbered too. I doubt Maliki will be permitted to see another Full Moon now that he’s bothched up this lynching for Bush & Co so badly. Just in the last few hours news reports are now coming out with new “Spin” about how Maliki want’s out and no longer wants to be the “Pimped and Punked-Out Puppet Prime Minister Executioner for Bush & Co. (I move that Full Moon prediction back 14 days to only a fortnight for Maliki. Like Saddam, Maliki knows too much.)

Funny how all this Cosmically Karmic Soap Opera is turning out: Both Muqtada al-Sadr and Bush have daddy problems with Saddam. Saddam killed Muqtada al-Sadr’s father and (supposedly) attempted to kill Bush’s daddy ~

“Little boy(s) lost take themselves so seriously” and everything that goes around comes around ~ Like the Chinese waiting for the next Emperor: “NEXT ! ;”

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By irma, January 3, 2007 at 5:40 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Bush and friends need not to be impeached
but tried in a legal international tribunal for their crimes against humanity , nationally and internationally.
for their very illegal ways of operating
should they loose their heads like Saddam ??
certainly Guantanamo is a major proof
like it is the fact that Saddam was a terrorist"Made in America” , like is enemy Osama Bin Laden.
with much support of State dept. and CIA, at their convenience
Remember Noriega??

so, where is their morals and ethics and legal support to do such atrocities…” in the name of halping democracy..
perhaps is time more people open their eyes and minds to certain truths..

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By kooshy afshar, January 3, 2007 at 5:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Mr. Scheer with all due respect title of your article should have been “another Monster of Our Creations”. Since the 1849 we have created a countless number of this tyrants just to name a recent few we can call on Noriega, Ben Laden, Pinochet everybody in world has got a few them from the good guys US. This is now kind of our national pride and food for our 24/7 news entertainment channels. Correctly the majority of world thinks Americans silence is the seal of approval.

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By John Lowell, January 3, 2007 at 5:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Robert,

While you are not the first to express the sentiments you have here regarding this shameful event, you are, nevertheless, the first to pull together all of the disparate threads bearing upon it. As assuredly as this tin-horn Hitler look-alike in the White House brought us to a new low having done ziltch to put an end to the destruction of Lebanon last Summer by Israeli warplanes, he brings us lower still with this farce. You capture my feelings on this matter almost perfectly. What possible claim can the United States still have to the good opinion of decent men and women.

John Lowell

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By swede, January 3, 2007 at 4:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Every comment so far has been in the affirmative for u Mr. Scheer, and after reading it in the SF Chronicele this morning, I read it again here on your website. I just wish these comments could be picked up on the mass idiot media at Fox or whatever people watch these days to find their news. Thank you for concice summation of what is REALLY going on inIraq and the our country.

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By Rodney Matthews, January 3, 2007 at 4:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

By allowing Saddam to be hung, George Bush has allowed Iraq to become what America use to be. Hangings were acceptable in America during the reign of the KU KLUX KLAN ! Iraq is now America’s civil war between the north and south. Unfortunatly, there is no leader like Lincoln around to unite the country. No civilized nation like the United States should have allowed a excution by hanging, but then again,we are no longer considered civilized after what Bush and company has done to us as a nation. Torture,violation of civil rights,unlawful detentions,secret prisions,unlawful ease dropping,haebeas corpus no longer applies,no right to speak with to a attorney,no right to a fair and speedy trial. George Bush has taken us back to what America use to be,and he has duplicated that policy in Iraq.

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By Quy Tran, January 3, 2007 at 4:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

No surprise at all. When a chimpanzee dominates human beings it has to use animal rules and we have to get used to its.

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By Gary Kilner, January 3, 2007 at 4:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

There has been and is far too much hesitation and ambivalence among the politicians and media on acknowledging that “Emperor” Bush is attired in his birthday suit.

This entire Iraq adventure being orchesrated by the neocons and directed by the Bush administration has unfolded as a series of war crimes and criminal blunders which demand accountability.

Bush now is saying that in answer to the Nov. 7 mandate by the public he intends to escalate the U.S. military presence in Iraq which will escalate the American casualities. The only two options left for deploying American troops are to 1) withold funding for futher military operations and 2) the immediate impeachments of both Bush and Cheney.

