*See also, "Which one is worse for Iraq?
A comparison of G.W. Bush & Saddam Hussein"
*Our Iraq page
On December 30, 2006 U.$. lackey forces in Iraq hanged president Saddam Hussein, now a martyr for Third World independence. He followed his two sons Uday and Qusay and grandson Mustapha to the grave in the fight for Iraqi independence.(1) Saddam Hussein killed thousands of communist-minded Iraqis to start his career with U.$. help, but he proved willing to put his own life on the line for his political approach, an important characteristic of an oppressed nation political leader at this time. Saddam Hussein could have followed the path of say an Imelda Marcos by fleeing to Hawaii or the like long ago, but he stayed put and fought for Iraq.
The formal charge against Saddam Hussein was responsibility for murder of 148 people. The media focussed on a different part of the trial and the plight of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein. Since Tony Blair had said Saddam Hussein was responsible for 400,000 deaths in 24 years of rule,(2) we gather the imperialists could not put Saddam Hussein on trial for the other 399,000+ deaths, because the evidence for U.$. and British complicity would have come out at trial. Most crucial to the death toll was the U.$. arming of Iraq to fight Iran.
The U.$. media discussion of the hanging of Saddam Hussein and his associates went on for weeks in a pointless direction. Since there was religious shouting at the hangings and since one of the hangings ended up botched physically, the media talked about that instead of whether it was just for the imperialist war criminals who put Saddam Hussein in power in the first place to hang him.
The stupid liberals on National Public Radio (NPR) said that Arab reactions to the hangings indicated the "confusion" of the Arab people, instead of the chauvinism of white liberals. According to Zogby, Egypt went from 74% negative opinion of the United $tates to 98% negative in the two years between 2002 and 2004, because of the u.$. invasion of Iraq.(3) The overall survey of Arabs showed Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden tied for fourth as the most respected world leaders.
The "middle-of-the-road" U.$. imperialists at the Brookings Institution also said that the trial of Saddam Hussein was creating anti-u.$. public opinion.(4)
In reality, Saddam Hussein found himself executed for not killing enough of his own people for his U.$. master's taste. The respected medical journal "Lancet" has estimated that 600000 Iraqis have died since the U.$. invasion of March 2003.(5) That is 1 in 40 Iraqis. That is not counting people killed by previous U.$. sanctions and air bombings.
The last estimate by Bush of those killed by the U.$. invasion was 30000.(6) Bush also claimed the Lancet paper was "pretty well discredited."
The issues involved in the numbers jousting will not find coverage in the mainstream for-profit media, because the details are too unpleasant to sell to a self-satisfied public of parasites. Nonetheless, the underlying issue is the same as in MIM's discussion of China or Ward Churchill's discussion of how the genocide of indigenous people came about.
There is always the made-for-TV, action-adventure interpretation of the death toll, in which there are bad guys, good guys and maybe sometimes some by-standers who get caught in-between in the shooting. Much of the public conditioned by cops-and-robbers television or militarist entertainment pornography only cares about the dead body with bullets found in the course of a battle.
It does not occur to the self-satisfied parasites that if one bombs a country's electricity grid and ruins the sewer system, one becomes responsible for the resulting deaths. Yet that is why those of us worried about violence are worried about the largest causes of violence, not just what G.I. Joe inflicts on Ivan. The experts on the largest causes of death are no longer found in politics or the media. They are found in public health institutes, sociology departments and government census bureaus.
Oddly enough, some Amerikkkans opposing "cut and run" from Iraq are vaguely aware of the mess the United $tates created and believe they should try to stay and clean it up. Yet, the House of Representatives just voted 246 to 182 to oppose President Bush on Iraq,(7) largely with the reasoning that the united $tates cannot accomplish its further goals. MIM would point out that in general, U.$. lackey regimes are no good for their countries. The U.$. imperialists are responsible for over 1 million deaths in Iraq since 1990. The sooner the Third World people unite to oust the imperialists, the sooner Iraq will recover. Along these lines, we can take heart that in the past four weeks, Iraqis shot down seven U.$. helicopters.(8) This may speed up the thinking process of the oppressors.
Notes:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
2. http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s1010066.htm
3. Poll Shows Growing Arab Rancor at U.S.
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A26, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7080-2004Jul22.html
4. http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/telhami/20060511.htm ;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/world/middleeast/06arabs.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=18336ab31ea41e8c&ex=1325739600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss ;
5. From Times Online
October 11, 2006
War and turmoil has cost 600,000 Iraqi lives, study finds
By Sam Knight, and James Hider in Baghdad
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article668362.ece
6. "'Huge rise' in Iraqi death tolls," http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6040054.stm
7. http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBDZ8CL9YE.html
8. http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20070216.aspx