Who ended the tyrant of Iraq?

When all is said and done the Iraqi People have had their just say on the end of a tyrant. This man had killed his way to power, killed anyone showing any want or ability to gain power anywhere close to his, tried to extend his personal grasp both inwards in his culture and outwards to control neighbors, supported the weakening of Western values and respected only his own human right to be a dictator and kill. The Iraqi People have put up a legal system which puts individuals on trial week-in and week-out and the death sentences in *this* trial are not the first and not likely to be the last in Iraq.

The Central Criminal Court of Iraq in Baghdad has been up and functioning for MONTHS processing those captured on raids, getting them legal service, putting them on trial and letting the results fall where they may according to the laws set by the Iraqi People and its Government. Perhaps this may surprise some of you as the ONLY news on the legal front we hear from Iraq is on the deposed tyrant and dictator. If you wish to gain background, the MNF-Iraq site has daily bulletins and the CCCI - Baghdad puts out weekly summaries on the news listing of how many are convicted, what their crimes were when that is available and what the sentences are. I have looked at this *before* and done the basics of what 'police blotter' reporting LOOKS LIKE. I did this to start reviewing JUL 2006 so that the media reports of 'how awful everything was in Iraq' could be put into perspective. I take that through the 'high point' days in Iraq and find a very, very different picture than the one of blood and explosions on the television screen.

The MSM is failing in reporting the goings-on in Iraq accurately and within any context: for the region, for Iraq and for the People of Iraq. There is ZERO context given as the MSM does NOT put forth a full summation of news of what the MNF is actually *doing* in Iraq. Some people would call this 'bombing from 30,000 feet' and 'getting the strategic view'. I call this 'bombing from orbit' and 'missing the planet'. By putting no fine grain details in and attempting to put news into a contextual relationship with ANYTHING else going on socially, politically, economically, ethnically, factionally, regionally, sectarianally or even INTERNATIONALLY we are given very, very, very close up snapshots of a blade of grass and missing the golf course.

To be clear the MSM has NOT attempted to end tyranny and give aid and succor to tyrants of every stripe across the globe. They put forth this strange idea that there is such a thing as: Popular Armed Political Parties that are VALID for democracy. In no instance does the MSM put THAT into context and name ALL of the 'Popular Armed Political Parties' that have won power without a stain of blood red of their enemies around their victory and then the brutal suppression of the People once power is gained. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Mahdi Army - none of these propose that they will give MORE liberty, MORE freedom, and abide by the Will of the People to GOVERN and ensure the franchise of the People to then toss them out of office by peaceful elections.

It is of note that the MSM, as a whole, did not QUESTION the tyrant's victories in elections with 94-99% approval when he deigned to have any elections AT ALL. We did not hear the stories of brutal repression and killing of the tyrant's political opponents. We did not hear of the stories of how liberty was suppress and the instruments of Law and Justice were turned to the playthings of a dictator and used AGAINST the People. In point of fact, CNN cozied UP to the dictator and gave him 'legitimacy' by covering any little acts of kindness he gave out as PROPAGANDA. We saw dead bodies that he *blamed* on the West, including infants, and only learned AFTER the war from hospital and mortuary workers that the tyrant kept bodies on ice to be trotted out whenever ANY organization came that he wanted to rant at. And we learned only AFTER the war that medical supplies that had been destined for the People of Iraq had been sequestered by the tyrant in warehouses so as to be used as *tools* of his regime to reward those he favored and to withhold them from those he did not favor.

From this it can be observed that the role of the MSM was that of favoring a dictator, giving 'legitimacy' to his various military and non-military hit squads, of being unable to report ANY news that was NOT propaganda because anyone that tried to *get* that information out could find themselves and their families rounded up and then tortured and executed. Because THAT was the will of the dictator.

One of the major problems of such a autocratic and dictatorial State is that it moves from good record keeping to poor record keeping. Deaths that would once need be recorded soon fall off the books as they are so frequent, so casual and so continuous that the regime in power can no longer be bothered with the deaths of mere civilians at its hands. In trying to report on the *real* number of people who died because of this megalomaniacal madman, I came up against one cold, hard reality: No One had all the numbers because the numbers had not been KEPT. I had to go to differing and sometimes partisan sources which each tracked *different* things so that I could keep the cross-contamination of reported deaths and, at best, speculated deaths, down. And on the speculated side: when a small village disappears completely and the nearest relatives are in another province and cannot get to find out what happened, just how many have died? One can estimate, but after the early days of the regime, such things were 'just part of the stream of deaths' the tyrant caused. In any event for those casually killed and now turning up in mass graves the world can only speculate and continue to tally up the dead as MORE graves are found in Iraq. Large numbers and small numbers are found casually buried years after the end of the actual war, with some of the bodies found in places like Najaf dating back over 30 years to the beginning of the tyrant's and the Ba'athist reign:

Forensic experts dig out bodies of five people near Najaf, Iraq, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Saturday Nov. 4, 2006. Handcuffed bodies, discovered by sanitation workers, are believed to be buried 30 years ago and believed to be victims of Saddam Hussein's regime. Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants expect court to deliver its verdict for their alleged roles in the deaths of about 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail in 1982 and possible death sentence on Sunday. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Radio free Europe with minor article, also.

