This cartoon on Saddam's hanging, by famous Cuban cartoonist Angel Boligan, was published on December 29th by El Universal, Mexico, and by the Arabic language Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on Saturday Dec. 30th. I woke up this morning at six O'clock, opened the door for the dog, read the news. 'Saddam hanged at dawn' . It might have been six to eight hours before...An expected outcome. I had a strange feeling; the intuition that a new dark era was opening to us, people of the middle east*. It hasn't to do with Saddam's hanging but with the way his trial and ending were robbed from his victims by a blind neocolonialist enterprise.
Saddam's hanging will always be remembered not for his crimes and his tyranny on his own people but it will be remembered for the US's dirty politics in the Midlle East...
Saddam's trial and hanging were not meant to return dignity and justice to Iraqis but were meant as terrifying examples for other Middle East head of states of what might happen to them if they don't comply...Those who are tyrants know very well that the only way out for them is to stick to US's wills and policies in the ME and those who are not tyrants, and they are very few in the ME, know that just resisting the US is enough to be labeled as tyrants in the eyes of the US becoming candidates for embargos, invasions, hasty trials and hanging...
Saddam's swift hanging while in physical US custody and in 'legal' and virtual Iraqi custody show the level of trust the US puts in its new puppets in Iraq...After all wasn't Saddam always in US custody ? Waging a war on Iran when the US wanted it and a war on Koweit when the US suggested they might not react to such a war and might actually give their blessings, and then retiring from active collaboration with the US, after the Koweit war, to a passive one under successive embargos, suggested to the UN by the US, reinforcing his tyranny on his people, bleeding Iraq and tearing apart its social and ethnical canevas under pressure. Saddam, with the US's connivence, handed Bush an aneamic Iraq whose total collapse into fighting ethnies is being encouraged by the US since March 2003 and applauded by Israel who sees in this 'achievement' the blueprint for 'their' middle east.
What, when, where and who will be the next job in this blind neocolonialist enterprise ?
After fighting secularism hand by hand with the most brutal and backward regimes in the ME, the US is fighting now 'Islam' or more exactly a fabricated image of Islam, manufactured with the help of Osama and large media outlets, with the same brutal and backward regimes in the ME, those same regimes who are feeding with some reality the fabricated and 'scary' image of Islam in the West. However, this time around, it will be a never ending war because what the US is fighting is what the US is producing by its policies in the ME. The US has thus succeeded in installing a self sustained production and consumption apparatus for unending wars in that region. Because the wars that produce divisions produce hate not only between the fighting factions but also for those who are involved with these factions.
Why they hate us ?
History will show that nowhere else was neocolonialism as brutal and savage as in the ME because it isn't neolcolonialism alone; it is both colonialism and neocolonialism, ditsant and proxy at the same time, US and Israel hand in hand, with all their cruel modern weaponry and old fashioned brutality disregarding our modern standards for Human rights and the plight of the people of the Middle East and especially the Palestinians to live in peace and dignity. We are living a new kind of neocolonialism, a missionary, USraeli neocolonialism that is ready to sacrifice the long term interests of both countries and their people for the interests of a pervasive racist ideology born from the negation of the people of the Middle East and their aspirations, just like the old fashioned way. It is history rewinded; wasn't the US born from this kind of European colonialism in the New World and weren't these processes that installed these colonialists and neocolonialists ideologies, hundreds years apart, similar ? For anybody who doubt this affirmation take a close look at the history of the New World; a mix of ill missionarism to extend the kingdom of heaven, greed, adventurism, racism and unbridled criminal impulse in the denial and the negation of the other.
All the rethoric about the democratisation process in the ME is bullshit. If they really wanted to implement a democratic process then they should have conducted themselves differently. But do the people of Iraq deserve a democratic process, a fair trial and a real legal 'ownership' on their tyrant ? The answer of the US is No because the facts are different from the rethoric.
This is why Saddam's trial and hanging were cast as a farce, a filmed farce which is an attempt to transform a farce into a reality and to write history with images destined for instant persuasion.
When images impose themselves upon reality, one needs only perception. There is no need for thinking anymore. Let the images** flow. Saddam's hanging images as 'proofs' for the US's civilizing mission in the ME...Thank God I don't own a TV.
Saddam's hanging will always be remembered not for his crimes and his tyranny on his own people but it will be remembered for the US's dirty politics in the Midlle East...
Saddam's trial and hanging were not meant to return dignity and justice to Iraqis but were meant as terrifying examples for other Middle East head of states of what might happen to them if they don't comply...Those who are tyrants know very well that the only way out for them is to stick to US's wills and policies in the ME and those who are not tyrants, and they are very few in the ME, know that just resisting the US is enough to be labeled as tyrants in the eyes of the US becoming candidates for embargos, invasions, hasty trials and hanging...
