When you enter the museum you will walk through a long and winding hallway. The walls are covered with mirror shards. Each represents one of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds murdered in the genocidal Anfal campaign. A river of twinkling lights lines the ceiling. Each represents one of the five thousand villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein....
The hardest thing to see was the cell used to hold children before they were murdered. My translator Alan read some of the messages carved into the wall.
“I was ten years old. But they changed my age to 18 for execution.”
“Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed by the Baath. I will not see you again.”
March 3, 2006
At the genocide museum in Suleimaniya, Kurdistan.
Michael Totten reports:
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31 comments:
More information may be found at Human Rights Watch: Reports on Iraq: The Anfal Campaign
Everyone agrees that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and a monster.
And everyone is now glad to see him gone. Some people felt that when he was our tyrant and our monster, not so much.
What has turned into tragedy for our nation is when we have cynically kept dictators in power, repressed revolutions of those dictators, and overthrown legitimately elected leaders in the name of power, oil, money, anti-communism, or just plain cronyism.
As a nation we do best abroad when our foreign policy conforms to our nations highest moral ideals. And we reap that foreign policy as returns on our investment at home in terms of trade and goodwill.
hoosthere, remember as a kid how the United States wore the white hat? I'd like to see that back, and I would like to encourage all constitutional law professor bloggers to join me in that.
I think it would make for a better future for my kids. I am greedy that way.
We can get some of the monsters part of the time but not all the monsters all of the time. I still am angry over the US not inserting a battalion or two of Marines into Rwanda to stop the butchery back then. Had our lads been on hand to shoot a few of those thugs using machetes to chop people up with, many thousands of lives could have been saved.
If you want to see a Kurdish film about the massacres, rent Turtles Can Fly. Warning: it's rough. Jiyan is a bit lighter and about the rebuilding.
hoosthere: Why do you think it's unintentional?
This is a story that awaits its Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Imre Kertesz, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Sadder even than the horror described by Totten would be now to let it all fade away if no Kurdish writer can find the words to speak unforgettably to future generations for the countless dead.
These museums are some of the best tools for memory. Totten's account reminds me of Terror Haza in Budapest.
There is far more indignation over the rise of the McSmirkingChimpHitlerBush now than there ever was over TRUE brutality around the world.
No, that is demonstrably not true. You are mistaking what you perceive as a local loudness for a measurement of overall volume.
Think globally, act locally. We can be more effective with ChimpyMcBushitler than we can with Kim Jong-Il. By speaking truth to power, by raising consciousness (not an easy task), we can do something about the Chimpster and thereby do something about Osama Bin Laden and Darfur (intriguing the concern in this thread about Rwanda, but not about Darfur).
why is there so much blind opposition to the project in Iraq from the left now, when we are finally pursuing goals that they would agree with?
A) It's a smear to call it blind opposition. That smear comes from your own democrat hater syndrome (DHS). (Why do you hate 50% of your country?)
B) The ends do not justify the means
C) There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Res ipsa loquitur
Yes, I agree with you about your comments here. Res ipsa loquitur.
"It's just so ironic that the left has been advocating the democratication of the middle east for years"
Yes, the left really has "advocated" for oppressed peoples everywhere. Course, when it comes to actually doing anything, they wait for the approval they know will never come from Kofi and the rest of the corrupt UN... but in the meantime, boy, do they advocate.
I think Bush Sr. was horrifically wrong for selling out the Kurds, and the US should hang its head for it. But to suggest that leftists have done jack for the oppressed in the Middle East? Whatever.
(Quoting me, not me, the other me)
Hoosthere -- are you contending that we would have invaded (or did invade) Iraq for the sole purpose of overthrowing Saddam and freeing the people of Iraq? Or that we should invade other countries solely to get rid of their tyrants?
This was the justification with Milosevic I believe, a war in which the great majority of liberals did not express any reservations. The contrast between Iraq and the way the Kosovo conflict was regarded is one reason I think much of the anti-Iraq sentiment from the left is partisan, and does not reflect an underlying anti-war, pacifist ideology.
