The Real Butchers.

During the recent controversy over Saddam’s semi-nude photos getting published in tabloids, one thing that stuck me was constant reference of Saddam as butcher of Baghdad. I am not exactly a Saddam fan but I certainly do believe that he was much better than some of the past and present ‘friendly’ and ‘allied’ members of US. My point is not to list the names here, it requires a separate column, but I want to raise a valid and a very point about US and UK’s direct participation in actually butchering hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people during last ten years of war and sanctions and during Iraq’s eight years war with Iran. It makes me wonder whether the whole world is really blind or just dumb. We are living like parasites, just sucking our way through life, oblivious to the surrounding.

Iraq was one of the most advanced nation in the middle-east in 1979 when Saddam came to power. Secular in nature, Saddam’s Baath party had roots in Syria and was founded by a Christian named Michel Aflyak. With Iran revolution on the horizon, US backed Saddam’s party in Iraq. Though there was no direct support of US to Saddam’s power seizure, the intricate web of defense deals became backbone of US-Iraq relations during later years. In eight years war between Iran and Iraq, which killed almost a million people on both side, US actively participated by supplying all kinds of weapons including chemical weapons (remember WMD) to Iraq. This unholy nexus of US-Iraq is well documented and within the knowledge of public hemisphere. But then, Saddam was a friend, ally and business partner of US and thus a pure and a holy person.

Fast-forward the scenario to 1991, when Saddam suddenly become a Satan and his nation became an empire of evil. During 1991 gulf war, US used all the weapons in the arsenal barring nuclear weapons. They killed almost 200,000 Iraqi civilians. The ‘allies’ taught lesson to Saddam for his mischief but the real losers were civilians. The newly coined term ‘collateral damage’ can not explain such colossal civilian loss that can be only being rivaled with wholesome destruction of Tokyo or Munich during onset of WW-II. But the real story begins after the ‘resounding’ US victory over Iraq. The sanctions imposed by US and UK (oh yes! By UN too.) killed far more people than the actual war. According to UNICEF one million children in Iraq under the age of five are chronically malnourished. Also, according to same organization the infant mortality increased drastically from 56/1000 in 1989 to 131/1000. Also, the sanctions led to death of nearly half a million children.

When asked on US television if she [Madeline Albright, US Secretary of State] thought that the death of half a million Iraqi children [from sanctions in Iraq] was a price worth paying, Albright replied: “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.”

All these sanctions, wars and millions of civilian deaths make Saddam a street crook compared with US and UK. I am not supporting Saddam in any way. He was a despot and he is guilty of killing his own people for the lust of power, but the measures taken by US and UK are equally reprehensible. Bestowing the title of Baghdad butcher to Saddam is epitome of hypocrisy and such efforts of painting world black and white show the lack of knowledge and insensitivity towards the reality.