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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
The Age on Saddam Hussein’s judicial lengthening:
If justice was done, it wasn’t seen to be done.
Really? Could’ve sworn I saw justice being done right here. More from the Age:
The last thing the US needs is another anti-American Middle East martyr. But that was what we got yesterday.
Sydney’s Iraqis don’t seem too enraged:
Sydney’s Iraqi community erupted into celebration in Auburn the moment news broke that Saddam Hussein was dead.
Taxi driver Ayad Laftah, 37, of Yagoona, whose father and brother were killed under the dictator’s regime, burst into cries of “Allah Akbar”, waved his arms and threw sweets into the air.
Holding back tears he cried: “At last, justice for my father and brother.”
Car horns rang out across Auburn as news spread.
“I had to grow up without my father because, one day in 1981, he just disappeared,” Mr Laftah said. “The same with my brother, Jewaad. He was just 21 … To hear Saddam has been executed makes this the happiest day of my life.”
Mr Laftah has been in Australia for 16 years after arriving as a refugee.
Fairfield Heights pharmacist Abdul Hamady described yesterday as “justice day”.
Click for earlier Justice Day news.
In reality, Saddam is not a martyr to the Muslim world, rather, a martyr to the Western Left, little different than Ché Guevara. That they were both sadistic murderous bastards says a great deal about our “compassionate” Leftists.
That our supposedly “objective” Press would stoop to clumsy moral equivalencies to warn us not to celebrate the demise of the world’s most murderous tyrant since Pol Pot is especially maddening.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 30 at 01:18 PM • permalink
The Age don’t so much make arguments as string cliches together, not everyone who dies can be spun into a martyr. The prosecution and judiciary conducted themselves well, the fact that Saddam in the face of overwhleming evidence tried to discredit the trial by acting like a clown does not change that regardless of some newspapers willingness to be suckered by that propaganda trick.
The benefits of Saddams death seem pretty clear to me:
1) It removes the (surprisingly widely held) fear amoung Shias and Kurds that Saddam might come back.
2) It makes it clear to Sunni death squads that he is not coming back.
3) Should give the government enough credibility amoung the Shias to be able to seriously tackle the Shia death squads.
Martyr schmartyr. Martyrs are not the problem, since when was any of the terrorism or insurgency we’ve seen motivated by any martyr figures? It’s live people that are the problem.
By the way, Saddam’s demise makes me wonder: do school kids still play hangman? Or is that too politically incorrect these days?
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 12 30 at 01:31 PM • permalink
Forget that stuff, trainer, I want to know how much I can get on E-bay for my autographed copies of Zabibah And The King, The Impregnable Castle, and Men And A City!
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 30 at 02:42 PM • permalink
Taxi driver Ayad Laftah, 37, of Yagoona, whose father and brother were killed under the dictator’s regime, burst into cries of “Allah Akbar”, waved his arms and threw sweets into the air.
I sense a potential solution to the Palestinian conflict: Replace all their AK-47’s with candy cannons to fire into the air.
Every one of these weenies can take their “Oh no, another martyr!” crap, fold it to eight corners and insert it up their ass diagonally.
ANYTHING that happens to ANYBODY creates another ‘martyr’ for the islamists. “Abdul’s car blew the engine! He’s a victim of the Joooos!” “Hussein was killed when his bomb went off too soon! He’s a shahid!” On and bloody on.
Make enough of them ‘martyrs’, there won’t be any islamist child-killers left.
Here is one Catholic’s take on the morality of the execution, by Professor Bainbridge, a law blogger (his stuff is always interesting and usually very thought-provoking).
- And, in between MSM blowing of Saddam Mr. Saddam, some Iraqi refugees speak:
http://tinyurl.com/y643mwPosted by andycanuck on 2006 12 30 at 04:06 PM • permalink
Last night I was visiting friends in Merrylands/Granville which has a major muslim population these days, & all this noise started around 9.15pm. Thought it was fireworks but now I know it was gun fire. It sounded incredible.
Posted by ozconservative on 2006 12 30 at 04:54 PM • permalink
Taxi driver Ayad Laftah, 37, of Yagoona, whose father and brother were killed under the dictator’s regime, burst into cries of “Allah United States Akbar”..
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 12 30 at 06:10 PM • permalink
#2 Spiny, How many of us has had the fo0llowing conversation over the past few days:
Saddam will be/is hung.
“Good.”
“But he was supported by the West.”
I think it is called changing the subject or somesuch. Avoid the argument as you are talking with a lefty.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 12 30 at 06:14 PM • permalink
Saddam will be/is hung.
“Good.”
“But he was supported by the West.”
“Really? I thought he was supported by the rope.”
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 12 30 at 06:40 PM • permalink
As has been previously stated, there wasn’t a dictator that the left didn’t love. Even in Oz, the socialist shitbags (Rudd:Am not!) cry crocodile tears over his long drop.
