Gory Revelations Stun Iraqi's

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 06/01/03 | Anna Badhken

[Stuckathome]

Baghdad -- Like so many Iraqis these days, Chedha al Awsi feels betrayed and confused.

On a computer screen before her, poorly recorded footage shows half a dozen laughing soldiers of Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard as they beat and kick civilian men kneeling on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs.

[Stuckathome]

I was surprised to read this in the traditionally very liberal San Francisco Chronicle, on the front page no less. Usually this paper gives accounts of how the war may have been bad for the Iraqi people. Very chilling to read and further adds to the other numerous posts here at freep about the true Iraqi regime.

[finnman69]

But the libs still say it was an illegal war...

[Imal]

Excuse me, but I thought this article was going to be about a speech to the Iraqis by this man:

"I want the Iraqi people to know how tirelessly and fiercely I opposed the war and the removal of Saddam Hussein!"

[7 x 77]

"It's very important now that LIBERALS come to grips with Iraqi history, with their own history. It is true that a lot of LIBERALS believed the propaganda of this government. It's easy to deny the past. To build false local histories of what happened."

[bart99]

Stunning. Perhaps freedom of the press in Iraq will help them, and the US action, forever. We can hope.

[aposiopetic]

I agree. And at the risk of having to don an asbestos suit, this seems a fitting occasion to call to mind that one of the most prominent voices raised in 1989-1990 against normalization of contacts with China in the wake of the Tianmen Square massacre was none other than Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

I'm not sure what happened in the meantime.

[blackdog]

Unjust war. Republican lies. Just the Shrub CYA'n.

Now who's on American Idol this week?

[ikka]

With a MILLION people dead, how could the small nation of Iraq not know. My guess is that the person in the article chose not to know; just like 50% of Americans chose not to know that Clinton and Gore were frauds.

[ffusco]

The SF Chron is just kicking the NYT when its down.

[Texas Eagle]

....then the screen shows soldiers tying dynamite to the chests of their prisoners and blowing them up, one by one. Pieces of human flesh and bone fly in all directions. Al Awsi jolts in her seat, her face distorted by a grimace of pain.

Nyaaaaaaah. So what? Where are the weapons of mass destruction ! ! ! ? ? ?

This war was unjustified! Put Saddam back in power!

[Rennes Templar]

Great Post. Eventually GWB will be recognized as nothing less than heroic to have gone against much world opinion to thwart Saddam. Even if the issue of mass weapons is not resolved, the terror fomenting cancer of the Hussein regime, if it had not been stopped, would have eventually become a threat to all things civilized, both in the Middle East and abroad. Bush has done nothing less than take a first giant step toward make the world a more civilized place.

[azhenfud]

"...just like 50% of Americans chose not to know that Clinton and Gore were frauds."

Oh no, they weren't frauds - they were VERY ORIGINAL....

[SouthernFreebird]

And al Awsi has heard a theory, which she admits she somewhat believes, that Hussein was an agent of the CIA -- "because why would a true Iraqi want to kill his own people?"

They will always look for a way to blame us.....idjits every last one of 'em.

[7 x 77]

With a MILLION people dead, how could the small nation of Iraq not know. My guess is that the person in the article chose not to know; just like 50% of Americans chose not to know that Clinton and Gore were frauds.

I was wondering this too since some of the embedded reporters were saying that it seemed every family had a member who was killed or vanished. Maybe it depends on what part of the country or society your talking to.

[seenenuf]

Please.. would someone sell me one of those $3 CD's to send to the NYT!

[BagCamAddict]

And whether you're a Sunni or a Kurd or a Shi'ite. Big difference in your perspective. Like the difference between being a German or a Jew in WW2 Germany. Plus, if you have propaganda shoved in your face, 24/7, for 30 years, and NO outside information that contradicts that propaganda, you have no reason to believe anything different.

The earth was flat for a long time, despite scientific proof and eye witnesses to the fact that it was round. Many people would refuse to believe something as silly as a round earth, after all, everyone knows it is flat.

All Iraqi Sunnis know that Saddam was a good man, right?

[Imal]

With a MILLION people dead, how could the small nation of Iraq not know. My guess is that the person in the article chose not to know; just like 50% of Americans chose not to know that Clinton and Gore were frauds.

This assertion may be far more poignant than any of us know.