Saddam's swift hanging while in physical US custody and in 'legal' and virtual Iraqi custody show the level of trust the US puts in its new puppets in Iraq...After all wasn't Saddam always in US custody ? Waging a war on Iran when the US wanted it and a war on Koweit when the US suggested they might not react to such a war and might actually give their blessings, and then retiring from active collaboration with the US, after the Koweit war, to a passive one under successive embargos, suggested to the UN by the US, reinforcing his tyranny on his people, bleeding Iraq and tearing apart its social and ethnical canevas under pressure. Saddam, with the US's connivence, handed Bush an aneamic Iraq whose total collapse into fighting ethnies is being encouraged by the US since March 2003 and applauded by Israel who sees in this 'achievement' the blueprint for 'their' middle east.
What, when, where and who will be the next job in this blind neocolonialist enterprise ?
After fighting secularism hand by hand with the most brutal and backward regimes in the ME, the US is fighting now 'Islam' or more exactly a fabricated image of Islam, manufactured with the help of Osama and large media outlets, with the same brutal and backward regimes in the ME, those same regimes who are feeding with some reality the fabricated and 'scary' image of Islam in the West. However, this time around, it will be a never ending war because what the US is fighting is what the US is producing by its policies in the ME. The US has thus succeeded in installing a self sustained production and consumption apparatus for unending wars in that region. Because the wars that produce divisions produce hate not only between the fighting factions but also for those who are involved with these factions.
Why they hate us ?
History will show that nowhere else was neocolonialism as brutal and savage as in the ME because it isn't neolcolonialism alone; it is both colonialism and neocolonialism, ditsant and proxy at the same time, US and Israel hand in hand, with all their cruel modern weaponry and old fashioned brutality disregarding our modern standards for Human rights and the plight of the people of the Middle East and especially the Palestinians to live in peace and dignity. We are living a new kind of neocolonialism, a missionary, USraeli neocolonialism that is ready to sacrifice the long term interests of both countries and their people for the interests of a pervasive racist ideology born from the negation of the people of the Middle East and their aspirations, just like the old fashioned way. It is history rewinded; wasn't the US born from this kind of European colonialism in the New World and weren't these processes that installed these colonialists and neocolonialists ideologies, hundreds years apart, similar ? For anybody who doubt this affirmation take a close look at the history of the New World; a mix of ill missionarism to extend the kingdom of heaven, greed, adventurism, racism and unbridled criminal impulse in the denial and the negation of the other.
All the rethoric about the democratisation process in the ME is bullshit. If they really wanted to implement a democratic process then they should have conducted themselves differently. But do the people of Iraq deserve a democratic process, a fair trial and a real legal 'ownership' on their tyrant ? The answer of the US is No because the facts are different from the rethoric.
This is why Saddam's trial and hanging were cast as a farce, a filmed farce which is an attempt to transform a farce into a reality and to write history with images destined for instant persuasion.
When images impose themselves upon reality, one needs only perception. There is no need for thinking anymore. Let the images** flow. Saddam's hanging images as 'proofs' for the US's civilizing mission in the ME...Thank God I don't own a TV.
My Review of News and Blogs about the execution:
How Washington and London helped to create the monster they went to war to destroy
Guardian correspondant in Iraq watches the execution with Sunni insurgents
Angry Arab on Saddam
Pierre tristam on Saddam's hanging
Guardian correspondant in Iraq watches the execution with Sunni insurgents
Angry Arab on Saddam
Pierre tristam on Saddam's hanging
Old Brit: 'So, Saddam Hussein swung; so what ?'
The Osterley Times on the execution
Juan Cole: ''The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare. ''
*Our little Bush, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, commented the hanging this way: 'A dark era had come to an end'. And when I told my husband of my feelings of the beginning of a dark era, which are contradictory with Stephen Harper's (we are not, Harper and I, at our first disagreement), my husband answered that Harper's comment was a typical feel good shallow affirmation. Suppose, he told me, that Harper might feel obliged to tell Canadians about the civil war in Iraq, the sectarian divide that the circumstances of this hanging might worsen and the lawlessness of the whole process of Saddam's trial and hanging, the way Italia's Romano Prodi commented actually the same news, Harper could face some incomprehension from a majority of Canadians who lack sufficient knowledge of the situation in Iraq or, worse, such a comment might prompt some to look more carefully into the situation. Thus, the news about Iraq, and most generally all the news, are made of circumstancial barbarism and circumstancial comments meant to make us feel good about the not so good images... Thank God I don't own a TV...
The Osterley Times on the execution
Juan Cole: ''The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare. ''
*Our little Bush, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, commented the hanging this way: 'A dark era had come to an end'. And when I told my husband of my feelings of the beginning of a dark era, which are contradictory with Stephen Harper's (we are not, Harper and I, at our first disagreement), my husband answered that Harper's comment was a typical feel good shallow affirmation. Suppose, he told me, that Harper might feel obliged to tell Canadians about the civil war in Iraq, the sectarian divide that the circumstances of this hanging might worsen and the lawlessness of the whole process of Saddam's trial and hanging, the way Italia's Romano Prodi commented actually the same news, Harper could face some incomprehension from a majority of Canadians who lack sufficient knowledge of the situation in Iraq or, worse, such a comment might prompt some to look more carefully into the situation. Thus, the news about Iraq, and most generally all the news, are made of circumstancial barbarism and circumstancial comments meant to make us feel good about the not so good images... Thank God I don't own a TV...
