November 12, 2006
by Steve Osborn
The excitement is high in Baghdad and Washington D.C., for Saddam has been condemned to death! He is to hang for the killing of one hundred forty-eight Shiite Muslims following an assassination attempt, many years ago. Doubtless, Saddam is guilty of even more crimes. He is said to have used torture in Abu Ghraib prison! He is said to have killed many who opposed him during his reign, ruthlessly using his military to suppress insurgency! He fired, and upon occasion executed, people in his government who disagreed with him! Over his term of office, several thousand are said to have perished. Now it is time for him to die to atone for his excesses.
I remember the footage sent out by reporters flocking to Iraq on the eve of war. They roamed the streets of Baghdad filming the people driving by in their cars, going to market and buying produce, sitting in sidewalk coffee shops, chatting and reading their papers. They filmed the beautiful parks and the broad, clean streets full of people and cars. Kids playing stick ball and other games in the streets and vacant lots, as kids do the world over. I remember seeing the city, brilliantly lit up in those last few hours before its "liberation;" a scene of beauty and calm.
People interviewed since Saddam's fall said that during Saddam's reign, you had to be careful not to offer political criticism or you might disappear, but if you kept your opinions to yourself, life was quite good, except for the shortages caused by the UN sanctions. Ah, those poor downtrodden, enslaved, people of Iraq.
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That was just over three years ago. We don't see much footage of Baghdad anymore, but what little we do see, we can marvel at. Those free and happy Iraqis, indebted to us for three years of freedom and democracy; riddled with disease, with little food, no clean water, sewage running in the streets, huddled in bombed out buildings, with perhaps an hour or so of electricity per day for the lucky ones. Hospitals and schools reduced to rubble, medical care scarce. Those trying to find food or drinkable water stand a good chance of being shot or blown up. Driving a car to a destination is like buying a lotto ticket, with about the same odds of getting back home as winning.
Iraq has turned into a killing field as bad as those in Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Much of the killing and torture is due to warring factions, but all too frequently, the triggermen are occupation forces. Iraqis must expect to have their doors kicked in, to be shot or worse if they resist and possibly disappeared if they do not.
Yes, I'm sure the Iraqis realize how much they are indebted to America and its few allies for rescuing them from relative peace in a beautiful land and liberating them to live in a reeking democratic charnel house they used to call home, with memories of the six hundred thousand relatives and friends who are truly free. Some actually in marked graves.
Yes, I'm sure there will be dancing in the streets when Saddam swings, but in what country, I wonder?
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Stephen M. Osborn [send him email] is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.
