Saddam Is Dead: Semi-sober thoughts.
The news is in. Saddam Hussein el-Tikriti is starting his journey to hell, which is a good thing. God Bless America, the Liberator of Iraq. A good 4-part obituary at The Times of London starting HERE.
That joy I feel aside and having calmed down over an hour after receiving the good news, I feel now that we have liberated the country, killed Saddam and given democracy to that land - once we give provincial control of security to the Iraqi forces, then we should declare victory, hold victory parades and draw down our forces. Translation: Iraq owes it to the 3,000+ Coalition fallen - including a family friend - to stand on its own two feet and take ownership of not just its democracy, but its security.
Below are six things we will (probably) never know from Saddam's mouth as a result of his execution - if you have any qs, please add:
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What was the extent of the Iraqi WMD program?
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What was the status of the Iraqi WMD program on 20 March 2003, when OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM began?
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Why did you invade Kuwait?
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Why did you not fully cooperate with UN inspectors?
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How did you raise your sons to be such monsters?
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Perri Nelson inquires: How much were you - Saddam - involved in Oil-for-Food?
Maybe we will recieve the answers in due time, I hope. Maybe you too in the comments will add additional questions. A sober thought that I believe is necessary, as much as I can't wait for the pics of Saddam hanging too. Again, Saddam deseres to rot in hell.
On December 30, 2006 at 12:58 am, PerriNelson wrote:
I think the Syrians may be able to answer the second question for us.
There are hundreds of thousands of documents that might answer the first one, but the New York Times got all indignant about their being posted and now the site where people were reading and translating them has been taken down.
I’d like to know who Saddam’s partners in the Oil for Food fiasco were, and how much he paid them to support him when it came time to vote at the U.N.
On December 30, 2006 at 11:51 am, SVC Alumnus wrote:
I know nothing about oil-for-food except that it appears to me that Saddam’s regime bribed UN officials or something like that.
That said, I intend to add that question promptly. SVC Alumnus
On January 1, 2007 at 8:33 am, Playin' Possum wrote:
There is no hell - or heaven… There is here.
There was no WMD program. Belief in one is a product of the abysmally poor scientific education and knowledge levels of too many Americans, coupled with the fact our "leaders" are inveterate liars. Despite the technology Dick & Don gave their buddy Saddam in the ’80’s ten years of war followed by ten years of sanctions had degraded Iraqi capacity to the point that nothing was left except documents and dreams… Those of us who were scientifically literate realized this from the beginning - this big lie was why I abandoned the Liar-in-Chief and his cabal..
Side point, and a question to add: When will Dick and Don face charges for being willing accessories to Saddam’s wars, purges, retaliations and ethnic cleansings? They, and Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush 41 - and the long-gone Shah?
And Saddam did in fact cooperate in the end. A full disclosure was made before the invasion in December 2002; "we" and our minions dismissed it. Today we see the Iraqi accounting was far more accurate than the Shrubs rabid nonsense…
Why Kuwait? To gain old-fashioned market share - enough to push prices - because of monetary disputes, because of drilling rights’ disputes, because Kuwait was never a legitimate State in the first place, being another rump creation of the dirty Brits, and because our Ambassador led him to believe he could get away with it… Bush 41, being a career CIA bastard, knew how to use dirty tricks to achieve a hidden end…
At first I suspected the Syrians might have gotten the remains of the older programs, although this would have been mostly manufacturing stuff - core pieces like specialized catalytic reactors - because most of the actual weapons would have deteriorated, being known to have been of poor quality and low purity in the first place. But events demonstrate that clearly not the case. If Syria or, say, Hezbollah, had the weapons they would have used them somewhere. And if the Baathist underground had them they would use them on the Shia…
So here’s my question: Considering Saddam was held virtually incommunicado - no unmonitored private communications allowed - by the Americans right up to his hanging, was he executed to prevent any real answers on these and many other questions involving American duplicity?
On January 10, 2007 at 7:15 pm, Red Marilyn wrote:
I would respectfully like to make three points of disagreement:Point 1: translated documents from Saddam’s various bureaus (and I don’t mean chests of drawers) posted at the Iraqi government document cache online substantiate the weapons programs of Saddam Hussein. Only a fraction of these docs have been translated to date. One recently translated document created a furor when it revealed a "how-to" for building a small radiological device, (mainly because it was among the batch made available untranslated online and provided a fairly good tutorial for anyone who could read arabic). Point 2: "…was he executed to prevent any real answers on these and many other questions involving American duplicity"? Last time I checked, Saddam Hussein had been found guilty of murder — 148 counts of murder– in the executions of men and boys from the town of Dujail, where an attempt had been made previously to assassinate him. A document from one of Saddam’s officials in Dujail explained why several of the 148 would not be available for the mass execution– they had cheated the executioner by inconsiderately dying while being tortured (during the trial supporting docs were online at the Iraqi court website).Point 3: Under current Iraqi law a death sentence in a capital case must be carried out within 30 days of the loss of an appeal. Cheers.