So
me ignoramus on television said the alleged 'martyr' Saddam Hussein was sorely missed or something along those lines and I am now in dire need to vent a little, so please indulge me.
2006 bid the world adieu by delivering a final act worthy of all the drama it had provided us with throughout the year. On December 30th, former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was executed by hanging. The execution was particularly poignant due to it coinciding the first day of Eid Al Adha, Islam’s most important celebration. Almost immediately after, the Arab world hailed Saddam a martyr, an Arab hero.
The choice of Saddam Hussein’s execution to fall on the first day of Eid Al Adha was not planned for him to be revered. It was not chosen to spite the Muslim world. Saddam Hussein’s execution was a cause for celebration for the Shiite populace, and thus executing him on their most important religious festival made perfect sense to them. Calling Saddam Hussein a martyr and a hero is not a rebuke to the alleged American involvement in the proceedings but a slap in the face to each and every Iraqi who suffered, who lived in fear, who died in agony, under Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. It is an insult, an affront, to the very core of humanity.
This is not a declaration of support for the American invasion of Iraq, nor of the prolonged occupation. It is a reprimand, a cry for the awakening of the Arab world. Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian rule led to the inhuman torture and massacre of millions of innocent lives. Saddam Hussein assassinated countless mothers scrambling to protect the children in their arms. Saddam Hussein even had his daughters’ husbands slaughtered before their very eyes. Saddam Hussein mangled and ravaged a nation – a fellow Arab nation – beyond repair.
Do not revere a mass murderer merely because you disagree with the legality or circumstances surrounding his execution. Do not bestow martyrdom on a man as guilty of genocide and mass torture as Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet. Hitler is not applauded because his suicide is seen as cowardly. Do not let Saddam Hussein’s ostensibly “brave” death redeem him of his innumerable crimes against humanity. For regardless of your political beliefs, your anti-American sentiment, or your apathy, Saddam Hussein was first and foremost a cold blooded killer. Don’t take my word for it; ask the two million families still mourning their loved ones.
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6 comments:
I agree he is not a hero, but at the sametime I have my doubts at Saddam being portrayed as this baby-eating villain.
Yes, he's evil and he has persecuted many minorities, but if you look at any country's history isn't there always the same episode? Weren't Jews persecuted by Christians in medieval Europe? Weren't native Indians and blacks persecuted in the US? But do you ever see a medieval European Christian king in bed with Satan in a South Park movie? :)
I agree that Saddam killed thousands (over the X years he was president) and for that he deserves a punishment (whether it's capital punishment or not is another debate) and for sure he isn’t a hero. But, I can't help but think that ever since the fall of his regime, thousands have been lost due to sectarian violence, thousands if not millions have no jobs, no access to health care, no electricity...etc.
I guess my point is, was he a necessary evil that every country has to go thru (the 'mistake' that the country learns from?) and his ‘crimes’ are hyped out as propaganda for the war?
A necessary evil? Since when is tyranny a nation's rite of passage? By your argument, Hitler was a 'necessary evil'. The Rwandan genocide was a 'necessary evil'. Sudan and Liberia's civil wars, the Khmer Rouge, etc... are all 'necessary evils'. Next you'll be saying all countries must declare that all first borns must be slaughtered by their mothers as a rite of passage.
How can evil in any and all forms - be it murder, discrimination, starvation, torture - ever be justified?
Well that is the other extreme. I am not for tyrants, you know? :) A big premise you overlooked in my argument is that in today's Iraq more ppl are dying because of: sectarian violence/lack of medical services/failing infrastructure...etc. vs. the people who died because of Saddam previously. So, ironically Iraq was better off under Saddam's regime.
I'm a bit surprised that you reduced my argument to: tyranny is good. tyranny is justified :) I think, as any 4th grader would agree, tyranny is wrong.
My argument was: we have tyrants everywhere, why is it that Saddam became the Paris Hilton of tyrants? and in my conclusion I wondered if he was a necessary evil (since although in Utopia we shouldn’t have tyrants -as you argued-, in real life they happen all the time) and concluded that maybe his crimes were hyped out as propaganda for the war. That was my argument :)
The people were certainly not off living under a tyrant. I wasn't overlooking your point there, I was merely astounded by the fact that this was your justification. After having survived under such inhumane control for so long, what does the world expect? That all factions hold hands and dance for rain and harmony? Of course there will be blood. But to say that this temporary instability is a worse situation to be in than his regime is to equate the struggle for a free nation to eternal damnation, while Saddam was merely purgatory. I'm sure that is not your actual argument, but it is what was implied.
As for Saddam being the Paris Hilton of tyrants (nicely put!) he's the most recent one we've got, and the one who has most ired the great American media machine. Of course his crimes will be highlighted. But the fact that he has been put under the spotlight does not negate the fact that his crimes were committed and were atrocious. Others days will come. This just happened to be his.
At the end of the day, all I'm saying is that nothing justifies his actions, and so he should not be excused or praised in any way. It would be an insult to the 2 million plus he killed.
eureka, while i might agree with the whole notion of "he is not a martyr" however i must disagree with the part where u said that his execution day was picked by the shiaa so to coincide with the eid so they could celebrate and all that. i think that you as well as i know that the shiaa population have as little say now as they did in the days of saddam in the turn of events. the decision was in fact an american one, what it was supposed to symbolize or what it stood for is a different story but it was definately american.
I never said the Shiite population picked the dates themselves. It was never even portrayed in American media as that; it has always been an American decision. What I said was that the Shiite population did not take it to mean Saddam was to be martyred, nor did they take it as an insult to the Eid as other Arabs did.
I may have worded it in a confusing manner. Happens when I'm writing in anger. Clearer?
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