Posted on 09/29/2003 1:01:50 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
Tales of Saddam's Brutality
The Iraqi people talk about mass graves and Saddams crimes against humanity
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"Most afternoons, among the market stalls leading to the old city of Najaf young men set up TV sets in the street showing grotesque scenes of cruelty. Handcuffed prisoners are executed with sticks of dynamite shoved into their pockets. Screaming men plead for their lives as they are beaten by Saddam Hussein's secret police. Crimson fragments of bodies lie in the street, moments after a huge explosion, to the soundtrack of an Arab lament. The crowds gather round. People mutter and shake their heads. Then they queue to pay 1,000 Iraqi dinars (about 33p) [50 cents] for laser discs containing footage of the appalling scenes. These are the atrocity discs of Iraq, a booming mini-industry in a country still stricken by the consequences of the war. They are produced in home factories, with the simplest computer equipment."
-- The London Times, September 20, 2003
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"The day after the liberation, my aunt put out a black banner--an Arab mourning ritual--with the names of all her relatives who had been murdered by the regime on it. And she looked down her street, and there were black banners on almost every house. On some houses it looks like a long shopping list. She said to her neighbour, 'You too?' Under Saddam it was a crime to mourn people killed by the regime--it made you seem suspicious too. Everyone was suffering terribly, but they were suffering alone. They just didn't know that everyone else was hating it too."
-- Yasser Alaskary, co-founder of Iraqi Prospect Organisation, an Iraqi freedom group, The Independent (London), September 18, 2003
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"Freed in April after 13 years in prison, [Dr. Ibrahim] Basri [Saddam's former physician] is now reaching out to register and help as many victims of the regime as he can find. They stream to a clinic attached to his house, a sad collection of former political prisoners, relatives of the executed, and maimed men who cannot work because they lost an arm, an ear, or a foot to the torturer's knife. 'All the time in prison, I think, "What can I do to help these people?"' he said. ... 'For the first five years, he put me in a cell by myself, 2 meters by 2 1/2 meters, where I didn't know if it was day or night. I was so dirty with lice. There were cockroaches in my mouth at night. And they came to beat you in the morning and at night for nothing, nothing.' Once, he continued, the guards beat him in front of 300 inmates until they broke his legs. 'I never said, "Mercy." I just said, "Iraq."'"
-- The Boston Globe, August 7, 2003
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"The bodyguard says he was disgusted by Uday's activities-he points to a floor-to-ceiling cage in the corner of the club's kitchen where he says monkeys were kept for Uday because he liked to have the animals watch him when he was deflowering virgins. ... It was his to make the singers who entertained Uday at the Boat Club gulp down a liter and a half of a 'cocktail,' a combination of 90-proof alcohol often with some drugs thrown in. ...
"'I would line up all the entertainment against that wall,' the bodyguard said, pointing to the side of the garage. 'And I would take a stick. ... And I would say, "Drink, drink, you have 10 minutes." If any of them didn't drink, I hit them with a stick.' ... Then, if the singers still refused, they were given a 'street beating,' meaning that their faces were untouched but they were pummeled until they could hardly stand up. ...
"'I always felt like I was the one who took the beatings because each shout of pain from the beaten person, I used to pray to God and ask God to punish me for what I was doing. But the person who took the beating did not know that if I didn't carry out the orders, I would take the same beating that he was getting.'"
-- Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2003
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"Jailers often treated allegedly lagging players in ways certain to hurt, not improve, the athletes' performances on the field. After shaving their heads to humiliate them, athletes were hung upside down and the soles of their feet whipped. They were buried in hot sand up to their necks. Their fingers or ears were amputated. Electric shocks were applied to their skin. And, in the case of soccer players, they were forced to kick concrete balls."
-- USA TODAY, July 30, 2003
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At only 22, Tareq, a defender, has been to prison five times. After a while, he recognized a pattern to the punishment. "The first stage of the torture is the reception, when you are given a choice of which plastic cable you will be beaten with. Then you are beaten 15 to 20 times. The reception is over. In the next stage, you are thrown into knee-deep sewer water and told to swim," he says. Tareq was dragged bare-chested across hot asphalt. Made to run barefoot over broken glass and gravel. When it was time to leave, he says, "The farewell party is a beating."
