Saturday, December 30, 2006

Iraqi Bloggers React To Saddam's Execution


Who better to comment on the execution of Saddam Hussein than bloggers from Iraq.

"I cried for all those he tortured, those he killed"

As expected, one of the most personal and passionate reactions came from the blog of Neurotic Iraqi Wife who has been a previous subject of this blog.

NIW writes:
I hurried to my room during lunch break hoping to catch up on news. And there it was, right before me, the video footage of his hanging. I slumped on my bed, and I began to cry. Yes, I cried. A surge of emotions overwhelmed me. I cried, I cried cuz he never got to see the Iraq I envisaged in my mind, I cried. I cried for all the years he forced my family and millions of others to desert their country and live in an endless yearning, I cried. Yes I cried. I cried for all the 35 years he ruled, I cried. I cried, I cried for all those he tortured, those he killed. I cried for all the blood he shed, for all the hatred he bred. Yes I cried. I cried and cried.
She adds:
Saddam should have been interrogated infront of the whole world. Saddam should have answered the WHYs? that all the families of the martyrs wanted to ask. The WHYs that all the Iraqis wanted to know. WHY DID YOU SLAUGHTER US? WHY DID YOU HATE US? WHY DID YOU DESTROY US? WHY, WHY and WHAT FOR? Instead of the theatrical fiasco that took place which they claim was their way of justice, they should have asked him WHY?
3 more trials for Saddam

From blogger Hammorabi:
Now and after he was executed for only a drop of his crimes which is the Dijeel issue in which he killed and tortured many Iraqis from Dijeel in 1980s, after this Saddam will face three trials.

The first one which may start immediately after his death is the trial of God which will bring every deed even if it is part of an atom.....

The second trial is the Iraqi trials about the crimes of Saddam via his supporters. One of them is going on now about the Infal crimes and still some to come.

The third is the trial of the history by the coming generations and this will be hard trial and may continue for hundred of years to come.
The execution video

The blogger, Healing Iraq, includes the execution video that was shown on state-run Al-Iraqiya TV. It goes right up to, but does not include the actual hanging.

In a more journalistic approach, Healing Iraq writes:
The Shi'ite executioners and witnesses were reported to have danced around Saddam's corpse after he was hanged while chanting Shi'ite religious slogans. The same situation was reported from the Green Zone by Al-Arabiya TV reporters who said members of the current Iraqi government were also celebrating. Iraqis took to the streets in Sadr City, Najaf and Basrah. Some carried portraits of Muqtada Al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the new strongmen of Iraq.

Protests took place in Tikrit, Baiji, Fallujah, Ramadi and Garma, but so far there have been no violent reactions. Instead of visiting relatives or going out to parks, people had to stay home out of fear. According to an Iraqi law expert interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV, It is against Iraqi law to schedule an execution on an official or religious holiday, but he conceded that this was obviously a political decision.

I hope the execution of the tyrant brings relief to the families of his victims.

There are still many dark days ahead in Iraq.


Here are the links to Neurotic Iraqi Wife, Hammorabi, and Healing Iraq

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Political designs behind Saddam’s execution :

1. Saddam is clearly the scapegoat for an international war syndicate, which includes many in our current political leadership, both in front and behind the scenes. Evacuating due process, controlling evidence and terrorizing the defense team were all par for the course in Saddam’s trial. A key reason for the speedy road to execution, was to eliminate a prominent player and key witness of this international criminal war conspiracy, thereby avoid further indictment of members of our leadership, many of whom have been accessory to Saddam’s actual crimes.

2. To « bookend » media fatigue and public indifference, re : Saddam’s trial. The whole point of the « trial » was to deliver a quick public execution, and thereby feed the hunger for blood so brilliantly cultivated in Western public opinion. An execution gives sense of heightened drama, and inagurates the next round of intensified bloodshed in the region… and beyond.

3. Lastly, to make Saddam a martyr for (gasp!) sympathisers, thereby deepening chaos in the middle-east over a longer period of time. Certainly, the US-led war in Iraq can be called a success insofar as its central purpose has been to aid the spreading of chaos in the Middle-East.

Anonymous said...

The execution of Saddam was...unseemly, somehow. I feared and hated him for so many years before President Godsend declared his perverted war on Iraq--so, please, imagine my surprise when I realized I felt pity for him. He suffered the Kangaroo Kourt and rough justice doled out to American black men in the South.

He should have been tried in The Hague. And I agree with gillesroy's #1--Prez G could not allow that. After all, Poppy and Rumsfeld would end up with their own trials as collaborators...

And gillesroy's #2 sounds eerily like the reasons Gerald Ford gave to justify pardoning the felon, Richard Nixon.

Gillesroy's #3? There is so much chaos in the ME, I can't begin to know how close he is on point #3. It's hard to imagine how we could gauge an uptick in violence these days--and tag it "this is for Saddam"...

Naomi