The Alaska 2002 trip report expresses amazement that George W. Bush, the most powerful man in the world, would want to lower himself by mentioning Saddam Hussein in his speeches. How have things changed in the 12 months since that amazement was recorded? George W. isn’t talking about Saddam anymore… he’s talking about Saddam’s sons. Is this an improvement?
Saddam was a hero to Muslims worldwide. He was a self-made man. He kept civil order in a fractious country. One might argue, as I did, that Iraq was too insignificant a country to merit the direct notice of the U.S. President but as an Arab leader Saddam was probably above average.
Uday and Qusay are now the names on President Bush’s lips. What are their achievements? They chose their father wisely. That’s pretty much it. Uday and Qusay have been built up in the Western press as being especially cruel but by modern-day Arab or WWII German standards it is unclear that they are notably vicious. And even if they were, why glorify their memory with all of this personal attention from the leader of the U.S., the representative of the American people?
Can we not find larger concerns?
If Iraq is a step in trying to rehabilitate the Arab world into productivity and freedom and away from radical Islamism funded by oil, then NO, we truly CANNOT find larger concerns. We tried doing that last decade, sticking our head in the sand and saying we could ignore the storm, but by 9/11/2001 the larger concerns had found us.
We can find larger concerns.
Bush dares not, because the larger concerns are what could lose him the next election.
I was actually just thinking about that time in Somalia (i believe) when some rebels or such dragged the body of a US serviceman through the streets as a prize for everyone to see… Nice to see we can stoop that low too.
Comment on a comment: Kevin demonstrates his extaordinary ignorance. The Somalis had no reason to drag the US Soliders’ dead bodies around. The US decided to exhibit pictures of the dead Hussein boys to prove to pathologically, perhaps idiotically Arabs that these two dangerous losers were now dearly-departed. So, no, we didn’t “stoop that low too.”
Comment on a Comment II :
I agree with Kevin : we can stoop that low too
OH SHIT ! ! I been OUTTED ! ! I is russ conner ! ! ! I thot I was jus OJSBUDDY ! But I guess I is OJSBUDDY AND RUSS CONNER ! .
By the by , is you ‘Bill Smith’ from Honeywell , the second most learning impaired I ever met ?
The question is , “Who is who , is exposing whose ignorance(s) ” ?
po 50142 , Mesa , AZ 85208 tel 480-380-7483
If some Somali soldiers came to a troubled US and killed hundreds of people, many of whom I knew or were in my family, I just might be a tad understanding if people were dragging a couple down the street.
The point still stands that posting these bloody, dead faces everywhere is more barbaric and warlike than one would expect.
To suggest that Saddam was a hero to Muslims worldwide is exposing your incredible ignorance of one billion of the world’s population. Muslims (because they are humans too, remember) want peace, freedom, life and all the things that higher beings – like Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists and most of the other Eastern traditions – want. Saddam was hated like all the other screwed up dictators that America decided to prop-up in various parts of the world. The only praise that Saddam ever got was for his irreverent attitude towards the America. Suppose if all your brutal dictators are being supported by America, then one decides to break rank. That’s a sigh of relief for Muslims. It’s something new for the eyes, anyway.
“Saddam was hated like all the other screwed up dictators that America decided to prop-up in various parts of the world”.
Except that, contrary to popular myth, Saddam was never supported by the U.S. During the Cold War Saddam was a client of the USSR; his arsenal was composed of soviet and french equipment. Certainly the U.S. didn’t make any moves back then to get him out of power, but if you call that “support”, then by that token the U.S. supported Brezhnev and Andropov too, since it didn’t start a nuclear war to take them out either…
Saying that Saddam was supported by the U.S. is another example of the incredibly ignorant and manipulative “blame everything on the americans” syndrome that we’re seeing in the last few years, with even orwellian history-rewriting undertones in this case. Do people really have such short memories?
“Saddam was never supported by the U.S.”
Sorry, maybe I should be more specific. Despite Saddam being an evil bastard who was hated by most of those under his control, the U.S. (along with Britain, Russia etc. all The Righteous Ones) decided to help arm him which weapons (because “guns don’t kill people. People kill…”). They also sold him chemical weapons, while providing battle plans when he was fighting Iran, so he could use gas on a bunch of Kurds and Iranians. Well it wasn’t too bad. Saddam is okay compared to them, bloody fundamentalist sand-niggers. Do you, with your long-term memory, remember “Iraqgate”? Saddam wouldn’t be a tyrant to the degree his is without the U.S. So I want to say, personally, thanks for that.
As for blaming everything on the Americans, I’m sorry but your government has an abysmal foreign policy. That’s just a fact. If you bothered taking your head out of your Montana cabin-dwelling ass, you’d see that.
“Do you, with your long-term memory, remember “Iraqgate”?”
Oh, sorry. I had the impression that the Oliver North scandal in the 80s was called “IraNgate” and was related the american support to IRAN, but now I see that I was wrong. It was Iraqgate, it has always been Iraqgate, and we have always been at war with Eurasia.
Thanks for providing a textbook example of what I was talking about. It’s interesting, BTW, that you assume that I’m american.
If I was talking about Irangate and Oliver North, I would have said Irangate. But I was talking about what some people call “Iraqgate”. Please read http://www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html. You’ll see that plenty of big honchos were selling weapons to Iraq too. We had a massive enquiry here in Britain, led by Lord Scott, because the Foreign Office etc. were all involved in the same thing. However, Parliament shut the enquiry down.
As for you being American, in general, the only people who have no clue about what the U.S. is doing abroad tends to be Americans themselves. Sorry if I offended you.