-- USA TODAY, July 30, 2003
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"Ahmad was Uday's chief executioner. Last week, as Iraqis celebrated the death of his former boss and his equally savage younger brother Qusay, he nervously revealed a hideous story. His instructions that day in 1999 were to arrest the two 19-year-olds on the campus of Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts and deliver them at Radwaniyah. On arrival at the sprawling compound, he was directed to a farm where he found a large cage. Inside, two lions waited. They belonged to Uday. Guards took the two young men from the car and opened the cage door. One of the victims collapsed in terror as they were dragged, screaming and shouting, to meet their fate. Ahmad watched as the students frantically looked for a way of escape. There was none. The lions pounced. 'I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite and then had to stand and watch the animals devour the two young men. By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh,' he recalled last week."
-- Sunday Times, London, July 27, 2003
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One of the condemned women was pregnant. This presented a problem, said Ahmad, because under religious law a pregnant woman should at least be allowed to finish her term and deliver the baby before being executed. 'She was several months' pregnant,' he said. 'The doctor had verified it, she had said so and we could see her swollen stomach. She was taken in and out three times - everyone was unsure what to do with her.' Telephone calls were made to Uday by his representative. As they waited, the woman sobbed and begged for mercy for her unborn child. On the third telephone call the order was given to go ahead with her execution. 'At that the woman was beheaded - and knowing she was pregnant, I felt sick in the stomach and wished for Allah to open up the ground and swallow everyone there including myself,' said Ahmad.
-- Sunday Times, London, July 27, 2003
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"They put me in a cell just 1m by 1.5m, painted completely red with no windows and lots of tiny stones on the floor and told me to count them. It did not matter what number you said it would be wrong. If I said 2000, they would say no, it's 2001 and beat me 10 times. Then they put me inside a circle and told me to run round and round for nine hours. After that they threw me on the hot pavement and a fat guard sat on my chest. Then they pulled me along by my ankles so that my back was streaming with blood.
"Another time they drew a bicycle on the wall and told me to ride it. They threw me in foul dirty water and said you must swim, then they kept pushing me under with a stick forcing me to drink.
"Once they told us we had to catch 10 flies during the night and 10 mosquitoes during the day or you would be tortured more. This was impossible so you had to catch the mosquitoes at night and hold them till daytime and vice versa with the flies. Then they would ask which is male and which is female. Whatever you said it would be vice versa."
-- Sunday Times, London, July 27, 2003
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"When I was in Iraq a doctor from Basra told me that, after being jailed by the police some years ago, he refused to tell his inquisitors whatever it was they wanted to hear. Instead of beating him, he told me, they brought in his 3-month-old daughter. The interrogator tore the screaming infant's eye out. When the desired answers were still not forthcoming, the questioner hurled the little girl against the concrete wall and smashed her skull."
-- The New York Times, July 26, 2003
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This is a very small number out of thousands and thousands of similar horror stories from Iraq. The Iraqi people have been telling these stories for years. The above is from the very public White House website, a small sample of a lengthy Iraq archive of Saddam's brutality - taken from international publications, available to anyone with access to the internet.
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Those involved in this war -- from a press charged with informing the public, to those on Capitol Hill accusing our heroes of fraud, holding back funds while they vote themselves a raise -- are long familiar with the horrors suffered by the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein.
Except for rare and brief mentions, they choose to bury the evidence.
We waited six months for the UN to decide not to help.
During those six months, thousands of innocent children and political prisoners died.
Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party, AP and BBC, the Bush and Blair lynch mobs, Amnesty International, UN, France - how can you continue to ignore the mass-murder and spit on the heroes who planned and fought and won this war?
Shame on you!
Where is your concern for the Iraqi children?
Where is your thanks to the US military and the Bush administration for providing both the necessary leadership and the tremendous skill and courage it took to remove this human WMD and his Ba'athist co-thugs?
Where is your gratitude for the sacrifices of the American mothers and fathers whose "children" were wounded or killed in the line of duty, honorable men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of strangers in a foreign land?
They did not die in vain.
Thousands of children have been saved in the past six months.
Iraq is free.
Saddam's horrific treatment of the Iraqi people over decades should be known to the whole world by now. Our left-press has failed the free world - and every real victim of oppression and "human rights" abuse.
Our press failed to inform the world - that's certain.
I'm mass e-mailing this one again this weekend - along with CPA's 6-month progress report.