In fairness, I should point out many conservatives have been just as inconsistent, with many of those demanding exit strategies in the 90's perfectly OK with not having one this decade. With both parties it comes down to whose guy is running the show.
blind opposition!
We're not blind, you're blind.
Proof, proof that you are blind!!!! Res ipsa loquitor!!!
Res ipsa loquitur.
Apology accepted.
Res ipsa loquitur.
quxxo - Good one about the "white hat" thing. I laughed out loud.
Let's not forget that it was the left who wanted us to be in bed with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. They always want us to team up with the guys who kill millions, but we generally seem to team up instead with the guys who only kill thousands. Funny you should mention the former regime in Iraq; I guess it was us who gave them all those AK-47s, T-72, Scuds, MIG-21s, etc., etc., etc.... Yep, must've been us.
But it really doesn't matter at all. If we refuse to deal with Cuba, we're responsible for everything that goes wrong there, because we should've helped. Right? But before Castro took over, we were at fault for everything Batista did, because we did deal with them. Back when Egypt was a Soviet client, we were responsible for their problems because we gave them no aid. Now, of course, we're responsible for their problems because we do give them aid. It simply doesn't matter what we do; whatever the facts are, the left has one stock narrative or another that blames everything on us.
Tell me, quxxo, who was responsible for all the evil in the world before 7/4/1776? Does your teleology permit that question, quxxo?
Tell me, quxxo, who was responsible for all the evil in the world before 7/4/1776?
Uh, Bill Clinton?
I've been reading Totten for quite some time and find his point of view (sort of a liberal hawk) refreshing. His independent reporting is a great example of how the internet is changing the media landscape for the better.
As for left-bashing, the vast majority of the left are NOT the caricature we're made out to be. The stereotype of widespread left "support" for terrorists such as the Taliban, Baathists, and Palestinian suicide bombers, is bullshit.
The left has long supported MORE freedom for people, not less.
A case can be made for military intervention in any number of countries on purely humanitarian grounds, and many on both the left and right would suport it. (Check out Freedom House at www.freedomhouse.org for a complete list of disfunctional countries to choose from!)
This could have even happened with Iraq, if the Bush administration had chosen to be honest in its approach rather than deceitful.
The reason that the left seems unsupportive of the Iraq endeavor is that, it's hard to criticize the inept performance of the Bush administration without sounding like you oppose the idea of democracy there.
OF COURSE removing Saddam and encouraging democracy in Iraq is a great goal - - but if you are going to actually try to accomplish this goal, you should do it in a moderately competent way and display some basic leadership skills like honesty, integrity, ability to admit mistakes, clear objectives, ability consider opposing points of view, etc.
We supported dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador b/c they helped our national security, and we did not interfere in Rwanda b/c the situation there did not threaten our national security.
You know, this line of argument much used by certain sectors, has always struck me as dumb.
This is like me saying that FDR was the first US president to recognise and do business with the Soviet Union, as well as being supportive of Hitler, when others were in stark opposition just before WWII.
He did, but then he changed course entirely, and revamped his foreign policy (to put it midldly), didn't he?
It's like the debate is constantly stuck on the previous circumstances, without acknowledging that administrations, indeed, a whole country can change its roadmap of dealings with peoples, and states.
Furthermore, my example of FDR is a bit personalised, since many of the people who point to abuses, particularly regards to dictators, are committing the illogical mistake of lumping AMERICA in with specific actions of past presidencies and administrations.
The whole point, and this point I cannot stress enough, is that foreign policy thrusts vary from each president to each president.
What Kennedy authorised, is not what Nixon wanted to pursue, is not what Carter did, is not what Reagan followed, etc. etc.
And it is precisely this sea-change in attitude by Bush 43, that is causing the most hand-wringing by people who normally would applaud (however belated it is), an awakening that finally, things changed with Iraq.
No more tolerance of Saddam. Full stop.
Maybe those people don't think the US wears the good cowboy's white hat, but I wonder what colour of hat do people wear, who would have seen Saddam still in power today?
