DUJAIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was hanged for killing 148 Shi'ite men and boys in Dujail in 1982. But today, some people in this town on the Tigris say they miss life under the Iraqi dictator because they felt more secure. ADVERTISEMENT
Even some of those from Dujail whose family members were murdered and imprisoned during Saddam's iron-fisted rule seemed seduced by the idea of a strong leader after years of chaos, bloodshed and deprivation since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
"If someone like Saddam came back, I'd not only support him, I'd invite him to dinner. My uncle was killed in 1982 in the Dujail incident. Still, life then was a million times better than now," said Saad Mukhlif, a Shi'ite.
Nostalgia for Saddam and his Sunni-led government in this largely Shi'ite town mirrors a country-wide sense of frustration despite a drop in attacks and killings.
U.S. military officials say violence in Iraq is at four-year lows but militant groups stepped up attacks for the holy month of Ramadan, and the country still suffers chronic shortages of water, power and other basic services.
"(Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki is sitting in (Baghdad's fortified) Green Zone, what's he doing to protect us? What's the point of this government?" said Mohammed Mehdi, a Shi'ite, whose cousin was jailed in 1982 and whose brother was killed in a car bomb in Dujail last month.
"Saddam Hussein is the only noble leader we've had," he added, before shouting "God bless Saddam 1,000 times," within earshot of U.S. troops accompanying reporters visiting the town, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad.
Mehdi and Mukhlif's views were echoed elsewhere as Reuters spoke to around 15 passers-by and shopkeepers in Dujail's high street.
A crowd of men and boys gathered to sing Saddam's praises, and boys on their way home from school chanted: "After Saddam, came the destroyers" and complained of a lack of electricity, clean water and money for school books.
"Saddam didn't kill anyone without a reason," said 14-year-old Ahmed Ali Ahmed. "Now these bombs just attack everybody. Everyone says it, Sunni or Shi'ite. Life was better under Saddam."
Some residents said such comments did not necessarily indicate admiration for Saddam, who ruthlessly repressed Shi'ites, Kurds and anyone even vaguely related to those who opposed him, as well as conducting a ruinous war with Iran in the 1980s which cost around 1 million lives.
"They're speaking like that because they're angry. People here haven't seen their lives improve," said Hussein Yassin, an interpreter for the U.S. military.
"I could never say that Saddam's time was better, even if we were living in hell. Members of my family were killed in 1982."
SADDAM'S SHADOW
The U.S. military and Iraq's new leaders had hoped Saddam's execution in 2006 would allow the country to move on.
But in Salahuddin province, where Dujail lies, Saddam still casts a long shadow. He was born and buried there, and drew most of his inner-circle from the province.
"Every person has his own opinion. They are either fans of Saddam Hussein, or the opposite," said provincial Governor Hamad al-Qaisi, speaking at a ceremony on a U.S. military base to mark the start of a business initiative to train unemployed Iraqis.
"The people who are here now have not created anything better than Saddam created. In Saddam's time, the best thing we had was security. We don't have that now," said Muthanna Ibrahim, Qaisi's secretary and spokesman.
For some people in Dujail, it appears the horrors of the past five years have superseded the atrocities of 1982.
After he escaped an assassination attempt that year while driving through the town, Saddam ordered his commanders to hunt down, torture and kill 148 men.
Women and children were allegedly taken and imprisoned and later sent to a desert internment camp where many disappeared. Dujail's farmlands, rich date palm and fruit groves on the banks of the Tigris, were salted and laid to waste.
Ahmed Jawad, a policeman with both Sunni and Shi'ite relatives, lost 27 members of his tribe in 1982, including an uncle. But he too feels nostalgic for the Saddam-era.
"Before we could visit any province. Now you could get killed," he said. Asked whether he would want the return of someone like Saddam, he said: "I wish. A leader who could provide security? I wish."
New York-based Human Rights Watch estimates some 290,000 people disappeared under Saddam, who ruled Iraq for almost a quarter of a century.
Saddam's campaign against northern Iraq's ethnic Kurds in the 1980s killed tens of thousands, including 5,000 gassed with chemical weapons in the village of Halabja.
On Wednesday, relatives of some of his victims marched in the southern Shi'ite city of Najaf, demanding compensation and DNA tests after thousands of bodies were found in mass graves.
Some in Dujail also see Saddam's legacy in recent killings.
"Who do you think sets these car bombs off? These are all Saddam's people. You think Shi'ite clerics go around blowing themselves up?" said grocer Kadhem Darwish. Many of the bombings in Iraq in recent years are blamed on Sunni Islamist insurgents.