Bush and Cheney should be held accountable for criminal activities in a court of law soon after they are out of office.

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By Saddam Well Hung, January 3, 2007 at 3:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Scheer is someone I respect for his uncompromisingly progressive outlook.  I agree with him that Saddam’s hanging was barbarous, especially when viewed with the audio.  The chaotic shouting and taunting, while foreign to our more genteel culture, however, is simply reflective of the culture in which the hanging occurred.
Saddam’s crimes were indefensible, and his guilt was all but certain, whether by kangaroo court or the courts in The Hague (where it should really have happened).  Unfortunately, as a sop to the Shiites, Bush turned Saddam over to the new “sovereign” government and let them have their way with him.  The problem is, it was an empty gesture that will gain the US no favor with the Iraqi government, soon to become an Islamist theocracy in the model of their Shiite neighbor Iran.  The Kurds will once again be victimized and marginalized, with no real hope of autonomy save what they do in rebellion of the central government (unity, indeed).
The Sunnis will become a permanent minority and wage insurgent rebellion, turning one of the world’s leading oil exporters into another Afghanistan, ruled by warlords with little fiefdoms.  Terrorism will gain a foothold there as sure as there are Arabs who hate America and the West.  Israel will be alone save for the minimal help it will get from the US, as we spend our resources in ill-advised ways we haven’t even begun to contemplate.
The problem with Scheer’s piece, however, is that it proposes no ideas for solution.  It implies that our only option is an immediate withdrawal.  It’s just not that simple.  While very few people want a protracted US presence in Iraq, I believe even fewer want the political fallout that could occur if we pull out while under fire.  It would be an Islamist/terrorist PR bonanza that will create recruitment opportunities for generations.  “The weak Americans can’t stop us, and if we keep going we can drive the Jews into the sea and spread the true Islam all over the world.  If we keep going we can overtake the House of Saud and bring the Western infidels to their knees, begging for oil.  Their only option at that point would be nuclear weapons dropped on us, destroying their own access to oil for generations.  Come join the jihad today!  Jihad is the only way for a true Muslim.”

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By dick smith, January 3, 2007 at 2:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I agree, but we are a minority. Most folks think? it was great, especially here in Texas.

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By Sal B, January 3, 2007 at 2:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

With Saddam dead, there’s one less witness against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. in a war-crimes trial.

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By Tim, January 3, 2007 at 2:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

What more can we expect from a sadistic president who revels in death? He blew up frogs as a kid, executed 150 prisoners in Texas, caused the deaths of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fiddled while New Orleans flooded. Yet, I’m sure he continues to sleep soundly in the firm knowledge of his own self-righteousness, and the callous disregard he has for anyone but the super-rich corporate benefactors who pull his strings. He’s an abomination and a disgrace, but he will never be brought to account.

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By jkoch, January 3, 2007 at 2:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The US certainly did not want or plan for Sadrists to turn Saddam’s execution into a sectarian payback.  However, the partisan chanting and lack of security control at the event certainly illustrates the total infiltration and duplicity of the Iraqi government we underwrite.  It is foolish to think that the VIPs who attended the execution, or any of their colleagues, will broker any peace between the sects or run the country in a peaceful way.

Saddam’s trial and execution would have been better received had he been charged first with crimes against fellow Sunnis.  This would have lessened the impression of sectarian payback, while at the same time eliminating Saddam to please the Shiites and Kurds

One point of order:  the US did not pre-approve the Baath coup against Abdul Karim Qassem.  This allegation is recited to discredit the US, but lacks any documentary foundation.  It is absurd to denounce the US simultaneously for a mythic power to manipulate past events, on the one hand, as well as its utter inabily to control current events, on the other.

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By Paul Moen, January 3, 2007 at 2:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

On Nov 28, you said “6 years of Bush Mid East policy has had the presumably unintended consequence of elevating radical Islamists to positions of power throughout the Middle East.”  You hint at something that has been bothering me, that is, that maybe Bush and company intended this outcome.  What could be their end game?  World war?

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By malcomB-LarryX, January 3, 2007 at 1:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Saddam must have had a lot of snitching to do..he had to be knocked off.  Wonder who is scared.  We will nerver know.  Was the speed of his execution due to the numbers of deaths he provided?

