Then imagine seeing Saddam's face on TV - smiling, surrounded by an 'adoring' crowd.
Imagine hiding your son in a small room for 22 years, knowing Saddam's thugs would kill him if they discovered the 'bookkeeping' error - 22 years after your firstborn son and husband were brutally murdered - turned in by the neighborhood Hussein henchman - for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein.
Imagine, then, seeing Saddam's face on TV, smiling - surrounded by an 'adoring' crowd.
Imagine being told you are free, being asked to help those who are willing to risk their lives for your freedom. Imagine, then, seeing Saddam's face on TV, smiling, surrounded by an 'adoring' crowd.
"Put some ice on it", indeed!
Saddam was a professional terrorist. The Iraqi Info Ministry was terror-central. Saddam w/ his Iraqi Info Ministry, used these tapes to terrorize and control the Iraqi people daily - for decades.
Saddam understood the power of the press. He used it to enslave a nation. His continuing rule was dependent on the daily control of 'information'. The press was so crucial to Saddam's power that he protected his propaganda mill more than his own soldiers - with layers of back ups - generators, mobile satellite trucks, studios in schools or hospitals - guaranteeing civilian casualties if we took them out.
People talked, of course, in whispers and with great fear - and learned what happened to neighbors. Not just the tens of thousands murdered with chems before and during wars, or the hundreds killed in regular mass-executions for any signs of community dissent, but the stories of isolated, brutal acts of selfish cruelty.
Saddam's favorite Hollywood film was the Godfather, but Saddam's favorite entertainment was watching videos of those who opposed him being slowly and systematically tortured to death.
| Torture Methods in Iraq | |
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How can they then justify playing those films today? Entertainment? Profit? Ratings?
The Iraqi people now get FoxNews, as do the Kuwaitis (they were tortured and murdered by Saddam's thugs as well).
FoxNews plays one of these cruel tapes almost daily with Saddam's victims watching - newly freed after years of abuse - with Saddam still alive.
As our troops risk their lives in Iraq working to gain the trust of the innocent in order to punish the guilty, our press is aiding the guilty and terrorizing the innocent - and endangering American lives daily.
Q: Mr. Dhia, I want to go back to the Saddam tape. If it turns out that the tape is authentic, how much of a setback will that be to U.S. and Iraqi efforts to convince the public he is gone and not coming back?
Dhia: In all honesty, I don't think there were an effort to convince Iraqi public he was dead. We said from the beginning we don't know if he was dead or not. The perception of Iraqis, he is not dead and his sons are not dead. For Iraqis, his departure was the best thing probably happened in their life for the last 34 years.
The tape itself, I watched Al Jazeera yesterday and they had a program about the tape. And there were eight Iraqis called, if I remember correctly. Seven of them, they said, "We really hate this tape; why you played it? It's really hurt our feeling to listen to it. We don't want to hear this guy again. We despise him. We hate him."
Excerpts from DoD Briefing on Post-War Developments in Iraq, July 7, 2003
XSilent No Longer: Iraqi People Reveal the Past
American Forces Press Service ^ | June 26, 2003 | Linda D. Kozaryn
VOICES OF FREEDOM
Quotes from the grateful Iraqi people. Y
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.