Shopkeeper Seif al-Zubaidy said his life had improved since Saddam's fall. His business was doing well, and his family, which opposed Saddam, was no longer persecuted.
"Whatever happens in Iraq, from north to south, life is still better than under Saddam. He killed 10 members of my family in 1982. I was only 11 months old, but I was told what happened and I remember it like I remember my own name."
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McCain and Palin keep talking about Victory in Iraq. How will they define Victory and can it ever really happen.
Even if the violence was halted and the U.S. left Iraq, I doubt whether it would take very long for the people to support another dictator. It is what they have known for much of their history and what will come naturally to them.
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I don't want just a specific and complete binding definition of what they mean by "winning", I want a detailed and specific description of what steps they envision to get to that "winning" and a definite time for it to come to pass. To be honest, I don't think they have even a loose approximate idea of any of that, i.e., I think it smells as if they are passing wind after a week of ration restricted to bean, beans, and more beans.
Cow, your selfish skewed version of honor that permits you to post that link in this thread as much as calls people that object to the invasion or occupying of Iraq unpatriotic! You sicken anyone that honors the troops or the Constitution.
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I think we should all take Iraq as a huge example. You can have the best intentions in the world but military action cannot change culture.
The Iraq culture is one of a strong centralized figurehead. Not a decentralized leadership as we are used to here. It will be a generation at least before the people of Iraq are adjusted to such an idea and see the benefits that can come with it.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues.
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Not long after the take over of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, in Nashville, I knew an Iranian woman of about 50, very well educated and quite intelligent, who was among a group of diplomats that had escaped Iran at the last moment.
In conversation, I suggested to her that those people had the right to choose their own government and its form and, I thought, hopefully, they would settle on a government of the people. (I also suggested that the Shaw had deserved to be overthrown, with which she eagerly agreed.)
"Oh, no", she exclaimed, "they have a culture that makes that impossible and they have just no experience in making the types decisions that governments must. That would completely destroy Iran and I will never be able to return home."
She went on to predict what would become of Iran and, so far, her predictions were right on track.
I think she is right, without a strong central government with almost complete power, there is no possibility of actual government in Iran other than radical and dangerous fanatical religious factions, that are there with the intent to spread religious hate about the middle east, so they can control it too. She went on to explain that they would like to be able to, but realize they cannot take over western nations, because indoctrination through the schooling of children is necessary to get adherence to their extreme agenda.
I paid polite attention to her, but didn't pay close enough attention. She almost predicted what has happened through the middle east and south Asia back then.
I left Nashville a couple of years after that and she was still there, hoping, but not expecting much that would be success. I assume she is still there still hoping, still watching, and still waiting to go home. And I suspect she won't ever make it.
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: I don't want just a specific and complete binding definition of what they mean by "winning", I want a detailed and specific description of what steps they envision to get to that "winning" and a definite time for it to come to pass. To be honest, I don't think they have even a loose approximate idea of any of that, i.e., I think it smells as if they are passing wind after a week of ration restricted to bean, beans, and more beans.
Cow, your selfish skewed version of honor that permits you to post that link in this thread as much as calls people that object to the invasion or occupying of Iraq unpatriotic! You sicken anyone that honors the troops or the Constitution.
My selfish and SKEWED version of honor? I sicken anyone that honors the troops or the CONSTITUTION? Are you kidding me? You sure are one idiot bdgee. How dare you lash out such bullshi^ ...you are full of it as many of us on this board know, but wow. You really wanted to step it up to a level you only think you can be on.
You really arent that happy of a person. Your personality is not that great either. I come around here and I can joke around like most others here. You on the other hand get so butt hurt about everything, you cry foul daily, the big bad republican machine is ruining your life and all hell will break loose if Obama does not win. Why dont you go vanish from here for a while....you seem to have done that before havent you? Do you have any friends? An attitude like yours does not really attract much.
You are probably THE most un-American poster on this board. If someone came up to me and said "who likes to complain the most about this great country?" I would say..."Thats an easy one....bdgee" Because all you do is ***** ***** *****.
And you know what? I am not the only one who thinks that! Do you really hate life that much?
Who here would want to have a beer with bdgee? I doubt I could finish the beer before taking the mug and b*tch slapping him across the face with it after he opened his pompous mouth. He is one of "those guys" you see at a bar. Sittin there by himself with ALWAYS something to complain about. You are the last person on earth I would take advice from on Iraq, I have been there twice myself PROUDLY serving in the 2nd Infantry Division as a grunt (Ramadi 04-05, East Baghdad 06-07)You sir, get the "worst person in the world award" from Keith Olbermamn.
bdgee
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
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here we go...republicans,once again, throwing around slanderous,false, remarkes!..beeg is unamerican????...not very smart, cow...typical tho..keep throwin the B.S.