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By Shaman Omaha, January 3, 2007 at 1:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Here is some additional “information” from OCOA on the execution.

White House Issues Denial of Bush Involvement

The White House responded promptly to anonymous reports that President Bush taunted Saddam Hussein before pesonally pushing a button in D.C. that sprung the trapdoor in Baghdad. Tony Snow, White House Press Officer, stated, “The President was sleeping soundly at the time of the dictator Saddam Hussein’s fully legal execution. There is no truth to the rumors that American and Iraqi officials who met the day before the execution discussed an electronic hook-up that might allow the President to personally execute the dicatator. Furthermore, the video circulating on MySpace purporting to show the President cursing and gloating as he executes Hussein by remote control is an obvious, cheap PhotoShop.”

White House Denies Hussein’s Head Displayed On Pike

Minutes after denying an anonymous story that President Bush personally executed Saddam Hussein via remote control, the White House has called the press corps back to the briefing room with an urgent new denial. Tony Snow was visibly irritated as he forcefully denied that the executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s severed head had been placed on a pikepole and displayed on the ramparts surrounding the Green Zone.

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By John C, January 3, 2007 at 1:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Saddam Hussein was a brutal man, and fully deserved the death he received. On the other hand, his crimes do not come close to the crimes of George Bush and his retenue of criminals - fully supported by the vast majority of the people of America.

America needs to take a hard look in the mirror if it is to avoid the slide into criminal fascism, experienced by the people of Germany, Japan, and Italy in 1945.

And George Bush and his cabal of criminals would be wise to recall the fate of the leaders of Germany, Japan, and Italy, when they became the losers in the war.

And Americans would be wise to recall the misery suffered by the people of those countries in the aftermath of military defeat and occupation.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, America is not invincible.

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By shiloh lillith, January 3, 2007 at 12:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

This is the unvarnished truth in the proverbial nutshell. If only you were not preaching to the choir.

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By M VanHull, January 3, 2007 at 12:30 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Dear Mr. Scheer,
You have expressed my thoughts exactly-and added points I needed to be reminded.  I’m so embarrassed by my government’s aggressive and callous foreign policies and fear we may never gain back the respect so carefully sought by our diplomats and politicians for generations.
I really think Americans have had it too easy while our youth is sent to battle.  I’ve never been able to call this a “war” since it’s a case of military vs civilians. Still I cringe at the loss of life.  How can our so-called “born again” Pres. be pro-life and also pro-capital punishment?  Imperialism unchecked!
Thank you for validating my gut reactions.  The media and the general public often seems asleep.
Respectfully,
Margaret VanHull

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By John Earl, January 3, 2007 at 12:20 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Saddam eerily demonstrated a kind of dignity in the face of the school boy taunts directed at him.

His sins are legend. But he indeed was a greatly a creation of US meddling in the region.

Craig Unger in his book House of Bush, House of Saud asserts that the US encouraged Saddam to continue in his war against Iran so that the Iranians would find it necessary to cooperate in the illegal Contra arms sales.

The web of connection between Saddam and the US is far more vast than that footnote of history. What secrets could have been gleaned had Saddam been further tried? It seems fitting that Donald Rumsfeld name somehow could have been added to the docket.

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By Liza Elliott, January 3, 2007 at 12:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Thank you, Mr. Scheer, for saying this. One very basic and very troubling underlying question to be asked is why the U.S. was involved in this trial and execution at all.

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By Stuart W. Greenstone, January 3, 2007 at 11:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

It’s too late to complain about the barbaric scene at Saddam’s hanging. It should demonstrate once again that we suffer fools that steer the present course of our destiny. How do you stop a runaway train? How do we change our course when so many of our leaders seem to live in a teflon cocoon? Why do responsible people wait until the horse escapes before locking the barn door? We really don’t need a crystal ball to see into the immediate future! All we have to do is look at the immediate past. Haven’t we learned anything?! Politics is out - common sense and truthfulness is in. Let us begin down a new road before it’s too late. Please.

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By Will Stambaugh, January 3, 2007 at 11:06 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Right on!  This whole Iraqi experience has been a fiasco from the get go.  When will it be time to impeach our incompetent “leader”?