Cheers,
Victoria
I'm glad to see Michael Totten is still alive (no pun of his name intended).
I unfortunately, stopped reading him around August or so, because his manner became even more "neutral" and Donklephantish, which makes for a wishy-washy blog.
(And I'm well-aware he may be reading this. Sorry Michael. You're still a nice bloke, though)
But that he wrote about this genocide museum, which I was not aware of, is fantastic.
Kudos!
Cheers,
Victoria
Hah! the new meme - Saddam is a liberal who has been informed by the Left!
Wait, are you saying you didn't know that the Ba'ath Party was directly modeled on the Stalinist version of the Communist Party?
Or didn't people know that during Ba'ath Party meetings, the participants had to intone in unison:
"UNITY! FREEDOM! and SOCIALISM!"
In the rush to call things "Fascist", which is short-hand for some for the extreme Right, people often forget that Fascism draws on Social statism entirely -- or else they'd yell, Unity! Freedom! and Capitalism!.
Cheers,
Victoria
Jebus, your bring latin into this, and then you blame me for using it.
Latin, shmatin, what do I know from latin?
Res Ipsa Loquitur: The thing speaks for itself
Res Ipsa Loquitor: the name of Angie Pepper's 2003 Aussie Rock album.
But for the painfully slow, it apparently means "the thing speaks for itself"
hoosier, when wrote "you're blind, you're all blind," I wrote back a response that "A) It's a smear to call it blind opposition. "
It is a smear to call it blind opposition. If not your smackdown by me, than has not your conversation with geoduck2, the other me, and other folks here showed you that the opposition is informed and not blind?
So again, for the painfully slow when I wrote "That smear comes from your own democrat hater syndrome (DHS). (Why do you hate 50% of your country?)" that is what is known as sarcasm. It is an inversion of the normal, stupid response, "ooh, you guys are just predictable boring b000sh haters."
Then you wrote that I am projecting when I call it blind opposition, never showing that you have the self-awareness that my dog has when he licks himself. So hoosier, when I say that "you just hate dems" I am projecting, but when you say that "us libs must blindly hate b00sh," you are correct. And you stand on that?
Topping off your demonstration of your inability to read or understand or self-reflect, you then say, "res ipsa loquitOr". Hey a legal beagle! so I google it up, and it turns out it means "The thing speaks for itself."
Well holy legal/english/latin unintentional pun!
You're right! Your series of silly statements about others do in fact speak for themself! And there is no better summary of your incoherence than your mispelling of "Res Ipsa Loquitur". But even that mispelling becomes ironic.
I point out the humorous mispelling and note how punny and apt it is, and you mistake that for an apology.
Oh gee, can we ever end this nightmare of comedy?
So I correct you, pointing out once more the error, and pointing out once more how punny your error is but how even your mistaken belief there is an apology speaks to your inability to read, and now you tell me I am not criticizing you on the merits.
No hoosier, when you first wrote and then demanded that it is us libs that suffer from blind opposition, you were the one dismissing the merits. And you're apparently too dumb to recognize your own blindness.
Truly hoosier, you are a fine catch, and an equal to Sloanbot in your analytical skills.
Is anyone else besides me worried about the Sloanbot? I fear he has rusted once more in the field. SlipperyCheese would you check in on him please?
"I think history shows we support whatever regime supports our interests, Saudi Arabia being a good current example." As do all nations, tribes, families, people.
"And are you arguing that its ok that we support Saudi Arabia because them letting have access to oil gives us the power to spread democracy elsewhere around the world."
Partly, yes, because usually democracies do not kill us.
Oil is not wine: it's essential to modern life. Let's assume we do the moral, pure thing and forsake Saudi oil. We all walk to work and to the market, quxxo in the lead, and heat our homes by rubbing sticks together. Our economy would shatter, as would the Saudi's, resulting in chaos and bloodshed and probably an Iranian and nuclear theocracy there and god knows what here. Our slim margin of influence would be spent. If we bombed the oil fields to kingdom come, each and every nation in the world would not have "access to oil": worldwide depression, if not already immersed in same caused by our depression, more chaos, bloodshed, etc.