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: I don't want just a specific and complete binding definition of what they mean by "winning", I want a detailed and specific description of what steps they envision to get to that "winning" and a definite time for it to come to pass. To be honest, I don't think they have even a loose approximate idea of any of that, i.e., I think it smells as if they are passing wind after a week of ration restricted to bean, beans, and more beans.
Cow, your selfish skewed version of honor that permits you to post that link in this thread as much as calls people that object to the invasion or occupying of Iraq unpatriotic! You sicken anyone that honors the troops or the Constitution.
My selfish and SKEWED version of honor? I sicken anyone that honors the troops or the CONSTITUTION? Are you kidding me? You sure are one idiot bdgee. How dare you lash out such bullshi^ ...you are full of it as many of us on this board know, but wow. You really wanted to step it up to a level you only think you can be on.
You really arent that happy of a person. Your personality is not that great either. I come around here and I can joke around like most others here. You on the other hand get so butt hurt about everything, you cry foul daily, the big bad republican machine is ruining your life and all hell will break loose if Obama does not win. Why dont you go vanish from here for a while....you seem to have done that before havent you? Do you have any friends? An attitude like yours does not really attract much.
You are probably THE most un-American poster on this board. If someone came up to me and said "who likes to complain the most about this great country?" I would say..."Thats an easy one....bdgee" Because all you do is ***** ***** *****.
And you know what? I am not the only one who thinks that! Do you really hate life that much?
Who here would want to have a beer with bdgee? I doubt I could finish the beer before taking the mug and b*tch slapping him across the face with it after he opened his pompous mouth. He is one of "those guys" you see at a bar. Sittin there by himself with ALWAYS something to complain about. You are the last person on earth I would take advice from on Iraq, I have been there twice myself PROUDLY serving in the 2nd Infantry Division as a grunt (Ramadi 04-05, East Baghdad 06-07)You sir, get the "worst person in the world award" from Keith Olbermamn.
bdgee :w:
Your pea sized brain is showing again, but I do want to correct consideration that you have a "SKEWED version of honor". That could only be possible under the overly generous assumption that you have any at all, which clearly is in question.
What you are is a far right-wing racist nut.
In a nation such as you desire the U. S. to be, they championed your type as favored recruits for the Gestapo and the SS.
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: I don't want just a specific and complete binding definition of what they mean by "winning", I want a detailed and specific description of what steps they envision to get to that "winning" and a definite time for it to come to pass. To be honest, I don't think they have even a loose approximate idea of any of that, i.e., I think it smells as if they are passing wind after a week of ration restricted to bean, beans, and more beans.
Cow, your selfish skewed version of honor that permits you to post that link in this thread as much as calls people that object to the invasion or occupying of Iraq unpatriotic! You sicken anyone that honors the troops or the Constitution.
My selfish and SKEWED version of honor? I sicken anyone that honors the troops or the CONSTITUTION? Are you kidding me? You sure are one idiot bdgee. How dare you lash out such bullshi^ ...you are full of it as many of us on this board know, but wow. You really wanted to step it up to a level you only think you can be on.
You really arent that happy of a person. Your personality is not that great either. I come around here and I can joke around like most others here. You on the other hand get so butt hurt about everything, you cry foul daily, the big bad republican machine is ruining your life and all hell will break loose if Obama does not win. Why dont you go vanish from here for a while....you seem to have done that before havent you? Do you have any friends? An attitude like yours does not really attract much.
You are probably THE most un-American poster on this board. If someone came up to me and said "who likes to complain the most about this great country?" I would say..."Thats an easy one....bdgee" Because all you do is ***** ***** *****.
And you know what? I am not the only one who thinks that! Do you really hate life that much?
Who here would want to have a beer with bdgee? I doubt I could finish the beer before taking the mug and b*tch slapping him across the face with it after he opened his pompous mouth. He is one of "those guys" you see at a bar. Sittin there by himself with ALWAYS something to complain about. You are the last person on earth I would take advice from on Iraq, I have been there twice myself PROUDLY serving in the 2nd Infantry Division as a grunt (Ramadi 04-05, East Baghdad 06-07)You sir, get the "worst person in the world award" from Keith Olbermamn.
bdgee
CCW don't be bothered by begee comments. He's a washed up academic "know it all". If you disagree with his DNC retortic even a bit you will be attacked. He's probably a closet racist like many of his socialist elite associates. You have walked the walk and have every right to your views, never let a small minded Marcist change your ideals. America is the Greatest Nation on Earth and always will be!
