Suffering of Ordinary Iraqi People

[pippin]

While the American media continues with their feeding frenzy regarding the capture of Sadam, ordinary Iraqi's will only continue to undergo terrible suffering. God help them all and may America be forgiven for bringing on this suffering to other humans.

After reading about the mayhem and terror I wonder how much different are things under American occupation from the regime of Sadam Hussein any way?

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4007167&pageNumber=0

[nhtfopo]

1. Probably slightly better

Since people aren't being beheaded in the streets.

[Rainbowreflect]

2. So true, much better to be shot or bombed to death.

[sistersofmercy]

3. What are you talking about? Under Saddam people were shot by

firing squad. Far fewer than you could imagine in the last ten years. The biggest sort of execution in recent years took place in 96 after a failed INC orchestrated coup attempt. Incidenttly, thousands of Iraqis were air-vacced out of Iraq and held in Guam until after the 96 election.

[starroute]

4. Ordinary Iraqis were reasonably secure under Saddam Hussein

From anything I've read, as long as you weren't an enemy of his regime, your life and property were resonably secure. The state provided a basic ration of food and health services and education. The level of crime was low, and people felt safe on the streets, even at night.

Brutal dictators don't survive for as long as he did just by being brutal. They have to convince a majority of the people that they're better off than they would be under any likely alternatives. And the majority of the Iraqi people are most definitely not better off today.

[pippin]

5. there is also the fact women are now virtual prisoners

"None of these women leave this home, even so many months after the war came to its so-called end. And Raba, a usually spunky twentysomething, is afraid even to stand in her own doorway. "Before the war we were out until 2 o'clock in the morning all the time," she says. "Now I don't even bother to put on my shoes."

Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April. They have been forced into this situation by a menacing triple threat that has emerged since the war."

The threat to women has come about due to the lawlessness and violence since the American occupation.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031229&s=sandler

[nhtfopo]

6. And women were so free and respected under Saddam

riiight.

[oldcoot]

8. Did you read the article?

The article does not defend Saddam Hussein. Indeed, it criticizes his laws regarding women and notes that Hussein's government used rape as torture. However, it does appear that women enjoyed some freedom of mobility under Hussein. For example, one of the women in the article talks about being able to go outside until 2:00 a.m. prior to the invasion.

By the way, one of the reasons that many of us opposed this war was that we did not believe Bush was sincere in liberating the Iraqi people. It looks like we were right.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. "Things are very frightening these days in Baghdad"

From Riverbend's latest entry:

Today there were pro-America demonstrations in Baghdad organized by SCIRI and there were anti-America demonstrations in Tikrit, Falloojeh, Samirreh (where 11 Iraqis were killed- CPA claim they were 'insurgents'), Baghdad, Imsayab and the biggest one was in Mosul. Thousands of students from the University of Mosul took to the streets with an anti-occupation demonstration and some of the residents joined them… the university president had to shut down the university- it was huge. I was surprised the CNN wasn't covering it. The troops broke it up by firing above the crowd and bringing in the helicopters. The demonstration in Samirreh had a similar ending, except the firing was *in* the crowd and several people were wounded severely.

The question that everyone seems to be asking is the effect it will have on the resistance/insurgence/attacks. Most people seem to think that Saddam's capture isn't going to have a big effect. Saddam's role was over since April, many of the guerilla groups and resistance parties haven't been fighting to bring him back to power and I think very few people actually feared that.

Political analysts and professors in Iraq think that Saddam's capture is going to unite resistance efforts, as one of them put it, "People are now free to fight for their country's sovereignty and not Saddam."

The rumors have been endless ever since yesterday- and they all seem to be filtering in from Tikrit. Some of the rumors include people claiming that Saddam was actually caught a week ago, but the whole thing was kept quiet. Another rumor is that some sort of nerve gas was used in a limited sort of way on the area he was hiding in. Another rumor goes on about how he was 'drugged'- something was added to his food… Others say he's being interrogated in Qatar… and on and on.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/