Hindsight is 20/20. Every government stumbles through the great questions of the day. Let's file away Rummy's Handshake of Death and worry about the Iraqis alive today.
Wow quxxo, you posted before me, and you are certainly playing against type. Short post AND no snark. In all sincerity, it is appreciated.
And how do you start off our conversation hoosier? With a backhanded complimented, a slam.
Like so many on your side of the aisle you dish it out and then get all offended when it is handed back to you.
I find this point of view a bit incoherent.
I'm not surprised.
We humans have a way of muddling up concepts, to fit present-day circumstances and mores.
Communism and Fascism, for example, both shared a hatred of bohemianism -- and imprisoned and censured any expression of homosexuality, prostitution, and subversive artistry.
Such attitudes many people would consider "conservative", don't you think?
And yet Fascism was seen as Rightist, whereas Communism is seen as the ultimate expression of Leftism.
But I doubt Metternich and Hitler would have had ANYTHING in common, despite being thought of historically, as belonging to the same "side".
The difference is in the ethos of how much control there should be, and how much of a challenge private entities should have towards the State, and the role of free-market capitalism, that defines both sides today.
Some ideologies clearly follow a more Statist path, which is different from protectionism, however.
The answer lies in the extreme totalitarian nature of any side.
And whether of the Right or Left, it's understood in the West -- political extremes and democracy are not compatible.
I'll leave the ACLU and Amnesty International responses to someone else.
I will just say that when I find their organisational ethos to better reflect one side, which I do not belong to, rather than the other -- that's when I personally come to a conclusion of their political allegiances.
I'm sure many people do too.
Cheers,
Victoria
And finally hoosier, as we come to expect from lightweights such as yourself, you chose yourself to ignore all of arguments:
Think globally, act locally. We can be more effective with ChimpyMcBushitler than we can with Kim Jong-Il. By speaking truth to power, by raising consciousness (not an easy task), we can do something about the Chimpster and thereby do something about Osama Bin Laden and Darfur (intriguing the concern in this thread about Rwanda, but not about Darfur).
why is there so much blind opposition to the project in Iraq from the left now, when we are finally pursuing goals that they would agree with?
A) It's a smear to call it blind opposition.
B) The ends do not justify the means
C) There is more than one way to skin a cat.
And instead you distract everyone with your complaint that quxxo was being mean to you.
And then having allowed yourself to ignore the merits of any of my arguments, having made the smear that the opposition is blind, having failed to apologize for that smear, you go one step further and again insist that my opposition is blind.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.
I will just say that when I find their organisational ethos to better reflect one side, which I do not belong to, rather than the other -- that's when I personally come to a conclusion of their political allegiances.
I'm sure many people do too.
Cheers,
Victoria
Once again, VB, I agree 100% with you. This is exactly what I have told Ann, and Michael Totten, and Roger El Simon when they tell us all about how they are the actual moderates and liberals, and wonder why they can only get the righties to agree with them.
Hey guys. Its FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!:) I think we can all agree we are glad to live in America where we can get home from work, then go out to a bar, have a drink, watch some live music, then go home, hopefully get laid, watch (insert favorite news channel), get up at a very late hour on Saturday, and watch college BBall, b/c its March, babbyy!!
Of those, I will get to home from work. The rest of it :-(
The picture of the little boy and the "Where is my sister?" sign is making me cry. I cannot even fathom the sorrow these people have lived their whole lives with.
It's a annoyance of mine that some people understand political leanings on a simple right-left scale.
Agreed.
But in informal conversations such as what we all of us are having, especially to do with a topic raised by you regarding the political views we have of certain entities, it is difficult not to fall under the same easy-definition traps, don't you think?
The political compass test, which is still a bit simplistic, does a better job of articulating the range of political philosphies.
This view has a libertarian/authoritarian axis and a left/right axis.
The graph is as follows:
Top right=Authoritarian Right
Botton right=Libertarian Right
Top Left= Authoritarian Left
Bottom Left=Libertarian Left.
