What is Digg?Sponsored by Dragon Age: Origins
Can't get enough Dragon Age: Origins? Check out new footage. view!
DragonAge.BioWare.com - EA presents BioWare's new dark fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. '9/10' from Game Informer.
96 Comments
- Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -11/+35Whatever else he might have done in his life, Saddam Hussein died like a ***** man. I doubt anyone in our government would go to the gallows with as much calm and dignity as he did.
I can picture Paul Wolfowitz especially kicking and blubbering like an infant. - Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -2/+21Ok, this is gonna be long.
When I was in college in Portland, OR in 1998 I found out the guy who ran the 7-11 closest to my house was a Kurd from northern Iraq. I asked if I could interview him for a class, and he agreed. I thought I would get some real juicy horror stories about repression, torture, murder, etc. What I found out though surprised and kind of disappointed me.
The guy didn't have very many bad things to say about Iraq. Instead, he told me about how well Iraq treated the Kurds (as opposed to the Turks, whom he hated.)
-In Iraq Kurds were pretty much autonomous. They were allowed to not only speak Kurdish (which you can get in trouble for doing in Turkey,) but Saddam's government set up Kurdish TV stations, schools, public offices, etc. You could even get a college degree in an all-Kurdish university. All courtesy of Saddam's government.
-Iraq reinvested more of its oil wealth in public infrastructure than any other country in the Middle East. Electricity, water, telephones, roads, you name it.
-Saddam probably did not "gas his own people." The incident that the media always talks about happened during the Iran-Iraq war. The Kurds in the north (some of them) switched sides a few times during the course of the war. No one knows which side did the gassing, but the Kurds in question used an agent called cyanogen chloride, which Iran was known to have but which Iraq was not. Iraq uses plain old mustard gas.
-Iraq had a very good reason for invading Kuwait (his words.) The Kuwaitis were slant-drilling underneath the Iraqi border and stealing their oil, and ignored several demands to stop.
-The prisons, however, were very real.
Not a saint, but not quite a "megalomaniac oil rich dictator" either. Saddam was one of the most progressive and responsible leaders in the middle east, as far as that goes.
Reality is often very different from the comic book version that plays across CNN. - drunkentoad, on 03/28/2008, -5/+19Wow, I know he was a really bad dude, but this kinda makes me feel sorry for him.
. . . . the power of words huh - waspbr, on 03/28/2008, -6/+16so is bush
- Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -4/+13Also Saddam is only responsible for the deaths of "hundreds of thousands" if you count all the casualties on BOTH sides of the Iran/Iraq war.
Not saying he was a super nice guy, but I don't think he quite earned the reputation of Hitleresque madman. - Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -6/+12I started reading one of his books, Zabiba and the King.
http://www.amazon.com/Zabiba-King-Saddam-Hussein/d ...
He was a gifted writer, I'm really enjoying it. - Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -1/+7Sorry, dead link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein%27s_no ...
http://www.ebookmall.com/ebook/144942-ebook.htm - inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+5Quoting from his poetry book:
"Dear Diary:
Mood: Apathetic.
My life is spiraling downward.
I couldn't get enough money to go to the
Blood Red Romance and Suffocate me dry concert.
It sucks 'cause they play some of my favorite songs
like "Stab My Heart Because I Love You" and
"Rip Apart My Soul" and of course,
"Stabby Rip Stab Stab." " - inactive, on 03/28/2008, -8/+13I would like to see the last days of the 4001 soldiers who have died in Iraq. I don't give a ***** about a megalomaniac oil rich dictator that the Vice President doesnt like.
- realdeal1115, on 09/01/2008, -0/+5Wow! Digg users defending a monster and comparing him with our President... No surprise I guess.
- waspbr, on 03/28/2008, -6/+11no dude a fag is a man screwing another man. planting a garden is a quiet pass-time/ hobbie...If the first thing that pops in your mind when you hear someone was planting a garden is homosexuality then that says a lot about how secure you are about your gender
- crocodilexp, on 03/28/2008, -2/+7It's not that Saddam killed any of those 4001 those soldiers while he was in hiding or jail, you know... how about blaming that guy with W as his middle initial.
- Myonosken, on 03/28/2008, -5/+9The bloke was going to receive his punishment, why the ***** would it have been right to torture him till then? The point was meant to be that we are more civilised- the very fact it was twisted so he ended up being executed in Iraq was shoddy enough.
- tehmacuser, on 03/28/2008, -1/+5well played sir, well played. +1
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3Do you have any reason for NOT believing it.
There are thousands of photographs of the atrocities Saddam's Fedayeen committed against the Kurds and Shias, what more proof do you useful idiots need? - inactive, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4This is almost as compelling as the video I shot of myself cleaning the toilet.
- overtoke, on 03/28/2008, -8/+11He's not as bad as... idiot Bush for example.
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3Do people forget we offered Saddam exile with a billion dollars to take with him to spare invasion of Iraq? The ***** turned it down. How anyone can call him a hero of his people is beyond me.
- duniyadnd, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3I commend you for cleaning the toilet. However, you may want to reconsider more fruitful ways of using your camera than taking video footage cleaning a toilet.
- Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4The Al Sadr militia smokes up with everyone they execute. Even hardcore Muslim insurgents like a chillax hanging.
- brock2020, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3Kuwaitis were using Mr. Burns Slant Drilling company, I saw it.
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2What I find hilarious is how Saddam pretended in all those interviews with Dan Rather to not understand English yet he would grin and smile after Rather asked a question before the translator could translate it. Apparently he talked to his guards in perfect english too.
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2The international left thinks genocidal dictators should get a comfy posh suite in the Hague with cable TV, a playstation, unlimited visitations, maybe even a visit from one of the girls from Amsterdam's red light district from time to time.
- waggdogg, on 03/28/2008, -4/+6Trying to make this guy look human, he was not. Not only did he kill his people and paid people to kill others, he tortured the population. Your just like the Nazi sympathizers who tried to make Aldoph Hitler human.
- Midtowner, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3A million dead Iraqis, give or take 900,000. Iraqbodycount.org estimates between 85K and 90K. About 1/3 of those casualties are members of the former regime's military. Most of the rest were killed by terrorist insurgency groups who do fun stuff such as strapping bombs to mentally retarded women and sending them into the public square.
It takes an absolute moron to not see the difference between Iraqis killed by Saddam and casualties of the current Iraqi insurgency. Saddam ordered his generals to use poison gas to kill off entire villages. Go ahead.. digg me down.. Digg hates to be confronted with facts. - inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2That was good. Never heard of the slant-drilling. It does make sense however. I'm sure big bad America would probably do the same.
- 5urr3al5am, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2yeah I often wonder where these commenters originate from..
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Napoleon was able to come back to power in a miraculous escape from exile, it is better Hussein is dead anyway.
- VinnieDaMac, on 03/28/2008, -2/+4That was so stupid that I actually laughed out loud.
- FlimBlimmer, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3The man tortured millions and killed almost as many for three decades. I would have wiped my ass with his diary, stomped on his flower garden, and pissed on his cigars, if i were assigned to guard him.
For those of you who feel sorry for him because he seemed to carry himself with dignity in his last months, ***** you. - waspbr, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2okay... so you have been living in a cave for the past 5 years, you have a lot to catch up...
- FlimBlimmer, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Who the ***** would bury DaDrake's comment???? He said nothing of torture. Hussein was allowed MUCH too many luxuries in his last days. He deserved an empty cell with a blanket and toilet. Nothing else.
- Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3...after those Kurds started fighting on the side of Iran.
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Shame you are getting dugg down, Iraq is the ONLY Arab nation with a bill of rights, I guess that means nothing.
- inactive, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2The kurds fight for no one but themselves.
- CraigReed, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3I think a life in exile would probably have been more fitting of such a person.
- moletimer, on 03/28/2008, -2/+4....And the brutal massacre and genocide of the Kurds in Operation Anfal between 1986 and 1988.
- 5urr3al5am, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1makes you stop and wonder who writes this crap out on the web? is it ever from the US or is it from some where in the middle east?
- 5urr3al5am, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1I wonder what you'd find if you compared the recent 'terror' of Abu Ghraib (2002-2008) to the real terror during Saddams dictatorship and his two son's -- just a thought?
- 5urr3al5am, on 03/29/2008, -1/+211oops you're a dumb ass -- Hussein was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. "Yes he tortured his citizens" -- WTF? that's just something you're going to breeze over -- thats ok with you? There is only one reason that your logic is so flawed, and that is because of a very very basic denial ... Don't lie and say that you don't know the difference in circumstances when people are getting hurt defending themselves and and people being hurt as victims.
- JimSwarthow, on 03/28/2008, -5/+6yeah, I can't wait till Barama is in in office and he starts uncovering all those mass graves all over the US full of women and children that Bush sent to their deaths b/c they weren't the right ethnicity/political bent/threatening to his political career/power.
honestly, some of you apologist/BDS sufferers somehow continue to shock me w/ your utter idiocy. thank GOD you idiots aren't in any way representative of the general public. - Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIiQkMbFoC0
- waspbr, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2to be fair, hundreds of thousands is accurate...
- bonhoeffer, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Nah, that would be Kidnapping.
Maybe we could fine him.
Nah, that would be Stealing.
Maybe we could cluck our tongues at him.
That would be RUDE! - Hangly, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1sure thing
- brock2020, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3LMAO.. Diggers need to lighten up.. this was the funniest comment I've seen all day.
- JimSwarthow, on 03/28/2008, -3/+4yeah right, that's what I said. idiot. - if you can't see the difference between GW (awful president) and Hussein (sociopathic mass-murderer) then you are a bigger moron than what you're already coming across as.
- doughboy334, on 03/30/2008, -0/+1This man murdered thousands of dissidents during his rule. ***** him
- brock2020, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3R.I.H.V.I.C.
- 5urr3al5am, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1because he planted a garden, let's look past the fact that he killed maybe 300,000 people http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/13/iraq.gra ...
at the bootom:
-------------------
Human rights groups believe about 300,000 people were killed during Saddam's 24-year rule, which ended when U.S.-led forces toppled his regime in 2003.
------------------- -
Show 51 - 96 of 96 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is