Third Commemoration of Martyr Saddam Hussein
California
On January 1, 2010, I and a few dozen
friends commemorated the life of President Saddam Hussein, who was murdered
three years ago by the U.S., Iraqi stooges, and Iranian-backed death squads.
This was our third commemoration. We always meet on January 1 of each year,
instead of the actual date of Saddam’s assassination, because it is a national
holiday in the U.S. and most people don’t have to go to work.
This year’s event was, as last
year’s, held at my house. It was the most-attended of any of our commemorations.
More than 40 people participated. The group was diverse. About a third of them
were female. The ages of those assembled were from 21 to 92. There were
Rastafarians, Guyanese, Portuguese, Iraqis, Colombians, Mexicans, Canadians and
US citizens. They came from all walks of life: professors, cement truck drivers,
school teachers, linguists, professional wrestlers, restaurant workers,
publishers, and retired people, among others.
Normally, we have a party that mostly
consists of a short discussion about Saddam and everyone states a few words.
Then, they feast on the great food that took my wife and mother-in-law two days
to make. This meeting was different. The discussion lasted for over three hours.
Five hours after the celebration began, there were still a half dozen people at
my house discussing the legacy of Saddam Hussein.
I asked a few people who live in
other parts of the U.S. or in foreign countries, to send me messages about their
thoughts of Saddam. Some had even worked with him over the years. Most are
people who never met Saddam, but realize his achievements, despite the lies and
propaganda thrust on him over the years. Below are the statements sent to me.
Some are brief and others are quite long. But, they all show their admiration
for Saddam Hussein and his accomplishments. I read them to the people and all
were impressed and learned a little more about Iraq’s great president.
Jeff Archer
January 1, 2010
Frank Morrow:
One of the World’s Best Political Analysts and Producer for 29 Years of the TV
Program "Alternative Views"
Saddam Hussein was one of the great
leaders of the past several decades. This statement may shock people who have
only supped at the table of Western propaganda, but his accomplishments at
bringing a small Third World country into a full-fledged, modern country should
rank with the best in modern history. His efforts in establishing a peaceful,
secular state in a country with potentially explosive religious divisions and
ethnic diversity were masterful. Saddam's integrating people from all religious
groups and the Kurds into the government and military seems to have been almost
miraculous. Under his direction education and culture flourished. His generosity
toward his Arab neighbors, both as countries and as individuals, is a beacon
toward which other Middle-Eastern countries should follow.
The stature of this giant is in
direct, obverse relationship to the lies that the Western governments and media
had to constantly tell in an attempt to hide the true nature of Saddam's Iraq.
Husayn al-Kurdi:
President of News International and an Expert on Arab Nation, Leaders, and
People:
This is the third anniversary of the
martyrdom of Iraq President Saddam Hussein. It is an occasion to reflect on his
qualities and qualifications as the greatest of Arab resisters and the most
unwavering champion of the Arab nation. We may do so by citing authoritative and
eloquent Islamic, Arab and even American sources, as well as the words of the
man himself, as he addressed Americans and his fellow Iraqis from captivity and
as he faced his martyrdom.
We will begin with the Editor of the Islamic "New Trend", Dr. Kaukab Siddique,
who outlined and summarized Saddam's heroic struggle in the following terms:
"Under the most
severe sanctions and embargo in the history of modern times, he kept the Iraqi
people united and refused to surrender Iraq's sovereignty...
"Saddam knew that the U.S. had decided to attack Iraq with overwhelming military
force but he refused to surrender. Russia offered him a chance to spend the rest
of his life in luxury in a dacha in the Crimea but he refused.
"Owing to Saddam's persistent support for the Palestinian people and for
martyrdom operations against Israel, every Zionist Jew in America, from
professor to politician, raised a storm of dirty propaganda against him. It was
evident that International Jewry would destroy Iraq.
"The choice before Saddam was to die like a lion or live like a jackal. He
decided to die like a lion.
"Famed U.S. novelist (Tom) Clancy, closely connected to the military
establishment, revealed that the U.S. tried to kill Saddam 33 times during the
sanctions decade before the war.
"When the massive bombardment of Baghdad known as 'Shock and Awe' began, the
primary target was Saddam. A superpower was trying to kill the President of a
sovereign nation. Saddam decided to go down fighting.
