A Shameful Ending to a Violent Year

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon


The view from India is the same as the view from the Moon:

HYDERABAD (Times of India, Dec 31) Deposed Iraq president Saddam Hussein's execution in Baghdad by the Iraq government on Saturday was received with shock and condemnation in the city.

Political parties, including left-wing parties and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, took out rallies and burnt effigies of US president George W Bush, while religious institutions condemned the execution.

MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi said, "The trial was a farce. The US showed its total insensitivity by executing Saddam Hussein on a holy day. These days are holy for the Muslims. They are busy in prayers and celebrating Id."

Hundreds of left activists took out a rally from L B Stadium to Basheerbagh crossroads and later burnt Bush's effigy. They also raised slogans against the US government.

"Saddam's hanging is hanging of justice," they shouted.

JI president for AP and Orissa Abdul Basith Anwar, in a statement, expressed regret and said the execution was carried out when Muslims were preparing for Fajar (morning) prayer.

"If execution is the punishment for Saddam Hussein for what he had done to his people and the country, then president Bush and his ally British prime minister Tony Blair deserve worse treatment for what they are doing in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq," he added.

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Free at Last!

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 31, 2006 (AP)— At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam's biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein.
The military reported the deaths of six more American troops, making December the deadliest month this year for U.S. forces in Iraq. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

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History Repeats Itself

"In about 762 A.D., the Abbasid dynasty took over rule of the vast Muslim world and moved the capital to the newly-founded city of Baghdad. Over the next five centuries, the city would become the world's center of education and culture. This period of glory has become known as the "Golden Age" of Islamic civilization, when scholars of the Muslim world made important contributions in both the sciences and humanities: medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, literature, and more. Under Abbasid rule, Baghdad became a city of museums, hospitals, libraries, and mosques.

"The city of Baghdad was finally trashed by the Mongols in 1258 A.D., effectively ending the era of the Abbasids. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers reportedly ran red, with the blood of thousands of scholars (a reported 100,000 of Baghdad's million residents were massacred). Many of the libraries, irrigation canals, and great historical treasures were looted and forever ruined. The city began a long period of decline, and became host to numerous wars and battles that continue to this day." (Read "United States" for "Mongols".) About: Islam

Another Benefit of "Regime Change"

BAGHDAD NYT Dec. 29 — Along with its many other desperate problems, Iraq is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day.
It began right after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when many landlords took advantage of the removal of his economic controls and raised rents substantially, forcing out thousands of families who took shelter in abandoned government buildings and military bases. As the chaos in Iraq grew and the ranks of the jobless swelled, even more Iraqis migrated to squalid squatter encampments. Still others constructed crude shantytowns on empty plots where conditions were even worse.
Now, after more than 10 months of brutal sectarian reprisals, many more Iraqis have fled their neighborhoods, only to wind up often in places that are just as wretched in other ways. While 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.
Shelter is their most pressing need, aid organizations say. Some have been able to occupy homes left by members of the opposing sect or group; others have not been so fortunate. The longer the violence persists, the more Iraqis are running out of money and options.
Shatha Talib, 30, her husband and five children, are among about a thousand struggling Iraqi families that have taken up residence in the bombed-out remains of the former Iraqi Air Defense headquarters and air force club in the center of Baghdad. “Nobody should live in such a place,” she said. “But we don’t have any other option.”

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Even the Associated Press admitted that Hussein, murdered this morning by the U.S. and its toadies, "built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies." "Iraqis, once among the region's most prosperous, were impoverished" by U.S. imposed sanctions and war making.

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But a U.S. soldier in Iraq fully appreciates the situation: "First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"

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A sneaky bit of propaganda by the AP: "VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI received a letter Wednesday from Iran's hard-line president about the recent U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran for refusing to compromise on its nuclear program." "HARD-LINE president"? Is that part of the news or a beat of the war drums?