Jimmy's Corner

I almost died out of laughter when I read this article in Al Wafd Newspaper (Arabic only). It is quite funny when you see how people can be too hypocrite and ignorant. I translate some parts of the article for you here...

Saddam's Commemoration Day in The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate

"Saddam's commemoration day puts the Iraqi leader in rank with the greatest leaders and the national symbols of the Arab nation; those who live eternally in the minds and hearts of the Arab people like Saladdin, Omar Al-Mukhtar and Saad Zaghloul. He is one of those who sacrificed for the good of the nation and it's liberty. The Egyptian political powers, Iraqis living in Egypt, human rights activists and all those who participated in the special commemoration day agreed on the same fact (that Saddam is equal in rank with the nation's greatest leaders).
...
Before the event takes starts, all the participants prayed for the soul of Saddam with their eyes full of tears asking God to send him to the eternal paradise as they were on the Syndicate's stairs. Then a public conference for denouncing the ASSASSINATION of Saddam starts. The audience held up Saddam's photos and chanted slogans against Nouri Al Maliki (describing him as a traitor), America, Israel and Iran...
...
Mohammed Mounir, one of Saddam's lawyers, then gave a speech about the last days in Saddam's life before the execution... "Saddam was held in a separate house away from the other seven suspects. His guards were changed every two weeks as the warders were afraid the guards would sympathize with him. His warder found out that the guards sympathize with Saddam to the extent that one of the guards weeped and hugged Saddam passionately when he knew he is about to be replaced; his fellow guards pulled him away from Saddam."
...
Mr. Mounir also denied the American claims that Saddam was captured hiding in a hole "Saddam told me he was in one of Al Baath member's house who reported him later and won the prize. Saddam asked him to let him go to bed for 15 minutes as he was overwhelmed, and while asleep in one of the house's rooms, he suddenly woke up to find 15 rifles aimed at him. He also said he does not remember anything after this"
...
Mr. Mahmoud Bakry who organized the event asserted said Saddam was a hero... Then Mr. Mostafa Bakry's speech about Saddam asserted that he is an Arabic leader who lived like a man and died a hero.
...
Then Mr. Mohsen Khalil, the former Iraqi Ambassador in Egypt during Saddam's time, said that Saddam was a president who believed in the opposing opinions; not like what America propagated about him. He believed in the importance of debate and stood up against the Iranian, American and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. Finally, he finished saying that Saddam is a martyr hat the Arab nation had lost.

I do not really know what to say... To this extent can people be so stupid, so ignorant and so hypocritically driven??
Anyway I dedicate this photo to Mr. Mohammed Mounir who claims that Saddam was not held in a hole.

Labels: commemoration, egypt, iran, iraq, israel, saddam

"Iraq PM Nouri Maliki says his government may review ties with any country
criticising Saddam Hussein's hanging." more...

In other words.... "Mubarak, keep your ass away from our personal business."
Nice.

Labels: iraq, maliki, mubarak, saddam

"Saddam was good for us. He was the only one capable of holding Iraqis from the neck and moving them in peace"

These were the words of one of my Iraqi students in Egypt. We were playing some kind of a game that enables them speak English and practice their language in expressing their opinions. I intended to pick a hot topic and the fact that Saddam's execution is a boiling topic inspired me. This section is so full of Arabs: Saudis, Iraqis, Jordanians and Palestinians. When the topic was brought up, they all agreed that Saddam was the one suitable for Iraq!! And it was not much of a surprise when I found out that the Iraqi students agrees with them.

What they agreed on is that dictatorship is the only suitable system to rule in Arab countries. "Saddam could put anyone in jail. If you use a newspaper sheet that has his photo, you are imprisoned. This is the only way you could put every mutiny under control... Look what happened in Iraq after he was overthrown. Thousands killed and tens die every day. Saddam was an evil that stopped other evils!"

It is disastrous to find these young men thinking that way... They are absolutely ready to be put under the tyranny of a ruler and suffer like hell just because they find it the only possible way to have their countries ruled. The idea that a dictator is an evil that stops other evils is prevailing even in Egypt here. It reminded me of the days when the election farce was going on in Egypt. People used to say that Mubarak is an evil you know, and an evil you know is much better than an evil you do not know.

Whenever you talk to anyone they take Iraq as an example "look at Iraq, the country is being destroyed since the day Saddam was overthrown". What they do not know is that what is destroying Iraq is terrorism and sectarianism more than the occupation itself. It is true that the occupation brought terrorism into Iraq. However, sectarianism has always been there. The question is... Why should we agree to fall a prey of the tyranny of a dictator and never try to fill in the gaps among us and fight for freedom??

I think it is something we are born with. Innately negative.

Labels: arabs, evil, iraq, iraqis, jordanians, mubarak, saddam, saudis, sectarianism, terrorism

Do I need to tell you how much I hated Saddam?? I think it is enough to say that I rarely feel indifferent when I hear about someone's death. In Saddam's case, I was like "to hell may he go". However, to be honest, when I watched the official video of his execution, I felt bad. Then when I watched the other video in which the execution process is fully recorded, I felt angry. For a moment I asked myself, if I do not give a rat's ass about the dictator who killed his own people and destroyed his own country, why am I feeling angry. And I could answer the question.

Despite the fact that Saddam was a tyrant, he is still a human being whose rights to be respected; even if he did not respect the rights and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people he killed. And I believe it is one's right to have his moment of death respected. The official video that was broadcast on the Iraqi TV is a complete outrage against the man's rights.

Needless to say that the second video made Saddam a martyr to most of those who watched it. Imagine it, you are watching a movie where someone is about to be executed, and this someone, despite being the bastard of the movie, is facing death with complete bravery. Would not you feel bad for him? I guess those who posted the movies about Saddam did him a favour, instead of seeking revenge. The guy has become a martyr in the eyes of many of those who watched the movie of the execution. The Iraqi government itself acted so stupidly by carrying out the execution on the first day of Eid El Adha (feast of sacrifice). This made a legend of a tyrant.

Nowadays, you do not really know who is the real Saddam....

The tyrant who killed hundreds of people and ruled with an iron fist for more than 30 years?

Saddam Hussein ordered his special security and military forces to carry out a reprisal attack against the town, which resulted in a total of 150 of the town's men being killed in the attack or executed later, a number of which were boys 13 years of age.[1] 1,500 people were also incarcerated and tortured, while other residents, many of them women and children, were sent to desert camps. Saddam's regime destroyed the town and then rebuilt it shortly after. In addition to these punishments, 1,000 square kilometres (250,000 acres) of farmland was destroyed; replanting was only permitted 10 years later. See Wikipedia

The coward who hid in a hole with millions of dollars while his country is burning?

Bremer went on to report the time as approximately 8:30 p.m. local (23:30 UTC), on December 13, in an underground “spider hole” at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near his home town Tikrit. See Wikipedia

The friendly humane intellectual whose friendly attitude impressed his own American nurse?

Saddam also talked to him about happier times when his children were young: how he told them bedtime stories and how he would give his daughter half a Tums when she complained of a tummy ache.

After Ellis got an emergency call from America that his brother was dying, he told Saddam he was leaving immediately. Before he left, Saddam hugged him and said he would be his brother. See BBC News and St Louis News

Or the courageous man of cause who faced death with enviable bravery while being taunted by his executors like a martyr in the middle ages?

Far from being a quiet and dignified business, the new video shows that several of the witnesses taunted Saddam during the last seconds of his life, chanted the name of one of his many enemies, and told him he was going to hell. See BBC News

Labels: dictator, execution, iraq, saddam, tyrant, usa, video