I can't believe how many people are completely uninformed as to what life there was like. FIRST, I am Iraqi. My family has suffered underneath his regime. But lets not talk about my personal losses. I'll talk about how everyone was in fear, how no one had electricity, how atleast 500,000 people were killed under his power.
In Iraq the way it worked was they could pull out any kind of bullshit and you would get executed. There have been cases where a parent talks with his family in his house against Saddam, and his child son would take those ideas and talk about them at school. Then that child's father is taken and shot by Saddam's "thugs". Anyone could say anything they want about you without the need of proof and your life is finished. And the bigger problem is that there's agents everywhere, your best friend could be one without you knowing. Then also comes the fact that since the majority of people are living in terrible conditions that they are willing to do anything in order to obtain money. Even if that includes ratting out people, who aren't even plotting anything against the regime, for some prize money. Saddam successfully mastered fear and implemented it into every person's life. And not only the citizen, even his henchmen have got feared implanted in the back of their heads. There's alot more a person can say about this, but I'll move on to the next point.
The electricty before the invasion was run only a few hours a day through out all of Iraq. Its because they lack the power that would enable them to keep it running? No. On Saddam's birthday, electricty is kept running all day for the 3 consecutive days. Most people are forced to try and purchase their own generators or share their generators with each other. Problem is people lack the money to get these kind of generators.
Now this is what ticks me off. People who say that everything was better under Saddam's regime, yet their completely unaware of how many people have been killed under him. Atleast 500,000 people have been killed (This number is my estimate and its VERY conservative). This is dictator doesn't kill just one group in his country (Like Hitler's hate for Jewish people), no one is free of his tyranny. Whether your Kurdish, Shia or Sunni, one way or the other he would have made sure that he hurt you enough to fear him and not try to turn against him. But even though he hurt everyone, he also helped one group, and thats the Sunni group. He built their little village's into towns and then into cities and poured all the country's resources towards those. What did he do for the other two? Well for the Kurds he gave them something, and it was chemical missiles. He destroyed so many people's homes, families, and taken away their lives. Then the Shia were given nothing, fortunately they didn't suffer the fate that alot of Kurds did, but they still died in just as many amounts. When the Shia tried to overthrow Saddam during the Gulf War with support for the US Army and then was left alone when the army withdrew, all the Shia paid a big price for their courage. Almost every family had someone taken away and executed.
But sadly all of this is forgotten all of sudden. People are thinking that Iraqi's are in the worst situation, do you know that what you hear in the news is unimaginably inflated? Instead of just hearing through the news, my family keeps up with the truth through actual relatives and friends in Iraq. And the situation is better, the attacks that occur per week are not occuring all over the place. Its in a few places and surprisingly its the only thing the media covers. They don't talk about any improvements, they just life focusing on how many people have died, which is unfortunate. It seems that everyone is working against the development of a better Iraq.
In Iraq the way it worked was they could pull out any kind of bullshit and you would get executed. There have been cases where a parent talks with his family in his house against Saddam, and his child son would take those ideas and talk about them at school. Then that child's father is taken and shot by Saddam's "thugs". Anyone could say anything they want about you without the need of proof and your life is finished. And the bigger problem is that there's agents everywhere, your best friend could be one without you knowing. Then also comes the fact that since the majority of people are living in terrible conditions that they are willing to do anything in order to obtain money. Even if that includes ratting out people, who aren't even plotting anything against the regime, for some prize money. Saddam successfully mastered fear and implemented it into every person's life. And not only the citizen, even his henchmen have got feared implanted in the back of their heads. There's alot more a person can say about this, but I'll move on to the next point.
The electricty before the invasion was run only a few hours a day through out all of Iraq. Its because they lack the power that would enable them to keep it running? No. On Saddam's birthday, electricty is kept running all day for the 3 consecutive days. Most people are forced to try and purchase their own generators or share their generators with each other. Problem is people lack the money to get these kind of generators.
Now this is what ticks me off. People who say that everything was better under Saddam's regime, yet their completely unaware of how many people have been killed under him. Atleast 500,000 people have been killed (This number is my estimate and its VERY conservative). This is dictator doesn't kill just one group in his country (Like Hitler's hate for Jewish people), no one is free of his tyranny. Whether your Kurdish, Shia or Sunni, one way or the other he would have made sure that he hurt you enough to fear him and not try to turn against him. But even though he hurt everyone, he also helped one group, and thats the Sunni group. He built their little village's into towns and then into cities and poured all the country's resources towards those. What did he do for the other two? Well for the Kurds he gave them something, and it was chemical missiles. He destroyed so many people's homes, families, and taken away their lives. Then the Shia were given nothing, fortunately they didn't suffer the fate that alot of Kurds did, but they still died in just as many amounts. When the Shia tried to overthrow Saddam during the Gulf War with support for the US Army and then was left alone when the army withdrew, all the Shia paid a big price for their courage. Almost every family had someone taken away and executed.
But sadly all of this is forgotten all of sudden. People are thinking that Iraqi's are in the worst situation, do you know that what you hear in the news is unimaginably inflated? Instead of just hearing through the news, my family keeps up with the truth through actual relatives and friends in Iraq. And the situation is better, the attacks that occur per week are not occuring all over the place. Its in a few places and surprisingly its the only thing the media covers. They don't talk about any improvements, they just life focusing on how many people have died, which is unfortunate. It seems that everyone is working against the development of a better Iraq.