**Many new visitors to this blog for the last day arrived through a search page on Saddam's hanging pictures, movie and proofs...I let you draw the conclusions...
Since March 29th 2006
6 comments:
Hi So,
I’m not sure I agree with you on America and « The West » whatever that means…
Apart from (semi) accidental historic events such as The Philippines and Cuba, America never was a (deliberately) “colonialist” state: quite the contrary a actually for in Versailles in 1918, president Wilson genuinely backed Arab nationalism against the imperial designs of France and Britain.
Truman and Eisenhower (and to a lesser extent Nixon and Reagan) also backed the Iraqi (right wing of the) Baath party as a bulwark against Israeli socialism, Arab communism and Iranian Islamic fundamentalism.
The problem is that:
1) In 1989, the Baath became irrelevant for America
2) In 2001, a group of Pharisaic fascists took control of the executive branch with the help of complacent media and a gullible citizenry
As I told CE yesterday:
For the past 6 years, Western humanism and classical rationality were assailed by a sinister assortment of faux Dixie “Christians” and authentic Trotskyite Pharisees who stormed Washington, toppled our time honored traditions, and tried to hijack our constitution in the name of “freedom”.
Today, we’re at the crossroads and our only hope lies in our men and women in uniform. The graduates of West Point and The Naval Academy and their lieutenants got rid of Rumsfeld last month: they are the only ones with enough strength and clairvoyance to cut our losses in Iraq and free our nation from the grip of Saudisrael.
And who knows? Maybe a born-again Iraqi Baath party can actually help the US military in its future fights against the twin dangers of Iranian Khomeinism and Saudi-Taleban Wahhabism...
But Victor, you seem to forget the US's hegemonic policies in America itself. Wislon whom you cite declared that Cuba was to fall under US's influence according to a geopolitical law which is as much accurate as the laws of Physics.
Your analysis of US's foreign policy is ponctual. Of course there were hesitations but the main line was always towards more hegemony. Iraq and the whole middle east are to fall under USraeli influence, according to Wilson's disciples in the matters of the laws of geoplolitics and Physics, the neo-cons.
However, Nature laws are invariable while geopolitics laws can be changed. The US does not need Israel in the ME anymore for its hegemony, this is a fact that most US citizens are starting to grasp and understand.
Well, it’s only natural for big states to have “spheres of influence”: after all the Monroe doctrine was modeled after “old Europe’s” time-honored traditions of Realpolitik and raison d’état.
The fact that the Caribbean is now largely a US lake is not abnormal when put in the broad geo-political context of the Americas…
What’s abnormal is the embargo on Cuba and the blind stubbornness of successive US administrations who, after having demonized an independent center-left leader such as young Fidel Castro thus throwing him into the arms of Soviet communism, used him as an inflated bogeyman for more than 45 years.
That’s stupid.
And it goes against the interests of America.
More on that later.
Great post by the way.
Victor,
I agree with you on the effects of the US's successive embargos on Cuba. It is interesting that US's politics toward Cuba can be considered as a blueprint for all their failed foreign policies in Latin America and now in the ME. They don't learn from their mistakes Or may be it suits them to not learn from their mistakes because this is a destructive, hegemonic and neocolonialist foreign policy, not meant to be constructive but meant to affirm the US's superpower and to intimidate...
I'm sure the day will come when Saddam will be fondly remembered, in spite of his cruelty.
Victor is right.
Wolfie,
Well, the US and the UK went to Iraq in order to end the barbarism of Saddam and what we are witnessing since the invasion and after may be some 3200 military deaths (US and UK, I am not saure about the figures for the UK), and more than 200000 Iraqi civilian deaths, barbarism has extended to all Iraq and will stay there for years to come.
The puppet Iraqi government did not conduct themselves differently from Saddam.
I think what is threatening to us in all this is that we cannot just sit, watch this baranrism unfold and grow and pretend that it is not going to affect us. We are part of it.
The neo con civilising agenda for the middle east is a savage and barabric enterprise as much as the conquest of the New World was and even worse because there are two differences between the two colonialisms:
1-The first one is that we had to dehumanise the people we are fighting in Iraq and the ME. And we did this in a very ugly way. The fact that the Bush administration let the hanging of saddam done this way was to portray Iraqis as savages.
This was not necessary for the aborigines of the American continent because we were seeing these people for the first time. Remember the council of Valladolid and the decision of the church that Natives had actually a soul ?
2- The other difference is that, contrary to what history books tell us, it is not technological superiority that killed and exterminated the natives of the American continent but the biological encounter of two different people whose immune systems were totally different and adaptaed to different diseases. it is transmitted disease that killed massively the Natives of the New World. In the middle east, sadly, technological superiority is evident and there is a real threat this time that if we don't choose the path to peace and stop this escalation, nuclear weapons, which are present in the region will probably be used either by israel or by any other country that possess them...
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