Yes, geoduck, I'm aware of that left/right axis, if you will.
I may be a future M.D. but my degree is in History, and I have concentrated on the political history of Europe in the late 19th-and-20th centuries.
Not surprisingly, I always fall in the libertarian left corner of the graph.
I am not a stick-in-the-mud about these tests, and gladly take them when someone points me to them.
I don't think there was anyone on these blogs in 2004, who didn't get pointed to a "Where do you fall?" quizzes.
I remember remarking on one political quiz, that the results were amazingly skewed towards the Left.
Almost everyone of Libertarian ethos who took it fell closer to Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, or Gandhi, whereas those of us in the Right had such luminaries as George W. Bush, Hitler and bizarrely, Paul Martin of Canada to align ourselves to.
I mentioned how, if the quiz makers had been truly unbiased, they easily could have provided many more Leftist examples, as I certainly can think of anyone from:
Zapatero of Spain
Lula of Brazil
Chavez of Venezuela
Castro of Cuba
To give detailed variations of "Leftitude" (coinage, thy name is woman!).
(I'm making a generalization here - but many lefties on the blogosphere could be classified as libertarian leftists.
I think most people like to think of themselves as Libertarians, but when it comes right down to it, we most of us believe that there is a time and place for government intervention in private lives.
That's why the authoritarian leftist charges are greeted with amazement and incomprehension.
Oh yes?
Tell me, Geoduck -- when was the last time you picketed outside the Cuban Trade Interest in Washington DC?
Well, let's not make this personal.
Instead of "you", let's just say, "when did other Leftists picket...", etc.
The answer is rarely, if never.
When you don't speak out with the same intensity or frequency as you do against other political factions, one unfortunate side-effect of that, is that people could think you are closer to them, than to other sides.
Me, I don't want to be corralled with the Francos of this world, just because I lean Rightwards.
And I make a point of saying so publicly whenever possible, since constitutionally and personality-wise, I'm not into picketting.
Or another graph charts statists vs. libertarians and
liberal vs. conservative
with the centrists in the middle.
I've said it a few times on Althouse, but the way I describe myself is:
An anti-Statist, free market traditionalist.
It's a simplification of a very complex issue, but one which perhaps is necessary online.
Cheers,
Victoria
Once again, VB, I agree 100% with you.
Pretend I'm dead. Don't refer to me again.
And that picture of Rumsfield shaking Saddam's hand is worth a thousand words.
A picture of an envoy of the US government shaking the hands of a dictator doesn't mean anything until you know the context. Obviously envoys of governments have to shake hands of people all the time as part of the job.
My understanding is that Rumsfeld was sent as a special enjoy by Reagan because 200 U.S. marines had just been blown up in Beruit and Reagan was worried that Iraq would make mischief in Lebanon.
So..it didn't mean Rumsfeld put on his knee pads to do a Lewsinky on Saddam, it didn't mean they were busom buddies, it just meant he was doing a job.
I thought we were pretty much agreeing on problematics of a simple linear understanding of political philosphies, but ok.
Oh we were. No worries.
What about Cuba? No I have not attended a demonstration against Castro. I live in the Midwest, and haven't seen any demonstrations against Castro, lately either.
Besides, I don't like demonstrations about anything. I don't like the emotion and the crowd mentalite.
I was at pains to change "you" to "those who think like you" in politically left terms.
And to be sure, like me, you don't like demonstrations or protest marches.
But they do. Oh boy, how they do.
And they don't protest outside the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C.
It just doesn't happen.
Your other mention about Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. was a bit disingenuous.
(Although nice touch to muddy the waters by including brownshirts in that particular political soup)
If you think the American Left were outraged at the goings-on of Stalin, Pol Pot, and many others of their ilk -- but furthermore, actively protested the abuses whilst they were going on, I don't know what to say.
I think you'll find that the vitriol they had towards democracies like the US' policy in Vietnam, was enormous compared to the non-radar blip of anger against the Killing Fields or even the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
We're not talking about extremists in the left-sphere.
We're talking about the rank-and-file.
Cheers,
Victoria
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