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