"When the U.S. actually captured Baghdad and occupied Iraq with 135,000
heavily-armed troops with tremendous firepower, Saddam went underground and
continued to lead the Resistance. The President had become the Mujahedeen, a
first in modern Arab history! Saddam's sons and his grandson went down fighting
against the occupation forces.
"After nearly nine months of fighting, the Americans captured Saddam. Among his
meager possessions was a little notebook in which he kept account of every
dollar he spent in the Jihad. Such was his honesty.
"During the show trial which was held to 'convict' the mujahid President, it
became apparent that the charges against him were bogus. His attorneys were
terrorized and the witnesses against him remained concealed. He stood strong
throughout the trial, constantly seeking inspiration from the Qur'an and urging
the Iraqi people to resist the occupation.
"Finally the U.S. arrived at its pre-determined plan to execute Saddam. This
execution on 'Eid day was a slap in the face of the entire Islamic world.
"Saddam went to his martyrdom with a demeanor which was so calm, spiritual and
full of the light of faith in Allah that people could see what a martyr is like:
unafraid, focused on the honor of Iraq and the Arab and Muslim people and
admonishing his Shi'ite executioners about their shameful behavior as agents of
America."
Saddam's martyrdom inspired Layla Anwar, author of the blog-site "Arab Woman
Blues" to address him as in these terms:
"Forgive me, Sir, I
am not a very sophisticated woman. I speak a simple language, the language of
the heart. No one hardly ever recognizes this dialect these days. But I have a
feeling that, despite all your alleged hardness, You would.
"You know, my Dad before passing away said to me a few sentences that have
remained with me since. He said 'My daughter, many things will come to pass in
this life. You will face many trials and many errors. One thing you need to be
certain of, though, don't ever lose your integrity or your dignity. The day you
sell those, you will have sold your soul, and all is downhill from there.
"Sir, I am proud that you have not sold either. In that, you have helped us
preserve our own intact. As for the rest, don't worry about them. They will end
up cited as thugs, profiteering, sectarian, opportunistic hypocrites.
" What pains me most is that they succeeded in massacring yet another True
Iraqi, a True Iraqi among many thousands. And that is what you are."
Saddam addressed the American people
directly from his captivity in a handwritten letter dated July 7th, 2006, less
than six months before his martyrdom:
"People of America,
I address you neither from weakness nor as a supplicant. I, my people, my
brothers, comrades, my nation, we address you on the basis of our moral and
human responsibility. I tell you that officials whom you know, and first among
them your President lied to you and deceived you and tricked you, using the
media that portrayed Iraq to you as incorrigible and Saddam Hussein as a hateful
dictator, and that his people hate him and are just waiting for their chance to
get at him. Some of them just wallowed in lying falsehood to the point that they
openly declared that the Iraqis would meet the invading armies with roses and
celebration.
"I know that lots of people don't do a lot of analysis; they don't have the time
or the ability or the desire to do careful assessments when presented with
falsified news so as to uncover the truth. The American people had no chance to
inquire, for example, why, if the people of Iraq hate Saddam Hussein, how he
managed to defeat the Iran of Khomeini after eight years in the aggressive war
that Iran sought to impose on us under the slogan of exporting the revolution
beginning with Iraq? People of America, the victory over Khomeini's Iran was not
due to the short length of the war, but came only after eight years of grinding
warfare in which tens of thousands fell, hundreds of thousands on the Iranian
side.
"If Saddam Hussein were a dictator, why did he establish a parliament with
elections for the first time in the year 1980 during wartime, when there had
been no parliament in Iraq since 1958? If he and his government were dictators,
how could he visit schools, universities, towns and villages and spend the night
with the people wherever the sun went down? How could he travel around and lead
at he battle front during the day, even in the trenches in the front lines on
the battlefield among the Muslim soldiers?
"Yes, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, your government deceived you, and you, or
rather most of you, had no chance to inquire of themselves or of others in order
to discover the truth because the Zionists in the lobby who advocated the war
together with some of the centers of power were deceiving you and tricking you,
hiding from your eyes the real truth, exchanging the facts for falsified and
slanted information. Last but not least in this regard, if Saddam Hussein were a
dictator hated and despised by his people, how is it that his people endured him
and why was he chosen President by referendum?