“Australian Labor leader Kevin Rudd doubted whether Saddam’s execution will help stop the violence in Iraq. Labor questions whether the execution of Saddam Hussein will in any way reduce sectarian and political violence in Iraq, which has already brought that country to the brink of civil war,” he said in a statement.
Rudd said Saddam deserved severe punishment for his crimes against humanity, but not the death penalty. Meanwhile, Labor foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland doubted Saddam’s death will lead to an improvement in the conditions in Iraq.
“Whether his execution is going to serve any purpose in terms of the goal of bringing the conflicting sides in Iraq together is obviously doubtful,” he told Australian Associated Press. “We are doubtful that his execution will contribute to the resolution of sectarian violence plaguing Iraq,” he said. McClelland said Saddam should have been punished severely, but the death penalty was not an appropriate sentence. He said Saddam should have been sentenced to life in jail instead.”
Life in jail, huh? Regrets, the ALP have a few, then again, too many to mention…
But he was supported by the West.
And the Soviet Union was supported by streams of visiting Western intellectuals in the 20’s and 30’s as a utopia, so should we put the Iron Curtain back up?
Martyrs are not the problem, since when was any of the terrorism or insurgency we’ve seen motivated by any martyr figures?
Since around about the time fast food restaurants caused people to get fat and poker machines caused people to gamble, presumably.
Crappy image quality… it’s a cellphone cam.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 30 at 07:34 PM • permalink
>But he was supported by the West.
And the East too. There is a reason Iraqi troops used AK 47s and drive T-55 instead of M-16s and M-60s. Lots of fols were tyring to get Iraq on their side. The French sold them a nuclear reactor for God’s sake. Most of Iraq’s arms were sold by the USSR, China, France, and Germany—the US was actually only a small arms supplier. Most US assistance was providing intelligence and satelite phots of Iranian positions during the war.
And if we did support him such that we are also guilty of his crimes, didn’t that make it more imperative from a moral perspective that we undo that wrong and get rid of him?
We supported both Iraq and Iran in that war, in so much as we made sure neither side won.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 12 30 at 07:58 PM • permalink
- #27
But he was supported by the West.
The “But we supplied him with those chemical weapons.” accusation really pisses me off. Supplying Saddass with NBCD expertise maybe well be the other side of the chemical coin, but it was as much to do with gaining access to soviet offensive capabilities as putting the brakes on the islamic revolution. At the time, the financial incentives of such a consultantcy contract for a soon to be ex-naval officer (very junior) were astounding, but wiser counsel prevailled.
I just thought up a little song to celebrate the passing of the Left’s favourite genocidal dictator. The tune is from Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat;
There’s one less butcher in Baghdad
There’s one less Scud in the sky
Saddam we’ll never forget you
It’s tough but we’re going to get by.Posted by The Mongrel on 2006 12 30 at 09:25 PM • permalink
185600 – you’ll be pleased to know that the children of Five Dock were in the park yesterday letting off fireworks just after 2pm.
Just around the corner from where grate321@yahoo.com lives.
Unfortunately his house is too far back from the park to hit with your average rocket.
Posted by mr creosote on 2006 12 30 at 09:35 PM • permalink
It’s a bit of a worry, though, when one bloodythirsty murderous shit gets executed by the followers of yet another bloodythirsty murderous shit.
What were two followers of Moktada doing in that supposedly secure room, presumably as officers of the Iraqi National Police? I’ve seen no reports of their being dragged off and interrogated as to the whereabouts of their boss. They clearly felt secure enough, amidst key figures of the Iraqi judiciary and other VIPs, to proclaim their allegiance to a terrorist.
The more we can make martyrs of our enemies, the better
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 12 31 at 12:17 AM • permalink
The more we can make martyrs of our enemies, the better
Yup. A dead martyr is still dead.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 12 31 at 12:38 AM • permalink
We need a t-shirt with Che on it, encircled in red with the red line through it. Next to it, a picture of Saddam, same red circle and line.
Captioned: Taking out the Trash, One Terrorist at a Time!
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 12 31 at 01:34 AM • permalink
- Can;t believe the comments over at the Beeb’s (don’t dare) have your say!
“No one has the right to take the life of another, regardless of what they have done.”
Recommended by 105 people“As a Middle East specialist I view this action as a judgement by the people and governmant of Iraq.”
Recommended by 25 peoplelooks like the “tookie was a gentle teddy bear mob are out in force”
WOW! the BBC brain washing Does work does it not?
Why was’nt he tried at the Hague!!
hello , is Iraq a sovereign state allowed to practice its own Laws? Only when they are Anti American of course.
If we let them live, they become “symbols of resistance”. If we kill them, they become “martyrs”. So, on the whole we might as well kill them all. QED.
Posted by Hucklebuck on 2006 12 31 at 11:30 AM • permalink
They were cheering in Dearborn, Michigan last night too. (I haven’t picked up any local rags yet to see if Canada’s ex-Iraqis are cheering too; apparently Montreal has a large community of them.)