Be prepared to receive both gratitude and hate mail in response to this painful reality e-mail.
((Hugs!))
to Ragtime's DISTURBING BUT IMPORTANT thread & also help or input requested for the following exchange.
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Ragtime " Be prepared to receive both gratitude and hate mail in response to this painful reality e-mail.
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Dolly: Yes, I am aware of the praise & the flaming that I receive each time I do this & include libs.
NOW, your & ATRW input. Here is one response I received. Want to tell you that this woman is a male hater (can tell NOT the ONLY email I receive from her is "humor" that is male bashing.) and I also have known her over the years. She also has returned my humor with corrections on spelling in grammar in RED. She was removed from Humor list. Rarely do I write to her anymore. I did send her this week a note w/pix of my new grandson (our boys played together as kids). I received NO response from that mail.
Ok. here is what she sent me & what I have to possibly send her. My response will not address either the political or biblical ...... but I could. I frankly know I will not change her & it is a nice day & after I do yard work, I want to go out & play.
@@@ Lorna's response to the Ragtime mailing
Shame on me?? How dare you!!! The main reason I cannot tolerate you "conservative, Republican, 'patriot' anti-liberal" people is that you try to shame anyone who disagrees with you. You say we are unpatriotic and and insinuate that we are unchristian. Again, how dare you? I have asked you repeatedly to stop sending me this drivel and you keep sending it. I have thought about sending you an equal amount of liberal reading material, but so far have not given into my urges. I have tried not to lower myself to your Rush-like standards of hatred and intimidation. I do have one which I will send you which is the kind of thing which lead me to try not retaliate in like kind. It seemed to me to be the most "Christian" way of handling things. I prefer to concentrate on Christ's call to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me, even though I will admit it is very hard. One reason that I continue to go to Grandview is because instead of having a sign which says "pray for our troops," we have a sign which says "pray for peace." I can't even find in the NT that God loves only Jews, much less that he loves only Americans or that somehow one nation is his preferred one. Don't you realize that by demonizing an enemy ( Iraq or the "liberal" press) you are only projecting your own "sins" onto someone else. It is taking the easy way out. You are better than that. You are certainly more educated than that. I don't hope to change your mind, but I do finally hope to get you to stop sending me this stuff. PLEASE. ljc
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My "in mail waiting to be sent" folder.. but waiting for your comments actually note
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Dear Lorna,
I have sent you just one mailing of a political nature the past couple months & should mention I get regular (daily) Lib material from family & friends who share. I am not offended by this & am glad that they go through their research & send me the best. I read & try to grow & see the other side. We seem to have intelligent & enjoyable exchanges, which have deepened our mutual respect & friendship.
This was authored / compiled by a friend in Texas....... I note that the entire last paragraph was omitted which included the source info.. My error. I was NOT the author/compiler but agree & accept your "flaming".
I respected your request to not mail.. I send out multi weekly things (and sometimes daily) to others who are in the political wave, so to speak..... so you have NOT been bombarded with my "drivel". Sorry that this one piece so offended you. I can assure you, you will NOT receive anything further from me.
I can only PRAY MYSELF that the enemies you pray for and deeply love.. do no harm to those you love. And BTW I did feel the Christian love just ooze out of your note.
Have a nice weekend Lorna.
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This is my "draft note" BUT IF ANY OF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS .. please contribute. I have really at this point written her off (which I think is refected in the note) but do want to respond in a civil, intelligent manner
Frustrating, Dolly. It appears that her spring is wound a little to tight.
Shake the dust from your feet and move on.
It is more important to let others know how cruel Saddam was/is, than to take them to task for their politics.
Feel free to edit out all politics and "shaming"...and whatever will keep you safe from flaming.
Now, for professional reporters and politicians....leave in the "shaming", I think. (^:
I have found that if I made a weak argument easily refuted by my opponents they were rarely angry with me.. In fact they would find my efforts humorous.
But when I was on point and made arguments not easily refutable.. arguments that made the opponents examine the truth of their positions and even doubt them, they reacted with anger and name calling. They used angry phrases steeped in hatred toward me.
Darling' what you did was hit a nerve. What you did was send an email that was a success. It pointed out the horrible position this woman had taken. She escaped from that revelation using the most common last resort technique.. anger. She is more angry with herself than with you. This story just pointed out to someone exactly what they are... People will not stand for facing the truth about their own failures.
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