In lumping in the deaths due to the Iran/Iraq war, I do so because that is directly attributable to one man's desire for power and hegemony over critical International oil supplies. When the war was grinding on he found the greatest number of actual volunteers came from the Shia community that DETESTED Khomeini and his take on Shia Islam. He may have kept the meatgrinder going for a bit longer just to kill more of his own population and thus take out more of that sect and more of those that might just want to seize power to get rid of Iran more than HE wanted to. By proportion of population and vehemence these people were a problem to him and sending them on futile attacks against Iran solved that problem in a slow and methodical way. When one continues a fruitless war that gains NOTHING save the deaths of those that oppose YOU both at home and against your neighbor and you continue it on, then that war is being used to PERSONAL ends, not the ends of your Nation. Through this all it is the People of Iraq who remember this holocaust visited upon them by a dictator.

The People of Iraq have turned from this and are now being attacked by those who want this to return. And those turning to violence are being given 'legitimacy' by the MSM who wants 'to cover the other side of the story'. Such swell folks to want to know why those seeking global Empire want to put all of humanity under the yoke of their oh-so benevolent rule! Yes, give us the 'inside story' on madmen, tyrants, dictators, autocrats, theocrats, and warlords, I am sure they have heart-rending tales of poverty and poor schooling and such that will utterly *excuse* their ACTIONS of wanton death and destruction. In other words: by trying to give al Qaeda and the Iranian armed Shia factions in Iraq 'legitimacy' the MSM wishes to undermine democracy and civilization.

The book on the tyrant will be *closed* by the People of Iraq, but it was opened by the tyrant and his political party. He turned many of the pages and wanted the pages to keep on turning so that blood could drip faster from his Nation to secure his reign and allow his sons to establish themselves when his time had passed. He wanted a continuation of this for GENERATIONS. He sought chemical and nuclear weapons and had a bio-weapons program going to investigate that, too. He used chemical weapons contrary to all agreed-upon laws of warfare and, thus, put himself OUTSIDE those things that the civilized world had agreed to set aside. He *loved* turning those pages as those things got him MORE power and destructive capability at a lower cost. He instituted more 'intelligence' organizations than can be counted and his sons EACH had their own coterie of organizations, too. They got the worst imaginable individuals to inflict torture on anyone who MERELY DISAGREED WITH THEM. Often that would end in the death of the individual and to keep *that* quiet the family was rounded up to be slaughtered, too. And many of those deaths went UNRECORDED.

The tyrant, finding his way blocked by one Nation then turned on a tiny, oil rich neighbor and invaded them with the single goal of taking over the natural resources of that Nation and then looting and raping the entirety of that Nation. He and his forces stole everything that was not nailed down, left infants to die in hospitals and actually abducted individuals in Kuwait that have not been seen or heard from SINCE THEN. And, mind you, this is even with taking over his Nation: no record of what happened to them EXISTS. But one can speculate on plastic shredders, vats of solvent and the effects of lye in a grave or merely flushing the slurry of remains into the Tigris or Euphrates river.

In going after that Nation, however, a different hand turned to the next chapter and the continuance of barbarism was interrupted by the intercession of the International Community. And I can remember the cries of the lack of legitimacy of that operation, how the US had TOO MANY allies to get the job done, how things were too cumbersome, how the bombing took FOREVER and was 'hurting the average Iraqi more than the regime' and the absolute indignation that the US Armed Forces *stopped* without solving the problem. And when the US promised aid to the Shia and Kurds if they staged uprisings, they found that aid NOT ARRIVING and the US 'scaling down' and the International Forces LEAVING. And the tyrant's army and intelligence forces arriving to slaughter those that went forward on the belief that the US would STAND BY ITS WORD.

To those who *wanted* a different way that would 'empower the Iraqis to depose the tyrant' the time for that was in 1991-1992 NOT in 2002-2003. A decade had shown the falseness of the US on keeping such a promise and NO ONE IN IRAQ would be caught doing that AGAIN. The price of US failure to back its words was too damn high to them and the US was no longer believed to SUPPORT the Iraqi People. And do note that the intervening US Administration did NOTHING to help them believe otherwise. So while a new course for Iraq was starting it was also looking to be ending at the exact same time. The tyrant knew that he could 'outlast the United States' and then used all the diplomatic and propaganda skill he had to convince the world of how BAD the United States was. Look at all the dead babies! Look at the rates of sickness! And, whatever you do, don't even try to report upon the medical and food supplies sequestered into warehouses by the regime.