"People of America, the misfortunes that have afflicted you and afflicted our
Arab Nation and within it our heroic Iraqi people, including the breakdown of
America's standing and reputation, were only caused by the reckless behavior of
your government and by pressure from Zionism and power centers that influenced
your government to commit those crimes and scandalous actions for specific ends
that have nothing to do with the interests of the American people. The massacres
and the blood flows in the streets and countryside of Iraq in torrents and the
responsibility for that falls on America before all others. You know, or rather
you have now come to learn, that neither the stooges whom the Americans brought
in on board their aircraft or as shamefaced presents aboard their tanks, nor
Iran, which pushed and still pushes forward those who support it and whom they
support, would be able to cause the bloodshed or the destruction of the honor
and the
property of our people and our state had not America undertaken the aggression
and invasion and issued the orders, It is still issuing orders in the Green
Zone. Therefore America bears the burden of all those crimes and outrages. So,
will you put an end to what is going on by using the methods of direct truth
without evasion and digression, or will you invite the machine of death to
continue to eat away at the flesh of Iraqis and the flesh of Americans without
doing anything to resolve this?"
Jeff Archer, President of the
Palestine Iraq Committee, distinguished American writer and investigative
journalist and author of the incomparable "The Mother of All Battles", the
authoritative book on the U.S. war against Iraq, brought out many little-known
facts about Saddam's Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party-led government and its
accomplishments in the face of the obstacles imposed by Imperialist and Zionist
assaults. Besides the monumental advances in education, literacy, medicine,
housing, women's rights and the welfare of children and the elderly, Archer
noted:
"Many western
observers are not aware that Saddam Hussein was well-regarded in much of the
world. Brazilians remember that thousands of their countrymen were recruited by
Saddam to build the advanced highway and bridge systems that once crisscrossed
Iraq. Egyptians did not forget that two million of their countrymen owned and
worked land in Iraq prior to January 1991.
"The Lebanese remembered the dozens of Iraqi trucks that showed up daily at the
Lebanese border during that country's civil war. They were laden with food and
clothing for any Lebanese person in need. The convoys' recipients included all
Lebanese, not just certain factions of those battling in the civil war. Most
Palestinians display a picture of Saddam Hussein on their walls. Over the years,
many nations have temporarily supported the Palestinian cause, only to withdraw
aid once threatened by the U.S. Saddam Hussein, even during the embargo years,
supported the Palestinians with no exception, while other Arab regimes did not
want to get involved because they did not want to upset their puppeteers in
Washington and Tel Aviv."
In his Final Will, dated 26 December
2006, four days before his execution, Saddam displayed his magnanimity and his
steely resolve and commitment to Iraq and the pursuit of social justice and
liberation. Speaking to the Iraqi people, he exhorted them in the following
fashion:
"The enemies of
your country, whether they are invaders or Persians, found that (your) unity
prevented them from enslaving you. Thus they drove their old-new wedge in the
midst of you and the foreigners with Iraqi nationality responded; the hearts of
these foreigners were wither already full of hatred or the envious in Iran
filled them with hatred.
"They thought (that) they would vanquish you through sowing division between you
and the true sons of the people in order to weaken the will and turn the sons of
the country against each other rather than turn them against the real enemies.
In order to confront the real enemies, we all have to pull together, even if we
act under different banners...
"Brothers, mujahideen and fighters, I call on you to do this, and to abandon
malice, because malice does not leave the one who harbors it any chance to be
fair and just, and because it closes the minds. Malice takes the one who harbors
it away from balanced thinking, correct choices, avoiding what is wrong, and
prevents him from seeing the changes in the minds of those he thinks to be
enemies, especially the delinquent ones who repent and go back to the true path,
the path of the true people and the glorious nation.
"Brothers and sisters, my sons and sons of Iraq, comrade strugglers, I call on
you not to hate the peoples of the countries that have committed aggression on
us. I call on you to distinguish between the decision-makers and the people.
Hate only the deed. Even if someone's deeds deserve to be fought, do not hate
him as a human being. Do not hate the individuals who do evil, hate only the
evil deed itself, and repel that evil as it deserves."