We must never underestimate the incredible power that we human beings have to deceive ourselves.

[LouD]

I feel deceived

Yeah, right. That's what the Germans said when Patton marched them through Dachau.

[the_Watchman]

I agree. And at the risk of having to don an asbestos suit, this seems a fitting occasion to call to mind that one of the most prominent voices raised in 1989-1990 against normalization of contacts with China in the wake of the Tianmen Square massacre was none other than Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

I'm not sure what happened in the meantime.

May I suggest, totally off the wall, that she recognized the economic advantages of normalization with China and did not want these advantages to occur under a Republican president? This cynical guess could be bolstered if we could determine when she changed her tune.

[tomahawk]

Tom Daschle: "I'm deeply saddened [that this has been discovered]."

[jwh_Denver]

I was surprised to read this in the traditionally very liberal San Francisco Chronicle, on the front page no less.

And this was smelling the roses compared to what I've read elsewhere about atrocities orchestrated or done by Saddam.

[Bubba_Leroy]

May I suggest, totally off the wall, that she recognized the economic advantages of normalization with China and did not want these advantages to occur under a Republican president?

I'll bet all those campaign contributions that China sent to the DNC had something to do with it too. And to think, all that the Chinese wanted in return was a few nuclear secrets.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘general interest’ ping list.

[sweetliberty]

"On an average day we see six or seven mass graves. New ones,"

Good Lord have mercy! Amazing that WE don't even hear much of this. Seems Fox has become too obsessed with Laci to be very concerned and the others, well, they are all just doing what they've been doing all along, promoting the socialist agenda.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Thanaa al Taee, 34, an arts critic and a ceramics teacher who is now completing her fourth master's degree...struggled to remember what she has heard about the notorious site of a 1988 chemical attack on the Iraqi Kurds, which killed about 5,000 people. When she finally replies, there is a note of uncertainty in her voice...so much education, so little intelligence - much like the big-talking, do-nothing academics in this country......

[sweetliberty]

"We must never underestimate the incredible power that we human beings have to deceive ourselves."

Self-deception can function as an effective coping mechanism in the face of circumstances one feels powerless to change.

[Fiddlstix]

Tom Daschle: "I'm deeply saddened [that this has been discovered]."

ROFL
Well Said!

[SkyPilot]

It sounds like German citizens who told Patton's Army they had absolutely no idea, NO IDEA! that there were death camps!

[Doctor Raoul]

In a sign of the changing times, street vendors sell for $3 apiece bootleg CD-ROMs featuring video recordings of Hussein's executions of his political opponents and relatives fallen from grace.

I'll by one each for that fat Dixie Chick, Sean Penn, Mike Farrell, Ed Asner, Babs Streisand, Michael Moore and one each for the cast of West Wing.

And if I thought Maureen Dowd would take her head out of Aaron Sorkin's lap for even a second, I'd buy her one too.

[ladyinred]

How horrifying!
Hope all of the freaks who think we should have left this evil regime in power feel good about this.

[Political Junkie Too]

Iraqi denial will prevent the masses from appreciating the meaning of this.

-PJ

[Peter Libra]

All is well with that good man, GWB. If that is not proof what is?

[Brad's Gramma]

Bttt

[skr]

"How horrifying!
Hope all of the freaks who think we should have left this evil regime in power feel good about this."

I suspect they'll say something like, 'Oh, he was a terrible man and we're glad he's gone, but Bush killed a lot of Iraqis, too.'

[MarMema]

Thanks for posting this. Horrifying stuff. God bless our troops and president for doing in this regime.

[cricket]

"Eventually GWB will be recognized as nothing less than heroic to have gone against much world opinion to thwart Saddam."

. . .what is critical here is that the truth be recognized; not compromised, not altered by own revisionists aka Liberals or those from around the world attempting to define 'world think' by their rewrites and 'interpretations'. . .

It is an ongoing battle, never-ending it seems, against the tyranny of lies and against those who choose to ignore real evil.

[Boot Hill]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:   Bouckaert estimates that about 290,000 people have disappeared in Iraq throughout Hussein's rule."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:   the Committee for Free Prisoners claims it has execution records of 8 million Iraqis ."

