Be Alert! News Briefs for W/E January 6, 2007
Alert Focus: Nation rising against nation / The Fruit of Islam
Matthew 24:7a
"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,…
Saddam: From monster to martyr?
How Bush and Blair's choices have led to disaster in Iraq, culminating in a chaotic execution that is fuelling civil war
THE INDEPENDENT - By Patrick Cockburn - January 4, 2007 -- It takes real genius to create a martyr out of Saddam Hussein. Here is a man dyed deep with the blood of his own people who refused to fight for him during the United States-led invasion three-and-a-half years ago. His tomb in his home village of Awja is already becoming a place of pilgrimage for the five million Sunni Arabs of Iraq who are at the core of the uprising.
During his trial, Saddam himself was clearly trying to position himself to be a martyr in the cause of Iraqi independence and unity and Arab nationalism. His manifest failure to do anything effective for these causes during the quarter of a century he misruled Iraq should have made his task difficult. But an execution which vied in barbarity with a sectarian lynching in the backstreets of Belfast 30 years ago is elevating him to heroic status in the eyes of the Sunni - the community to which most Arabs belong - across the Middle East.
The old nostrum of Winston Churchill that "grass may grow on the battlefield but never under the gallows" is likely to prove as true in Iraq as it has done so frequently in the rest of the world. Nor is the US likely to be successful in claiming that the execution was purely an Iraqi affair.
Many Iraqis recall that the announcement of the verdict on Saddam sentencing him to death was conveniently switched last year to 5 November, the last daily news cycle before the US mid-term elections. The US largely orchestrated the trial from behind the scenes. Yesterday the Iraqi government arrested an official who supervised the execution for making the mobile-phone video that has stirred so much controversy.
The Iraqi Shia and Kurds are overwhelmingly delighted that Saddam is in his grave. But the timing of his death at the start of the Eid al-Adha feast makes his killing appear like a deliberate affront to the Sunni community. The execution of his half-brother Barzan in the next few days will confirm it in its sense that it is the target of an assault by the majority Shia.
Why was the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki so keen to kill Saddam Hussein? First, there is the entirely understandable desire for revenge. Members of the old opposition to Saddam Hussein are often blamed for their past ineffectiveness but most lost family members to his torture chambers and execution squads. Every family in Iraq lost a member to his disastrous wars or his savage repressions.
There is also a fear among Shia leaders that the US might suddenly change sides. This is not as outlandish as it might at first appear. The US has been cultivating the Sunni in Iraq for the past 18 months. It has sought talks with the insurgents. It has tried to reverse the de-Baathification campaign. US commentators and politicians blithely talk about eliminating the anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and fighting his militia, the Mehdi Army. No wonder Shias feel that it is better to get Saddam under the ground just as quickly as possible. Americans may have forgotten that they were once allied to him but Iraqis have not. …
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2124262.ece
New U.N. Secretary-General in Early Flap
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Edith M. Lederer - January 2, 2007 -- UNITED NATIONS -- New U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of work Tuesday over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital punishment should be a decision of individual countries.
The U.N. has an official stance opposing capital punishment and Ban's predecessor Kofi Annan reiterated it frequently. The top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, restated it again on Saturday after the former Iraqi dictator was hanged.
Ban, however, took a different approach, never mentioning the U.N. ban on the death penalty in all its international tribunals, and the right to life enshrined in the U.N. Charter. …
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/02/D8MDE8K00.html
Vatican Daily Denounces Images of Saddam
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Frances D'emilio - January 2, 2007 -- VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican's official newspaper on Tuesday decried media images of Saddam Hussein's hanging as a "spectacle" violating human rights and harming efforts to promote reconciliation in Iraq.
The Vatican, which opposes the death penalty, was among the first voices abroad to denounce Saddam's execution Saturday, saying then that it was "tragic news," even in the case of someone guilty of grave crimes, and expressing worry that it could fuel revenge and fresh violence.