Layla Anwar
summarizes the purport of Saddam's life, struggle and martyrdom as he approached
the hour of supreme sacrifice:
"They say you were
authoritarian and totalitarian. Come and see them now. See their fascism
infesting the streets. See it in every neighborhood, see it in every corner. You
said Women are the pioneers of this Arab Ummah, come and look at us now. Rape
has replaced sexual intercourse, censorship has replaced education and forced
domestication has replaced public life.
"You said Education is the sign of a Progressive Ummah. Our schools and
universities are empty, and our brains drained and killed. You said Health is
Free for all. Our hospitals are dilapidated and our doctors in exile. You said
Kurds are our brothers, they are now trained as snipers by Israel. You said
Christians and Muslims are part of this mosaic called Iraq. The Christians are
fleeing by the thousands and the churches are deserted.
"Look at me Sir. I am a product of this wonderful mosaic called Iraq. I am half
Muslim and half Christian, and the Muslim half has Shi'as and if you dig hard
enough you will find Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish, Chaldean, Arabic roots all the
way back...
"Where is my place now Sir? You are about to find your place soon, like a bird
flying to nest into the arms of the sky, while I am left behind waiting my turn,
and in the meantime searching, desperately searching for a place to rest my
tired head, and finding none.
"Sir, I heard they will execute You within 36 hours, in time for the 'Eid, our
sacrificial feast. You did say you are willing to be sacrificed for Iraq. You
still believe they are worth it. I envy your Faith. May you go in Peace now, my
True Iraqi."
Such a one as Saddam Hussein will
never die. He will always live in the hearts and souls of the honest, suffering,
dispossessed people, wherever people face slavery and oppression and whenever
they fight for justice and dignity. He will abide forever, long after the
Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and the predatory denizens of Congress, the Pentagon,
the CIA, the State Department and Wall Street have gone to the final and lasting
hell which they deserve, long after the exploiters and oppressors and their
minions have rotted into oblivion.
Saddam Hussein will remain and endure as a shining light, an immortal in the
pantheon of the truly great, a testament and an example to all that we could be,
should be and need to be if we indeed seek to better ourselves and our world.
Ali Baghdadi:
Publisher of Arab Journal:
I wish I could be with you in person.
I must tell you that I hesitated a great deal in participating in this year’s
commemoration to the death of Saddam Hussein, who is still the legitimate leader
of Iraq, whom I hugged and kissed more than once. There is nothing that I can
say or add that gives the man what he truly deserves. Had Saddam capitulated and
yielded to the demands of George W. Bush and his gang, had he surrendered his
country’s resources to U.S. multinational corporations, had he accepted the
illegitimate existence of the Israeli settler state, Saddam Hussein, like
Mubarak of Egypt and Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, would have continued to be the
only and the undisputed leader of Iraq.
Saddam insisted to see Iraq free. He
insisted to have all Iraqis enjoy the wealth of their lands. In a savage world
dominated by barbaric powers that suck the blood of developing nations and have
no regard to democracy and human rights, this behavior is not acceptable. It is
a crime punishable by death. Saddam was greater in captivity and death than when
he was free and alive, with the intent, determination and potentials to free
every Arab from the humiliation of defeat, occupation and subjugation to foreign
powers. He is a "Jesus" that we were able to hear, talk to, see and touch. He
chose to stand on the cross with his head high while his executioners stood by
trembling. He died for our salvation as Arabs and as Muslims. He is real not
mythical. Despite the heavy iron weight tied to his feet and the chains around
his hands, he walked with dignity and pride. Even those mislead Iraqis who had
opposed him while he was alive, today regret their former stand. Today they
recognize his sacrifices, value and greatness. They yearn for the return of the
good old days when Iraqis were united as one people regardless of their
nationality, religion or faction. They all enjoyed security, peace and harmony.
They all had plenty of food to eat, clothes to wear, free and highly advanced
education and health services, even during the ugliest thirteen years of
economic sanctions imposed by Washington. Above all, Iraqis were proud and free
as a people. Even Iranian officials who fought him for eight years finally
realized and admitted that Iraq under Saddam had been better off than Iraq of
today ruled by thugs who entered the country behind American tanks.