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By Deb Tankersley, January 3, 2007 at 10:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Bob - you are absolutely correct. The handling, “trial,” and nauseating hanging of Saddam has been something I have hardly been able to tolerate. Your article reflects my exact feelings on this horrible mess. I have listened to you on my way to work as a weekend nurse in downtown Indianapolis for 6 years now, and your intelligence, wit, and spot-on accounting of the truth is much appreciated. Thank you Bob.

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By Jonathan, January 3, 2007 at 10:15 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

a rush to protect the USA from possibly embarrassing evidence in the next trial of who supplied the Gas and who let Saddam use it

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By Kellina, January 3, 2007 at 9:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Good job, Robert.

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By Bob Geistrick, January 3, 2007 at 9:50 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

100% correct.

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By James Earle, January 3, 2007 at 9:31 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

After reading Mr Scheer’s article “A Monster of Our Creation”, I am even more angry and at the same time mesmorized by the way Mr Scheer so eloquently explained his and so many more Americans take on what transpired in Iraq this weekend.  Once again this Administration has set us back as far as our image and reputation is concerned. Our DNA is all over this farce and charade. First and foremost, the man should not have been tried as he was especially while this country was not even able to governed itself and protect itself from within. Saddam should have been held in a neutral location and once Iraq had demonstrated it was a legitimate entity without appearing to be what it is (a chaotic country supported by the USA) should Saddam had been handed over to face justice for all the abuse, torture, and killing that had been handed out during his rule. Looking back, (I hate to admit to this) but I do believe it would have been better for everyone involved, if instead of the USA taking custody of Saddam like it did, the Iraqis should have taken him and Iraqi justice and revenge could have been handled the way this part of the world is accustomed to (like dragging his body down the streets of Baghdad and hanging his body from some rafter for the people of Iraq to view and maybe personal gratification for all Iraqis would have been garnered) I do believe if events like this had transpired then maybe all the negative vibes and press we have received would not have been generated. At least no USA DNA would have been on his demise, except for his capture which would have been understandable since we had invaded the country.  But what really is ironic with all this is the fact that when Saddam was captured in his rat hole there was jubilation from this white house and the president even went on TV to express his cow-boyish delight and surprisingly his execution has not shown this same delight and cockiness.  In fact our fearless leader kept his regular bedtime curfew (I believe 9 or 10 o’clock). Something else I found troubling is, as an American, I believe it was really distasteful for the some cable news networks to show the citizens of Dearborn, MI jumping up and down with joy over this evil man’s execution. At first I thought the clip was from the streets of Baghdad. We in America do not have parades and pep rallies when death and executions are meted out. Maybe someone from the State Dept should school the American-Iraqi citizenry of Dearborn that behavior like this is really tacky! I seem to remember when the immigration rallies held around the country this summer were occurring; Foxnews and other conservative organizations had a field day over the demonstrators, whether they were legal or illegal, expressing this kind of bravado and glee and to have the nerve to display their nation flag. I am pretty sure I saw the flag of Iraq. I would really like to ask some of these good people of Dearborn since this evil man have been executed, would they feel safe to return home now!!!!!

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By PARAMASVARAN Kandiah, January 3, 2007 at 8:27 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The assasinated hanging of Saddam and the continued exhibiting of his hanging over most of the TV screenings have left children in a state of stupor and morbid fear.

When I go to bed it is the hanging head of Saddam that comes in front of me. What about the SUNNIS then. Will they forget. 

Men of ordinary reason find it hard to understand that the decendants of the Pilgrim Fathers whio were followed by the scums and dregs of humanity could have produced prgenies who would stoop to such low morals just to exhibit their arogance to all other Nations in the world ( helped by Britain and Australia of course - called by some as the lap dogs of the US) to invade a country based on blatant lies just out of greed for the oil and in the self same process to keep the Middle East a boiling cauldron for years to come.

Now the citizens of the US tread in fear; live in fear and perhaps even make love in fear. They are despised in other countries when they turn up as tourists and swagger around in ther in their bulky and ugly build and it would be well worth for all to remember that the Native Indians of the US long ago warned us that - “The white man and the White Father speak with forked tongues.”