This tyrant started turning pages and felt that he could outlast this setback and history would, once more, flow more in his direction. He had worn away at inspection teams and the UN. He had manipulated the UN, France, Russia and China into perverting the Oil for Food Program and he had continued his weapons programs, perhaps scaled back, but with promises from Russia that those would be 'removed' to the safety of Syria should anything untoward happen to Iraq. We know this because the Foreign Minister Archives RECORD IT. This tyrant extended his outreach to terrorists of ALL stripes and they used his training and spread it further beyond their organizations to other organizations. He had helped to coordinate, if not bankroll, the 1983 WTC bombing of which al Qaeda was just a 'bit player' amongst many. That methodology gave al Qaeda 'bigger ideas' for themselves as they saw how this idea of getting cooperation amongst terrorists for a common goal worked. The most dangerous thing that the tyrant did was not his funding but his instruction on methodology by EXAMPLE. That made things far worse than they had been without him as terrorists had just been of the simple one event, one bomb, once, variety. That is a sudden and sharp turning point in the template of transnational terrorism and it was perfected by a religious death cult unaffiliated with Islam, but al Qaeda saw the finishing touches to what they already knew and picked it up and ran with it.

Previously State-based terrorism had been the main threat, but now the distributed and non-National terrorist groups had a way to go forward and be effective. Using the methodology they understood from a tyrant who saw no problem in teaching them how to be more effective terrorists. The bloody pages linked to this actually became WORSE than State based terrorism as there is no National means to go after it because Nation States are limited in what they can achieve. And the only way to actually GO AFTER them is to chuck out most of the 20th century concepts of Nation and Warfare and head into a previous century. And the guess by the tyrant was that the US would be unable to do that as the People of the US were weak and unable to stand on their own without their Government.

That was his bet.

The page that got turned next got turned by al Qaeda and the US response to it. Suddenly, State-backed terrorism was extremely deadly because Nations had means to construct WMDs at low cost and then give them to terrorists so as to distance the Nation from the acts done for it. The previous three decades of how to approach terrorism went out the window on 9/11 and the US started to turn the pages faster than the tyrant could read them. Because he, too, was stuck in the 20th century when the 21st was requiring something *different* and older for survival. The first war in the 21st century in Afghanistan had closed the book on Total War, Mass War and Industrialized National Warfare. Armies were now 'come as you are' and highly flexible and responsive in ways unimagined in the 2oth century. They were regaining some of their previous flexibility from before that era, but the attitudes of the population is STILL mired in the 20th century. We now have a 21st century military, led by 20th century ideals, with 19th century restrictions. This confluence has rendered the military incapable of actually going after the enemies of the US as they are NOT Nations, by and large.

In turning to this new chapter the tyrant was flummoxed as everything that had worked just a few scant years before now didn't. His bribes no longer bought time, his allies were no longer capable of stopping the US and he did not adjust to this new era of expansive warfare and did not take the lesson of Afghanistan to heart. That is why the eroded military machine of the Iraqi tyrant did not last long against this new force as they could no longer even figure out how it WORKED. The deposing of the tyrant and ending the cruelty of his regime was achieved by his own grasp of the past and his inability to open to the future. He wanted a closed future of his people, his Nation, his region, and, apparently, didn't realize that his own future was ALSO closed in that doing.

He did what any person does when facing the incomprehensible and unbelievable: he ran. In point of fact his entire set of Armed Forces ALSO ran, as did everyone in his Government. His regime, its instruments and its individuals all RAN because they had run out of time: the future was NOW. And that future had the face of the men and women of the US Armed Forces. The man who had brought terror to his people was now terrified of the future of Free People taking up arms against him.

What finally did him in was that his chauffeur turned him in. There was good money to be made in doing so and actual protection to get himself and his family OUT of the line of fire of the tyrants supporters. That was a small price to pay for the Iraq People to have a future. In three and one half years Iraq has gone from tyranny, no news, no reports, and unreported deaths to just the opposite. Iraq now burgeons with a free press, which the MSM now dutifully IGNORES. Yes tens of newspapers, magazines, national and local television and radio news outlets do not warrant so much as a *peep* from the MSM. Because it, too, is seeing the future of Free People.

Yesterday the tyrant received his Just sentencing for the first and least of his mass crimes against the humanity of his own People and of all People of the world. The society that he had victimized now stands in judgment of HIM so that he is held to account for his DEEDS. The People of Iraq are slowly learning that so much of what they had been taught in life is wrong that they are dumbfounded when they look at the world outside of the lenses of conspiracy, secret cabals, and strange conceptions of there being those 'ruling the world' behind their backs. They are standing up, as a People, to find a Just way forward by means of due process of law.

They do not want to BE forever mired in the types of politics and thinking that begets them tyrants, theocrats, autocrats and death squads of the Government roaming the street. They have voted, in a majority and overwhelming majority to HAVE a Nation in common and RUN their Nation in common so that they may gain protection TOGETHER. And they do this for one, very simple reason that seems to escape so many. A reason that actually escapes those trying to make a perfect world that somehow always falls into stories of tyrants. No, the Iraqi People are trying to make a 'more perfect' Nation and work together at it for the reason that goes beyond all bounds of sanity for some political ideologues.

Why are they following the US in how it runs its Armed Forces and how it has a view of government that is flexible and adaptable?

It is astoundingly simple.

Jacksonian simple.

IT WORKS!

And nothing else humanity has tired DOES THAT and leaves a Free People being Free.

As our founding fathers noted, this will be the death of tyrants *everywhere*.