Saddam is physically and peacefully
resting in his grave in Takrit, his beloved hometown. However, his spirit is
alive. He is present among all freedom fighters. We have seen him in action. He
leads the resistance to occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. Recently,
he has started to appear in Yemen, north and south, fighting the Saudis who are
waging a criminal war on behalf of their American masters. A year ago, billions
of people worldwide have witnessed him repulsing Israeli savage air, sea and
land attack on Gaza. Israeli leaders were obliged to admit that their army, the
fourth military power in the world, which is equipped with the U.S. most
destructive military arsenal, was defeated.
Saddam lives not only among Arabs and
Muslims. He lives in the minds and hearts of all oppressed, as well as all
freedom loving people around the globe, including this gathering. As long as
there is injustice, oppression and wars of greed, Saddam will be alive and well.
Saddam will be everywhere, and the mother of all battles will not be ending.
Salah Al-Mukhtar:
Former Iraqi Ambassador to India and Vietnam
Greetings Comrades and Friends
I would like to seize this
opportunity of the anniversary of the assassination of the martyr leader Saddam
Hussein to greet you on behalf of Iraq, its people and their valiant resistance,
assuring you that the people of Iraq are determined to defeat the invasion the
U.S. and Iran to Iraq.
In the seventh year of the invasion
of Iraq crystallized some great truths it is very necessary to refer to:
1- The Invasion of Iraq has turned
into a U.S. domestic nightmare, manifested by the serious financial crisis; some
U.S. sources estimated the costs of the war on Iraq between 3 and 4 trillion
dollars. Public debt reached $ 12 trillion, a staggering figure, and wounding
many thousands of Americans with physical and psychological disabilities .
2- We have seen the end of the
welfare society in America, and America entered the process of decay and
deterioration, rapidly and dangerously, to the extent that some U.S. states
called for secession from America .
3- The economic crisis in America
coincided with the success of the Iraqi resistance in the prevention of American
control of the oil industry and turn it into an investment. If we remember that
one of the most important strategic goals of the invasion of Iraq was the
control Iraq's oil and invest it , we realize that the lack of stability and
security, which are the most important conditions for successful investments, we
understand the failure of a plan to control Iraq's oil. The investment does not
mean to steal oil from Iraq, but to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry and turn Iraq
into the primary source of oil in the world, and put Iraqi oil under U.S.
control, in full. Iraqi resistance prevented safe control of the U.S. to the
oil, thanks to the armed operations that made stability in Iraq impossible.
4- It is important to be aware that
the Iraqi resistance has broken the political process, because the USA wanted to
build a political system, stable and strong, to implement its plan in Iraq. The
success of the resistance in the failure of the political process has led to
fragmentation and division of political forces that have cooperated with the
occupation and loss of any hope in the success of the occupation, thus the
occupation has reached an impasse.
5- If you look at Iraq now, we are
seeing resistance has matured and become more united and determined to liberate
Iraq without any compromise with the U.S. occupation, as reflected in the
refusal of the resistance to negotiate with America, unless the U.S.
administration accepted the pre-conditions stated before , the most important is
the unconditional and complete withdrawal from Iraq, and compensation.
6- Yes, there is a change in the
working methods of resistance, but the basic equation in Iraq, stayed in favor
of resistance, the commander of U.S. forces officially admitted that the number
of the resistance operations is 700 per week, and if we accept this figure which
is much less than the true figure, one hundred operation a day is large number
not achieved by any resistance in the contemporary world.
7- Final note I wish to mention is
that the resistance now in its seventh year of the invasion: more accurate,
organized, and more intellectually consistent after shrinking the role of the
takfiris
Dear Comrades and Friends,
Let me ask the following question:
Who is the architect of this resistance and its leader? He is the martyr Saddam
Hussein, who built a resistance several years before the invasion and put
together the rules and provided them with arms and men trained about ten million
Iraqis in guerrilla warfare, although he died. But it persists because the men
who were prepared by Saddam Hussein are leading the resistance now.
The other question is: as long as the
resistance continues is Saddam Hussein really dead? Or is he alive living in the
conscience of the people and fighters in Iraq? He is alive because the
principles he lived and died for are still alive and winning in Iraq.
Layla Anwar:
Iraqi Writer Who Publishes the Heartfelt and Informational Website "Arab Woman
Blues:"
Greetings to all and my best wishes
for a new year, and for a free and united Iraq.
A Free and United Iraq, the way our hero - Saddam Hussein, taught us so. I will
not use the word -- the late Saddam Hussein - for me; Saddam Hussein is still
very much alive, even though in his physical form, he is no longer here.
For me, he is still around - very much alive, among us ; in his thoughts, his
struggles, his ideals, his courage, his bravery... all of which represent to me
the Spirit of Iraq, the Spirit of Mesopotamia, of which Saddam was a faithful
and loyal son. And the Spirit of Iraq cannot and will not die....Saddam Hussein
embodied that Spirit.
His supra intelligence, his stubbornness, his defiance, his commitment, his
devotion, his resilience, his steadfastness, his care, his pride, his honor, his
roots... are still with us today...They did not die and no one, absolutely no
one can lynch those attributes.
And a man (and a woman) live on by their attributes...
Bodies are just forms, they will go, but history records the non physical...And
Saddam Hussein will go into History books. History books that will either
denigrate him, vilify and demonize him even more and history books that will
praise and remember him as a, visionary, and as the only leader, statesman,
person and human being that met his "fate", his ultimate destiny - albeit one
devised by the powers of darkness - with so much faith, dignity, honor, nobility
and an ultimate surrender - a sure sign of a clean, clear conscience.
You see, when facing death, and I really don't want to give a sermon here, but
bear with me - facing death is the ultimate test for any human being.. And that
test is a sure indicator of a man's past, present and future...
Saddam Hussein faced his death like an unprecedented hero. I defy all those
present today, to give me one example of anyone else who faced Death in the eye
like Saddam Hussein did. No one in the history of mankind, not to my knowledge
anyways, was able to do so, except maybe for Jesus Son of Mary. But Jesus son of
Mary was no ordinary human being, he was a prophet. And Saddam Hussein was
neither a God, nor a Prophet.
When you come to think of it, deeply think of it, this is no small matter. This
is the essence of the matter, because the final minutes determine who the man
truly was and is...
Since the occupation and since his departure, the Truth does not stop emerging,
no one can stop the Truth from emerging and Saddam knew that...and he counted on
the Truth and he counted on you and I and all those who care to carry the Truth
forward...
The Truth about the conspiracy, the complicity, the lies, the cover ups, the
deceit, the fabrications, the falsifications...the Truth is slowly
emerging...The Truth has to fight it ways through, just like Saddam did...and
just like the honorable Iraqis do...Falsehood is a very thick, dense, well
armored veil...and the struggle to bring the Truth forth is exactly that - a
struggle.
A struggle that also entails a struggle against the Occupation, the Anglo
American Iranian Israeli occupation of this land...and through that struggle,
that resistance, under its various forms, of which I like to believe I am only a
tiny peg, through that -- Truth emerges and will continue to emerge breaking its
way through, like a water current, sometimes gentle and sometimes less so....
Saddam Hussein gave the ultimate sacrifice. In some western circles, he was
likened to Jesus son of Mary...He paved the way -- it is now up to you and I to
continue in the path...
Thank you for listening to me, and even though I am not with you in body, I am
still with you through my words and my thoughts.
And a special thank you to J.Archer aka Malcolm Lagauche, who yearly makes sure
that the flame of Truth never dies.
Long live Iraq, Free and Dignified and Long Live Free Palestine.
Ziad Shaker
el-Jishi: A Palestinian Activist from Texas and the Arab Coordinator of the
Palestine Iraq Committee
The occasion of the martyrdom of
president Saddam Hussein is an important yearly event for the purpose of study
and empowering reflection.
In it we take time to remember one of
the greatest of anti-imperialist revolutionary fighters of the last 100 years.
It is a time of revolutionary rejuvenation where we dedicate time to study the
great accomplishments made by president Saddam during his 70 odd years of heroic
life and for the immortal contributions that he has left behind for us.
President Saddam was an inspirational
figure and heroic martyr akin to great anti-imperialist names of the last 100
years, such as: Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jung Il, Michel
Aflaq and Jamal Adbul Nasser and the many others who dedicated their lives to
accomplish empowerment and freedom for the poor, the oppressed, and the
marginalized by the criminal acts committed by imperialism and colonialism.
President Saddam was a true Arab
nationalist revolutonary hero who adhered to the principles of the great Arab
Baath Socialist Party and served its causes faithfully for decades as he
ascended to martyrdom in 2006.
He was a true and honest student of
founding leader Michel Aflaq who created the path of Arab nationalism in the
last five decades by the establishment of the Arab Baath Socialist Party in
1947, that raised the slogans of unity, liberty, and socialism for the Arab
nation; and to which president Saddam Hussein and his comrades was an exempleray
practitoner.
For many years president Saddam
worked faithfully to service the Baath party and its evnentual victory that
resulted in it taking power in Iraq in 1963. He put his life on the line many
times and was imprisoned to enable that revolutionary victory of the party from
taking place.
He eventually took the responsibility
to lead the party and Iraq by ascending to the presidency of Iraq in 1979.
During that time the enemies of the Arab nation did not waste any time and
attacked him almost immediately. The reactionary forces of Ayatollah Kohomeini
attacked Iraq in 1980, "israel" attacked Iraq in 1981, and the eventual invasion
and destruction of Iraq by Arab reactionaries and US imperialism took place in
1990 and culminated in the invasion and destrcution of Iraq in 2003.
During this time president Saddam
never betrayed the causes of his party or nation and fought as a true lion first
developing Iraq into a modernized nation and then resisting Zionist, Iranian,
and Western imperialism fiercly and trhough armed struggle until his martyrdom
in Iraq in 2006 at the hands of his enemies who lynched him in a crime of
history gone unchalleged by general opinion and Western public opinion
especially.
What was amazing about president
Saddam and his fallen comrades-now that we reflect upon their experience- is how
they were conducting revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle when most had given
up in the after-math of the collapse of the then fallen anti-imperialist Soviet
Union in 1990 and the end fo the Nasser experience with the death of the Arab
nationalist hero Jamal Abdul Nasser.
President Saddam's last words were
long live the Arab nation and Palestine is Arab from the river to the sea. Those
were his last words after uttering the Islamic Shahadah and with that he left
us-the new generation of Arab nationalists- with an important program to follow
on.
The death of President Saddam Hussein
was a new beginning for the Arab nationalist revolutionary program in all-as he
intended for his death to be-and a new era of fierce anti-imperialist struggle
that he and his comrades ushered.
President Saddam's path is now
continued with his comrade Izzat Ibrahim AlDouri leader of the Baath party and
leader of the Iraqi resistance inflicting today a historical defeat on US
occupation forces.
What president Saddam said is now
being fulfilled. He promised to make Baghdad the city where American soldiers
will commit suicide and that Iraq will defeat America. The correctness of his
words and his vision is what we are witnessing today.
Glory all glory to the fallen martyr
president Saddam Hussein on the occasion of his martyrdom!
Ibrahim Ebeid:
Of Palestinian Heritage and Is the Co-Editor of
www.al-moharer.net
I had the honor to know President
Saddam Hussein in person. He was a true leader a gentleman and down to earth. I
have witnessed him roaming the streets of Baghdad early in the morning to find
out first hand how things really were .His visits were to working class
neighborhoods. The Iraqi media showed him inquiring about the elderly and about
their wellbeing, chatting with children and examining the kitchens to see what
the people lack. These surprised visits helped him to take the appropriate
decisions to improve the state of the people and to give an excellent example to
the people who were in charge to care and be concerned.
He had a special direct phone in his
office through which people can call him and speak directly to him about their
problems and complaints, and who was not satisfied was invited to a weekly
meeting at the palace where people were invited discuss with him their
complaints.
Iraq to him was part of the Arab
Homeland and the doors of Iraq were open to the Arab people. Millions came to
work and hundreds of thousands came to study at the Colleges and Universities of
Iraq where education was free.
The people of Iraq will remain
faithful to you Mr. President because they have known you for
long time in the battlefield of Jihad and struggle. You are their guiding light
and the force that motivates them to carry the banner of liberation until Iraq
is free.