Also Tuesday, the Italian government said it will take "formal steps" in a renewed push for a U.N. call for a moratorium on the death penalty. The premier's office said Italy would seek the support of other countries that oppose capital punishment to put the issue of a moratorium to the U.N. General Assembly. …
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/02/D8MDBFH80.html
Overkill: U.S. military tried to delay holiday hanging
WORLD TRIBUNE - January 2, 2007 -- BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military is bracing for major strikes in Iraq following the execution of ousted President Saddam Hussein.
Military sources said the Saddam execution was seen as a Shi'ite attempt to demoralize the Sunni community on Id Al Adha, the most joyous holiday on the Islamic calendar. The sources said they expect Saddam loyalists as well as Al Qaida to conduct major strikes against the majority Shi'ite community as well as assassinate members of the Shi'ite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
[So far, Sunni insurgents have been targeting Shi'ite civilians in wake of the Saddam execution, Middle East Newsline reported. More than 120 Shi'ites were killed in explosions in the Baghdad area in weekend attacks attributed to Al Qaida.]
The sources said the U.S. military sought to delay the execution of Saddam until after Id Al Adha. But the sources said Al Maliki insisted that Saddam be executed without delay. He was hanged on Dec. 30. …http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/07/front2454103.1104166666.html
Iraq Orders Closure of TV Station Office
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Christopher Torchia - January 1, 2007 -- BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi government Monday ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based television station whose newscaster wore black mourning clothes while reporting on the hanging of Hussein.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the Al-Sharqiya station, owned by a former chief of radio and television for Saddam, had incited violence and hatred in its coverage and had ignored warnings to stop.
Brigadier Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman, said the order was issued after an allegedly false report by the news channel about the abduction of three Sunni Arab female students from a university.
But the order also followed criticism of the tone of Al-Sharqiya's coverage of Saturday's execution, which struck some as sympathetic to the ousted dictator. ...
Iraq PM Orders Probe of Saddam Execution
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Christopher Torchia - January 2, 2007 -- BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation Tuesday into Saddam Hussein's execution to try to uncover who taunted the former dictator in the last minutes of his life, and who leaked inflammatory footage taken by camera phone of the hanging.
The unofficial video, on which at least one person is heard shouting "To hell!" at the deposed president and Saddam is heard exchanging insults with his executioners, dealt a blow to Iraq's efforts to prove it was a neutral enforcer of the law. Instead, the emotional, politicized spectacle raised tensions between the Shiite majority and Sunni Arabs who ran the country until their benefactor, Saddam, was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
A prosecutor who saw the hanging said some of the taunting came from guards outside the execution chamber, not the masked ones who put the noose around Saddam's neck. …
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070102/D8MDEJOO0.html
Saddam's execution cited in boy's accidental hanging death
ASSOCIATED PRESS - January 4, 2007 -- HOUSTON -- Police and family members said a 10-year-old boy who died by hanging himself from a bunk bed was apparently mimicking the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Sergio Pelico was found dead Sunday in his apartment bedroom in the Houston-area city of Webster, said Webster police Lt. Tom Claunch. Pelico's mother told police he had previously watched a news report on Saddam's death.
"It appears to be accidental," Claunch said. "Our gut reaction is that he was experimenting." …
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=4904242
Another 'Saddam suicide'
SOUTH AFRICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION / AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - January 4, 2007 -- Kolkata, India -- A 15-year-old girl from eastern India hanged herself in response to the execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, police and family members said on Thursday.
"She said they had hanged a patriot. We didn't take her seriously when she told us that she wanted to feel the pain Saddam did during the execution," the girl's father, Manmohan Karmakar, told AFP by phone from the town of Kharda.
He said his daughter, called Moon Moon, had become extremely depressed after watching Saddam's execution on television.
"She kept watching the scene over and again and didn't take food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging," he said.
Police superintendent Pravin Kumar confirmed the suicide, saying the girl had strung herself up from a ceiling fan and was found dead early on Wednesday.
The communist-ruled state of West Bengal has condemned Saturday's execution of Saddam, with thousands of people taking to the streets.http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2051037,00.html
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