Saddam has been caught! Saddam Hussein was captured on Saturday night (13/12/'03) while sleeping at a house in his hometown of Tikrit.
But what does this mean? Will it change the situation in Iraq? It surely helps Bush to improve his image in his home country (and probably in most parts of the world). But what difference does it make to those insurgents and resistance fighters within Iraq willing to blow themself up to make their point and pressure the coalition forces to move out of Iraq? Will there be less attacks as a result?
How do you think he should be treated now?
All interesting questions, but I would like to hear what others have to say before giving you my 2 cents worth.
Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld,
then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.
No doubt that Saddam was a brutal leader, but in my opinion nobody really cares (at least no politicians) if countries are being ruled by ruthless dictators or peaceloving angels. All that counts is that the majority of countries in this world does what the superpower(s) tell(s) them to do and give in to it/them.
Anyway, I would like to attach this really interesting article by Michael Moore. Everybody should read this and then ask him-/herself again "Why is/was the U$ of A (with some bribed coalition partners) so keen to get rid of the Ba'athist government and take over control of Iraq? - Human lives?! - Yeah right!"
I don't agree with everything M. Moore says, but in this article he hit the nail right on the head!
What say you?
~peace~
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We Finally Got Our Frankenstein... and He Was In a Spider Hole!
-- by Michael Moore
Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.
But then he screwed up. He invaded the dictatorship of
But it wasn't always that way. Saddam was our good friend and ally. We supported his regime. It wasn’t the first time we had helped a murderer. We liked playing Dr. Frankenstein. We created a lot of monsters -- the Shah of Iran, Somoza of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile -- and then we expressed ignorance or shock when they ran amok and massacred people. We liked Saddam because he was willing to fight the Ayatollah. So we made sure that he got billions of dollars to purchase weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. That's right, he had them. We should know -- we gave them to him!
We allowed and encouraged American corporations to do business with Saddam in the 1980s. That's how he got chemical and biological agents so he could use them in chemical and biological weapons. Here's the list of some of the stuff we sent him (according to a 1994 U.S. Senate report):
* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.
* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.
* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.
And here are some of the American corporations who helped to prop Saddam up by doing business with him: AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM (for a full list of companies and descriptions of how they helped Saddam, go here [a very interesting list indeed, take a look, it incl. companies like Carl Schenck AG, SIEMENS and MEMPHIS Int'l Inc.]).
We were so cozy with dear old Saddam that we decided to feed him satellite images so he could locate where the Iranian troops were. We pretty much knew how he would use the information, and sure enough, as soon as we sent him the spy photos, he gassed those troops. And we kept quiet. Because he was our friend, and the Iranians were the "enemy." A year after he first gassed the Iranians, we reestablished full diplomatic relations with him!
Later he gassed his own people, the Kurds. You would think that would force us to disassociate ourselves from him. Congress tried to impose economic sanctions on Saddam, but the Reagan White House quickly rejected that idea -- they wouldn’t let anything derail their good buddy Saddam. We had a virtual love fest with this Frankenstein whom we (in part) created.
And, just like the mythical Frankenstein, Saddam eventually spun out of control. He would no longer do what he was told by his master. Saddam had to be caught. And now that he has been brought back from the wilderness, perhaps he will have something to say about his creators. Maybe we can learn something... interesting. Maybe Don Rumsfeld could smile and shake Saddam's hand again. Just like he did when he went to see him in 1983 (see the photo here).
Maybe we never would have been in the situation we're in if Rumsfeld, Bush, Sr., and company hadn't been so excited back in the 80s about their friendly monster in the desert.
Meanwhile, anybody know where the guy is who killed 3,000 people on 9/11? Our other Frankenstein?? Maybe he's in a mouse hole.
So many of our little monsters, so little time before the next election.
Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.
Only our desire to play Dr. Frankenstein dooms us all.
Yours,
Michael Moore
For a look back to the better times of U.$. relationship with Saddam Hussein, see the following:
Patrick E. Tyler, "Officers say
"U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their possible impact on health consequences of the Gulf War," 1994 Report by the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affiars.
William Blum's cover story in the April 1998 issue of The Progressive, "Anthrax for Export.”
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"Iraqgate:
