Saddam is No Saint & Was No Saint! - Retort to Sheri Laizer article

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

The introduction of your narrative: “The Truth About The Saddam Hussein Affair ” [-] “The Western media invariably prefaces references to Saddam Hussein with the sobriquets ‘dictator’ or ‘tyrant ‘. His achievements are rarely admitted. Similarly, Western publications including books select dark unsmiling photographs to further emphasize their view. Today in Iraq, to speak well of Saddam Hussein is akin to a crime and can result in serious harm. Even circulating his image has become taboo”…

There is an expression that says “two mistakes doesn’t make one right”! Alas, your recent narrative article accolades Saddam’s accomplishment during his reign of power: it’s regrettable at best and reprehensible at worst. However, my argument on this subject matter must and should not be construed in defense of any politician(s) or political party(s) of wrongdoing in service – Iraq today. Generally, this type of publishing narrative in defense of a tyrant (in this case, Saddam in Iraq) would come from a writer of a political party or an authoritarian regime, who is in the same political system or is a beneficiary of.

To write the whole scope of truth about the brutality or the cruelty of Saddam Hussein and his abettors during his over 34-year reign of terror, is beyond the scope of this narrative, and Saddam and his Ba’athist rogue regime’s apparatus ran Iraq with “Iron Fist” policy, there can be no denial there was rampant torture of political prisoners in Iraq, which was reported many times by the Amnesty International Organization, on many occasions, and by others, including several well respected and credible International News Papers, reporters,…

Saddam Hussein with his troops during the first Gulf War in 1991 — Saddam Hussein and his troops after the invasion of Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991. Photo: Creative Commons/wikipedia

Saddam and his Ba’ath party clique never held a free and fair election in Iraq; If there was a free and fair election in Iraq, Saddam’s government of missadventurous policy, pros and cons would have been debated in the Iraqi Parliament, perhaps, for example, the catastrophic wars with both Iran and Kuwait could have been prevented; dictators think they are smart and strong, when an issue arises because they are unpopular, incompetence they open the door to the chaos situation and jeanie gets out of battle… (in my view this is an unbalanced article in defense of a tyrant, this is a slanted article, for example, it’s just like when sometimes the Former US ambassador in Syria, Robert S. Ford, would publish an article suggesting that the US should support the Turkish government’s policy in Syria, while it’s conspicuously obvious that the US and Turkey has diametrically a different policy agenda, in Syria, and in Middle East at large)…

Polarizations in Iraq today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism of the rulers and all of those in opposition, at any time since the inception of Iraq by the British government colonial rule in the Middle East, who imported the Hashmite Family as an absolute Monarch at the helm of a very diverse Iraqi society, particularly in between Arabs and Kurdish people. Iraqi people have been living in an ordeal status ever since, with each conflict giving birth to another! In this case, the Iraqi people got cut between Scylla for the defense and Charybdis for a social order…

It is not surprising when the vermin that takes control, you get a broken society; That’s what would be expected to happen when a leadership of a country renders no rule of law – no institutions to run the country, precisely Saddam and his Baath party sought to put in practice, in a multi ethnic society-Iraq, where bunch a Pan-Arab racist ideologists, from Sati al-Husrie, to Mohammed Talib Hilal, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Michel Aflaq had in their mind-Sets.

Sheri- A section of your narrative is critical of a book “Republic of Fear, The Inside Story of Saddam’s Iraq” [pseudonym] by Samir al-Khalil. In reality, this book is not overtly stated, but it has actually touched on some despicable grim acts against many Iraqi people that occurred under the reign of Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath Party abettors. In my view, also, there must and should be more research of books like that on revealing many more crimes against humanity in Iraq and more extensive research as to what other crimes happened to the people of Iraq, under the rule of Saddam and his Ba’ath party apparatus government .

As for those people who wishe for Saddam’s time, or envy his role, except Ba’ath members, the other people’s frustrations are understandable because those leaders who took power from Saddam, didn’t do the job that the Iraqi people expected from them, they enriched themselves and their associates, and they rendered Iraqi people with disappointments…

Let me just share a sad story, of a grim act against a gentleman whom I met back in late 1977, by the name of Jamal, Jamal was a Kurd from Kirkuk, he was imprisoned for his political concsious, handcuffed, and tortured by a ferociously trained dog, in which the dog took a bite out of his private parts and mutilated him!!!

Saddam and his Ba’ath party were extremely intolerant, no dissenting opinion was allowed.

In the early 1970’s, Ba’ath party conducted an operation in Baghdad, it was called Abu Tubar, which means literally “a man with the Axe” there were many innocent families were mysteriously murdered in Baghdad, that was initially known as “a serial killer of Baghdad’s neighborhoods”; after back and forth investigations revealed that this heinous crimes committed by “Abu Tubar” was actually and in fact set up by Saddam and his security-gangs, as an excuse to search some houses in the neighborhoods suspected of possessing illegal weapons, at the same time, they accused many families of having illegal weapons, or those who disagree with Saddam and his Ba’ath policy…

Geneva Convention- Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…”

It’s dangerous when an authoritarian regime, or a tyrant sits on a Goodpasture, economically and militarily in strong position, because they use both to extend their political life, just to name a few of them: a) Saddam was at war with Kurds, went to war with Iran, then back to the war with Kurds, then his forces invaded Kuwait, … b) Turkish president Erdogan, invading a portion of two neighboring countries, Syria and Iraq, under the cover of security threats and threatened the others, and his forces are in Libya‘s civil war, are in Somalia, are in Azerbaijan, against Armenia Nagorno Karabakh region… and is committing gross human rights violations inside Turkey, c) Russian President Vladimir Putin, he’s ambitious to reclaim the former Soviet Empire, he is at war in Ukraine, his troops are committing atrocities ignoring the rule of armed conflict in the Ukraine war, he is threatening the world with nuclear weapons…

During the cold war era in between Former Soviet Union “Warsaw Pact” and United States, “NATO alliance” the two Nordic States Sweden and Finland stayed neutral and didn’t join either one; after the Ukraine Invasion by Russia, both countries rush to join NATO seeking protection, most likely they knew of something in advance, perhaps some secret plans against their countries by Putin; Chinese President Xi Jinping, no dissent is allowed, he is bullying most Southeast Asian countries, constantly threatening and bullying Taiwan’s government… as well as unprecedented internal crackdowns on ethnic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang region, and others…

These powerful dictators and authoritarian regimes are ignoring international norms and standards, which puts the world on the edge of more political upheaval, crises on a bigger path to larger global war conflicts,…The free World must not surrender to the dictators/tyrants or authoritarian regimes. There is an expression which says, “there is no cost for freedom”!

Documented evidences that indicates Anfal operation which many perished people were not partisan people, your article discredits that and despite it being against Geneva conventions, chemical weapons were extensively used against civilians and on military positions, oppositions, many thousands of nonpartisan members of Barzani tribe’s people were killed… It looks, that the narrative by Sheri condones Saddam’s machiavellian policy acts: a) 1970’s Saddam and his regime’s forces were unable to militarily defeat the Kurdish resistance movement, under the leadership of General Mustafa Barzani, so he offered a deal to Barzani on the Autonomy accord for Kurdish rights in Iraq (even though, from the beginning of the Iraqi State, it was supposed to be a jointly ran government between Arabs and Kurds), however, about two- years later, he tried to assassinate Barzani , and four- years later, he abrogated the Autonomy Accord Agreement with Mustafa Barzani; he struck a deal with The Shah of Iran, which is infamously known as the “Algiers Agreement”, in which Saddam yielded the Iraqi estuary at the mouth of Persian Gulf to the Shah of Iran, in order to get rid of the Kurd’s resistance movement, he started the Arabization policy on Kurdish land, b) after the Shah’s demise from power, he thought Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime was military in a weak position, so to recover what he gave; on September 1980 started a war with Iran and initially, he added additional terms if the war to stop. It was also called a meat grinding war that raged on, it was a devastating war for eight -years, no one exactly knows how many people died in that war, but the rough estimate put it at about a million people from both sides of the warring factions c) In August 1990, Saddam’s forces invaded Kuwait, that was also a costly war both in human cost and materials… The list of misdeeds by Saddam’s dangerous policy during his reign of power can go on forever…

If a member of Saddam’s family or Ba’ath party members were to write an op-ed to defend Saddam and his Ba’ath party policy during their reign in Iraq; they most likely couldn’t write one any better than Ms. Sheri Laizer has, in defense of their misguided policy. Policy imposed on Iraqi people which took its toll. Rogue Ba’athist government Policy impact that laid an ordeal of psychological and trauma, which will affect the people of Iraqi society for many generations to come…

A destroyed Iraqi tank rests near a series of oil-well fires during the Desert Storm operations (Gulf War), on March 9, 1991, in northern Kuwait. Photo: AP

To sum up the content of your narrative in defense of Saddam’s reckless policy, it appears, that whatever Saddam and his Ba’athist rogue government did whether externally or internally were justifiable, such as invasion of Kuwait because they had dispute with Kuwaiti government, over oil issue or no such Kurdish genocide… “The Anfal operation in its several phases was aimed at the Kurdish armed rebel groups and not all Kurds as a people or a race. The operation predominantly targeted the Barzanis and followers of Jalal Talabani’s PUK”. There is documented evidence that in the Anfal operations, many, many people who perished or were killed, were not partisan people, who were living in their villages, and their orchards. Also, chemical weapons were extensively used during the Anfal operations, or Saddam’s forces invaded Kuwait because Kuwaiti were stealing Iraqi Oil, etc. In my view, this is an utterly reprehensible argument one can assert for a real tyrant!

The whole truth about Saddam Hussein’s regime’s crimes against humanity and abhorrent acts in Iraq is not fully revealed, yet; it will take a saint to tell the truth, but Saddam’s aberrant vision was No saint!

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.