Pixies Place Forums - View Single Post - CNN Poll: What is your opinion of Saddam's Iraq?

Well, I voted for the Hitler/Saddam option, but that only applies to the knob-heads in charge (it isn't JUST Saddam, y'know!!)

The area I work in (Glasgow) Scotland has a very large number of Asylum seekers, who are fleeing from almost unimaginable violence & brutality in their homelands; as a Community based Mental Health nurse, I see a tiny fraction of these people, a large percentage of whom are Iraqui refugees from the time of Desert Storm..... that was 12 (yeh - TWELVE - count 'em folks!!) ago!!

These are just regular folks, who through no real fault of their own, have suffered horrific tortures at the hands of Saddam's henchmen.. and in one case, it is a TORTURER who is seekng Asylum!! THAT'S how bad it is in Iraq, when even the perpetrators of such horrors are running away!!

We have to speak to 99% of these people through interpreters, which isn't easy - but, even so, we can still appreciate just how vile it is to live as an "ordinary" Joe Q Public in Iraq;- you CANNOT voice any opinion other than the official "Party line", otherwise you just "disappear" one day .... some of the people I've met have spent months in jail, being systematically tortured, raped, sodomised (with various devices)... the list goes on.
Eventually they succumb to whatever decrees their captors state; and if they do it well enough, they are (soemtimes!) let go. That's when they manage to escape from their homeland, very often leaving members of their family behind.

This is by no means limited to Iraquis... we see Kosovans, Kurds (from Iraq AND Turkey) Croatians, Indonesians, Sri Lankans... again, the list is almost endless!

I guess what I'm trying to impart to you all is - most Iraquis are NOT the "bad guys" ..... they're just ordinary people, trying to stay alive and as safe as they can, in circumstances most of us can't even imagine.

So, yeah, villify Saddam and all his cronies... but remember the ordinary guys in the street, who clap & cheer (and, yes, fight the U.S./U.K. forces) because NOT TO is to invite a horrible death!! Then, ask yourself.... could YOU say no??

Thanks for putting up with me... I'll go and lie down now!

DM