Blog 88

atched an interesting television program about Saddam Hussein last night, Iraq’s once long standing President. No wonder he was whipped to submission; he deserved it. But what I found mindboggling was just how evil this ruler really was to his people!

He would suppress them to fear and distrust to one another. How did he do it – actually quite simply by using pressure techniques that scarred the pants out of everyone? Before he became President he had already started a security business, and became an interrogator and torturer for the Baath Party, a socialist political group committed to Arab nationalism. His methods inspired trust. He was a man who got results. He would get people to spy on each other and report back to him via his secret police. He eventually worked his way up to become the President in 1979.
                                                                                                                                                                       Another 24 years of terror were to follow. Anybody who even suggested reform was in trouble. People were scarred to talk in their own home for fear of a family member giving information away that could incite punishment. It was common to receive beatings publicized on television. Saddam Hussein would use it to curb others from contemplating up rise to threaten his position. He treated all who exchanged words even if they were to improve the political system - everyone was frightened. He was a tyrant many compared to Adolf Hitler or Stalin.

After the eight years war against Iran he had exhausted his finances, borrowed a total of eighty billion dollars to fund the war, and one such lender, Kuwait, who lent 14 billion was being accused of stealing Iraq's oil through slant drilling. Reagan’s administration even gave $40 billion to him. He set to war against Kuwait in 1990, which led to the beginning of the Persian Gulf War in January 1991. He lost ashamedly, but due to the United Nations decision to pull out maintained his ruthless regime in the region.

It was only after the 9/11 bombing he was pressurized by the West to stand down from his nuclear weapon activities, but due to not wanting to appear weak to his people he skipped denying close inspections. Most people are today aware that there was no arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and many criticize Bush for ordering the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but what people don’t seem to realize is George Bush realized a dictator like Saddam Hussein should have been ousted immediately following the Gulf War.

George Bush may not have left government with a clean slate of economic spending, but he played an important role in representing world evolution. No one can deny it!