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!!
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quote:Originally posted by jordanreed: my group?..that aint my group, buddyboy!..you dont know my group..believe me...you couldnt hang with my group, so you have no idea..
Buddyboy! Who uses that term anymore? And what group are you associated with that you feel you are so blessed? DNC? The begee buttboys?
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!!
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quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: [QUOTE]Originally posted by bdgee: I don't want just a specific and complete binding definition of what they mean by "winning", I want a detailed and specific description of what steps they envision to get to that "winning" and a definite time for it to come to pass. To be honest, I don't think they have even a loose approximate idea of any of that, i.e., I think it smells as if they are passing wind after a week of ration restricted to bean, beans, and more beans.
Cow, your selfish skewed version of honor that permits you to post that link in this thread as much as calls people that object to the invasion or occupying of Iraq unpatriotic! You sicken anyone that honors the troops or the Constitution.
My selfish and SKEWED version of honor? I sicken anyone that honors the troops or the CONSTITUTION? Are you kidding me? You sure are one idiot bdgee. How dare you lash out such bullshi^ ...you are full of it as many of us on this board know, but wow. You really wanted to step it up to a level you only think you can be on.
You really arent that happy of a person. Your personality is not that great either. I come around here and I can joke around like most others here. You on the other hand get so butt hurt about everything, you cry foul daily, the big bad republican machine is ruining your life and all hell will break loose if Obama does not win. Why dont you go vanish from here for a while....you seem to have done that before havent you? Do you have any friends? An attitude like yours does not really attract much.
You are probably THE most un-American poster on this board. If someone came up to me and said "who likes to complain the most about this great country?" I would say..."Thats an easy one....bdgee" Because all you do is ***** ***** *****.
And you know what? I am not the only one who thinks that! Do you really hate life that much?
Who here would want to have a beer with bdgee? I doubt I could finish the beer before taking the mug and b*tch slapping him across the face with it after he opened his pompous mouth. He is one of "those guys" you see at a bar. Sittin there by himself with ALWAYS something to complain about. You are the last person on earth I would take advice from on Iraq, I have been there twice myself PROUDLY serving in the 2nd Infantry Division as a grunt (Ramadi 04-05, East Baghdad 06-07)You sir, get the "worst person in the world award" from Keith Olbermamn.
bdgee :w:
CCW don't be bothered by begee comments. He's a washed up academic "know it all". If you disagree with his DNC retortic even a bit you will be attacked. He's probably a closet racist like many of his socialist elite associates. You have walked the walk and have every right to your views, never let a small minded Marcist change your ideals. America is the Greatest Nation on Earth and always will be! [/QUOTE
Lockjaw, along with the rest of your cadre of ignorant fascist wanna-bes, he has a mind like a steel trap.....that has never been set. (Perhaps it was manufactured without a set pin and, as a result, can never be set.)
Yes, the mini-brained fascist (truly one of your own kind, Lockstep!) has every right to his opinions. And he has every right to advocate that the government impose them on others and lying about whatever he chooses. Too, he has no responsibility to be either honest or honorable and he has not. He has quite thoroughly demonstrated each and every one of those rights and has lied in doing most of it.
However, the Constitution forbids the government acting on those wishes he expresses, which are to deny the same rights to those whose opinions do no coincide with his. So, in order for you and cow to achieve the goals you express, you would undo the Constitution, a very definite un-American goal and effort, to say the least.
His (and your's and your other goose stepping butt kissing buddies) is a design to label everyone not trapped in a mid 19th century far right wing mental rigidity and, thereby, to target them for attack, arrest, torture, and summary conviction without trial or representation by the the right-wing correctness police you envision. It is a model that worked extremely well for Hitler and Mousilini and Saddam and dubya and Pol Pot and how many other dictators.
Another heartfelt theory of the Nazi leaders in WWII was that they could fire up their troops so well in the belief of "winning" that through that sheer will to "win" their armies would be able to overcome the manpower and material advantages of the enemy. It didn't work. It only caused millions of deaths and millions more to live thereafter in desperate hopelessness and pain.
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Bewee your stuff is getting old. It is you that has no original ideas, you wake up and check the democrat talking points of the day and then spout them out as your own.
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!!
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Nope, I don't think you are out of gas. You simply don't have a motor in that jalopy you call a thought process. No aptitude at all.
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