Let’s take a contemporary example, that’s a bit relevant. Pre-Afghanistan, General Musharaf is an evil military dictator, who had taken power in a country by mounting a coup against a democratically elected leader. Sanctions were imposed (rightly IMO). And the Pakistanis could have got him out, in their own time. Resentment was growing. However, now that he is useful to the Americans, he’s a nice boy now, and is welcome to the White House anytime (and everything that follows from that). Repeat this scenario in several other countries.
I’d like to add – before I disappear only to crop up on the FBI’s most wanted list – that in my experience, having travelled for a good amount of time across the U.S., Americans are as nice a bunch of people you’re ever likely to meet. Good characters, optimistic, generous, caring. Very unlike the Europeans (I’m European). But U.S. government policy is what drives some people to hatred of “America”.
“why glorify their memory with all of this personal attention from the leader of the U.S., the representative of the American people?”
Should there be a blare of trumpets after that question? I can almost hear them resound, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! THE EMPIRE!
“Can we not find larger concerns?”
We could attack France next. The people have already been primed for that one. Cheese loving weasels, I believe the French were called. One thing about W, he likes to see heads roll. That could keep him occupied for a while.
Philip: Are you trying out for that AM radio talk show now?
The CIA helped Saddam take power:
http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2003/3/17/191524
First of all, my dear would-be terrorist, you didn’t need to clarify that you were european; your hyperbolic and self-righteous tone when talking about the U.S. already showed it.
I went to the link that you tossed, and what calls my attention is that it (as well as your post) lumped together the many countries that sold weapons to Irak (U.S., Britan, the USSR, France) together… and then procedded to blame the U.S. and *only* the U.S. for keeping Hussein in power. May I remember that, back then, the USSR was an, erm, separate entity from the USA and that, therefore, its decision to supply Saddam with weapons cannot be blamed on Washington? Go to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ground-equipment.htm and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-force-equipment.htm, count hoy many soviet and french models appear there, and then how many americans.
Mind you, I’m not denying that the U.S. sold Irak weapons for a certain time, but considering that the USSR supplied them with practically their entire air force, I find it funny that you people claim now that the U.S. (and only the U.S.) is singlehandedly responsable of Hussein’s stay in power. If you had talked about Marcos or Noriega as U.S. sponsored dictators, I wouldn’t have said a word, but saying that Saddam was a U.S. Cold War client is provably false.
As for the rest of the claims in that article… well, yes. Foreign policy is dirty. Realpolitik is dirty. The U.S. played together two regimes that it didn’t like (Iran and Irak) in the hope that they killed each other for as long as possible, a callous and inmoral action by any means. And France, fearful of the american influence in Africa, armed the francophone hutus in Rwanda, who then procedded to slaughter one million english-speaking tutsis (http://www.freeafrica.org/commentaries5.html). Where is your righteous indignation for the behaviour of your fellow european country? Oh, I guess killing one million africans is a small price to pay to stop yankee influence in Africa…
And BTW, it might surprise you to know that I am european too. However, unlike many europeans, I don’t feel the need to trash everything american just to feel superior and good with myself. Certainly not after the stellar role of the EU in (not) stopping the Yugoslavia genocide in the early 90s (remember who stopped the siege of Sarajevo?)
There SHOULD be a distinction between bad US foreign policy and country X bad foreign policy. The US is a democracy. I vote. In theory at least, this means that I am somewhat responsible for the actions of our elected leaders. When the leaders *I* elect go out and start doing really shady things, I feel this reflects poorly upon me as a citizen who, by voting a leader into office, would seem to condone this type of activity.
It is easy to dismiss a civilian in Dictator Nation Y of guilt for his country’s actions. That civilian probably has no say in his government’s policy at all. It is not so easy to dismiss *me* of guilt.
Of course, the counterargument (which I’ll adopt) as to why I’m not personally responsible for, say, the CIA terrors in latin america? US citizens really don’t run the US government. This seems self-explanatory, but in spite of this it seems many US citizens still support the 2003 government as their representative like it was the 1776 government.
Please forgive me if I refute the argument that the killing of civilians for political gain by other nations justifies my nation doing it also.
Philip, The notion that “Saddam was a hero to Muslims worldwide” is a canard. It’s tantamount to saying that Muslims worldwide stand for torture, mass murder, rape, and brutality. Is the Muslim world fucked up, right now? Yes. Are there strong strains of anti-semitism in the Arab world? Yes. But neither Saddam nor his sons was ever regarded as Muslims. Perhaps Bin Laden, but not Saddam. Saddam is as much a creature of the West as he is of the sad state of the Arab world.
not “especially cruel but by modern-day
Are there strong strains of anti-semitism in the Arab world? Yes.
I’ve been thinking about this comment and it doesn’t rest well with me. Because they do not care for Israeli aggression in their region and are prepared to make trouble for them does not make the Arabs anti-semitic. Are we anti-Islamic because we have attacked Iraq and Afganistan? No, we are anti-terrorist.
Various folks: I do understand that Saddam Hussein has gotten a lot of bad press over the years. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that his achievements are vastly greater than those of his sons. My evidence for the statement that Saddam was a hero to millions of Muslims in many countries around the world? The mass street demonstrations in his support and the fact that people continue to be willing to give their lives for Saddam.
Saddam may not have been a great enough man to be noticeable by the President of the United States. But I think that historians will eventually conclude that he was the greatest Iraqi of the 20th Century.
Uday and Qusay are now the names on President Bush’s lips.