Let's see, according to the article Hussein's Baath Party seized power in 1968, so if we take the geometric average of those two death estimates, we get about 1.5 million total killings spread over 35 years, or about approximately 119 killings per day, or about one every 12 minutes. Even taking Bouckaert's much lower estimate, that's still one every hour, 24/7 for 35 years.

My, my, busy little buggers, weren't they?

--Boot

[lavaroise]

I don't believe a single creepy assertion there. Who can say they or they did not realize it off hand? This data comes from brains in denial, they are assumptions, not hard datas.

Maybe the knowledge was psychologicaly repressed, but it was there. GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK LIBERAL MURDERERS!

[lavaroise]

The combination of Hussein's brutal security police and his totalitarian propaganda machine sufficiently silenced any dissent from reaching ordinary people.

I don't believe a single creepy assertion there. Who can say they or they did not realize it off hand? This data comes from brains in denial, they are assumptions, not hard datas.

Maybe the knowledge was psychologicaly repressed, but it was there. GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK LIBERAL MURDERERS!

[backhoe]

-When the Dungeon Doors Swing Open...--

[lentulusgracchus]

And to think, all that the Chinese wanted in return was a few several critical nuclear secrets necessary to any future attack on the United States, plus the ability to build modern commercial aircraft and drive Boeing out of the civil aviation market.

How 'bout that -- that a little more like it?

[lentulusgracchus]

Eventually GWB will be recognized as nothing less than heroic to have gone against much world opinion to thwart Saddam.

I'd put it more bluntly. If he never does another thing right, at least he has soiled his boots with the blood of tyrants. I hope I never live in a country in which the name of tyrannicide is no longer fragrant in the nostrils of the people and their historians.

And now, Mr. Arbusto, if you please....get on out there into the Iraqi boondocks, and go get Saddam. He has a command bunker out there somewhere and big ideas of running an insurgency against us. I want to see his lifeless body being dragged down the main street in Baghdad -- or maybe Kirkuk -- behind an armored vehicle.

[SixFive175]

It's easy to deny. If the Libs can deny, or brush aside, Stalin's 25 Million deaths, Mao's 30 Million deaths, etc. what's a paltry few thousand by Saddam?

Besides, think of the harsh conditions those poor Taliban are getting down at Guantanamo!

And the injustice of knowing some U.S. prisoners here, don't have Cable TV or Central Air!

These are things far, FAR worse, don'tcha-know.

[angkor]

Bush has done nothing less than take a first giant step toward make the world a more civilized place.

N. Korea, Iran, Syria, "Palestine", Saudi.

There's a lot more work to do.

[George W. Bush]

The Dims and Old Europe may whine over the WMD justification for the war for a long time but I don't think we'll be hearing those complaints from the Iraqis themselves. Who will mourn the demise of such a brutal killer except his accomplices?

[sam_paine]

For example, the Committee for Free Prisoners claims it has execution records of 8 million Iraqis -- an incredible number for a country with a total population of about 22 million.

But maybe not so incredible for a country of 22+8=30 million????

[Joe Driscoll]

Now who's on American Idol this week?

If you were a true liberal, you would already know this.

[samtheman]

Volunteers have dug up crumbling remains of about 10,000 people in mass graves across southern Iraq, said Bouckaert, of Human Rights Watch. "On an average day we see six or seven mass graves. New ones," said Bouckaert, who has been working in Iraq for more than a month.

Haven't yet found the Weapons of Mass Destruction (but we will). Certainly are finding plenty of Graves of the Mass Destroyed.

[Tijeras_Slim]

8 million.

If true, thats nearly 30% of the population. Only the Khmer Rouge exceeds that. Another atrocity the liberals managed to ignore.

[blackdog]

Busted......

Oddly enough though, where I live there are a lot of people who think in such a warped track.

If Bush were president during WWII, the Japanese would just be misunderstood who were dynamiting fish in the pacific, and the Germans(specifically Hitler and the SS) would have been an alternative view that carried a voice of change for the better in Europe. It would have further been explained that Hitler only invaded Poland after being a guarantor not to only because he was convinced Bush was turning the corner on making the Polish people carry their babies full term.

Liberals are the most intellectually dishonest, bitter, amoral enablers of all that is inhuman immaginable. I used to respect certain members of the liberal community. Bradley, Moynihan, Casey(the senior), and those of similar cloth. The pack of feral dogs they ran with turned on them and feasted on their marrow. Damn sad.