Hopefully the current puupets of the US in IRAQ would take note of what could be their fate for continuing to be the puppets that they are.

It would also serve the interests best of all the other leaders in the Middle east and other Nations to ee, learn and know of the ‘perils’ of dealing with the US in any form whatsoever.

The murder of over 450,000 Irqis and the displacement of over 4,000,000 Iraqis by the US will return in the form of a karmic effect on the perpetrating country.

Saddam must now be laughing from behind the grave and watching the comical antics of a supposedly great nation with much glee.
The “deafening” silence from the US; Britain and Australia after the assasination of Saddam is truly a reflection of their guilt.

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By Bill, January 3, 2007 at 7:48 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Three years ago I asked my friend: “Why?”

My friend said: “Oil”.

“Can’t be,” I said. ” The total revenues are 80 billion a year. Why would you spend that much on a war?”

Now I know.

Why?


Israel.

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By rabblerowzer, January 3, 2007 at 7:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The older you get and the more you learn the truth about human nature past and present, the harder it is to fight disillusionment.

I hate being disillusioned, but I hate being lied to more. Denial is the refuge of the weak.

Liars are predators and parasites who prey on our weaknesses fiendishly. The power of evil is an illusion that exists only as long as we allow it. Fighting evil impulses in ourselves and others is the meaning of life.

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By Jackie T. Gabel, January 3, 2007 at 7:10 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

You’ve got it exactly right, Robert. Now, let’s take this a little further. Why all the detentions and torture? Why the unauthorized wiretapping? Why all the gag orders? Why all the secret intelligence and counter intelligence hijinks?

National security is the excuse, but more simply, there’s so much illegality in everything to do with the War Of Terror, The War of Civilizations and the cultivation of Islamofascism, almost anything done in the open risks exposing illegal operations, past, present and future. It’s gotten so convoluted they have to hide everything. They can’t send wiretap requests to the FISA court because a judge there might see something get scooped up in a data sweep that he shouldn’t ought to. They can’t give detainees open trials because they might say something they hadn’t ought to. They’ve got serious 911 witnesses gagged from the FBI to the NYFD to the FAA. It’s been 5 years and they’re still gagged!

And this, Robert, is exactly why the 911 issue is so important. It’s the lynchpin that can collapse their house of cards, and nothing else seems to touch them. The 911 Truth movement is criticized for not moving on. Hell, it’s the regime that’s not giving it up, that hammers 911 almost daily. It’s Bush’s excuse for every unconstitutional thing he does. So, of course 911 Truth will explode into a constitutional crisis of unprecedented proportion, but it is now the only shock therapy powerful enough to possibly end this nightmare. If the spell is not broken soon, there may be nothing left to save.

Support 911Truth - End War Of Terror

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By Tony Wicher, January 3, 2007 at 6:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The way I saw the execution was that Moqtada Sadr, whose father really was killed by Saddam, has become the new Saddam. The king is dead, long live the king. It’s time to go home.

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By TAO Walker, January 3, 2007 at 4:43 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Right you are, Robert.  You might have pointed out as well that Saddam alive was an even greater threat to certain vested interests than Saddam “martyred,” or any amount of murderous Sunni v. Shiite violence that might be even remotely traceable to his hasty hanging. 

The same obscene rush to get rid of the evidence also followed the events of 9/11 and Oklahoma City, to mention just two of many such atrocities…..and for exactly the same reasons.  It could and would have pointed unerringly to the real monsters skulking behind-the-scenes. 

It may be these shadowy manipulators think people are now so thoroughly cowed there’s no need any longer to be particularly careful not to show their bloody hand.  It may be, as Chris Hedges opines elsewhere on the site today, that our long-time tormentors expect us to simply disintegrate in the face of their more-and-more blatant ruthlessness and oppression.  And maybe the most thoroughly “civilized” (“domesticated” is more like it) among us are that terrified….will fall apart that way.

Us surviving primitive savages are not so easily frightened or fooled, however.  From here on The Rez it looks like those “powers and agencies” so obviously hell-bent on the degradation and destruction of every living thing here are themselves just about AT THE END OF THEIR ROPE.

HokaHey!

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