Life becomes greater torture to Saddam Hussein than death

Death sentence brought down against the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did not help George W. Bush’s party win the elections in the USA. Will Hussein be pardoned now?

Photo: Life becomes greater torture to Saddam Hussein than death

Life becomes greater torture to Saddam Hussein than death

Death sentence was hailed in the USA. The European society condemned it. The Muslim world was infuriated with the verdict. Saddam Hussein has only two or three months left to live. Is it fair to execute the overthrown Iraqi leader, though? Saddam’s sins do not seem to be something unimaginable against the background of violence that has been reigning in Iraq for a thousand years already. The medieval king of Iraq, Hajaj, was a lot more brutal than Saddam, for example. He used to decapitate people or skin them alive and exhibit those “products” of his ruling in public places such as central squares and markets. Other rulers that followed the blood-thirsty king were not conspicuous for their humanism either.

Saddam Hussein was killing communists, Shiites and other competitors who had an eye on his throne. However, it seems that US officials had nothing against his crimes before. Recruited by the CIA in the beginning of the 1960s, Saddam Hussein launched the war against Iran in 1980 with Donald Rumsfeld’s approval. In 1990, the US administration pushed Saddam towards another war against Kuwait. In 2003, George W. Bush decided that Iraq had been exhausted after so many years of economic blockade. Bush was wrong to think that Iraq would not be able to show any resistance. The war has cost the USA lives of almost 3,000 servicemen; over 20,000 have been severely wounded. Iraq has lost about 900,000 people, and the war does not seem to end ever.

The puppet court sentenced Saddam Hussein to death. For the first time in decades the judges broke the local tradition not to bring down sentences against defendants on Sundays. It was obviously done so to please the US sponsors and time the verdict to the elections in the US Congress.

Has it ever occurred to the judges that the humiliating execution of the former Iraqi dictator by hanging will cause a wild outburst of indignation among former officers of the Iraqi army, many of whom still participate in the civil war?

Saddam is responsible for the death of thousands of people. However, he was sentenced to death for the murder of 148 Shiites after they attempted to kill the dictator in an Iraqi village. Why did US advisors of the Iraqi Department of Justice choose that episode? Was that decision meant to stir up even more hatred between Saddam-supporting Sunnis and Shiites and eventually aggravate the religious strife in the war-torn country?

“I have been through Saddam Hussein’s hell myself, I had to escape from the country. Many of my friends and relatives have been killed. Many Iraqi families have lost their loved ones. However, the country suffered even greater damage because of the US-led aggression. Over 80 percent of the Iraqi population believes that the USA should leave the country alone immediately. It will help stop violence in Iraq. The national reconciliation process should be started from the cancellation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein. Life has become a greater torture for him than death,” a prominent representative of Iraqi Shiites in Russia, Muhammad Ali al-Hakim said.

The President of Iraq Jalal Talabani has something to think about taking into consideration the fact that he shed much blood last year too. To crown it all, many think that US President George W. Bush deserves a process at the international tribunal for crimes against humanity too, just like Saddam Hussein. Now that the Reps have lost the elections, the US administration needs to make the Iraqi authorities show mercy on Saddam.

Arguments and Facts

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru

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