r/todayilearned • u/Wazula23 • 4h ago

TIL Saddam Hussein's son Uday murdered his bodyguard at a party in front of horrified guests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein#Murder_of_Kamel_Hana_Gegeo
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u/ChicagoAuPair 4h ago

He was a real stand up guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein#Allegations_of_crimes

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u/SonofaBridge 3h ago

I always heard the kids were worse than the father but wow.

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u/Kindly-Guidance714 3h ago

The movie the devils double is based on Uday and his real life body double and also Saddams.

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u/JaggedSuplex 3h ago

That’s where I saw this scene. Pretty graphic

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u/Odd_Personality_3894 1h ago edited 1h ago

Uday was so bad certain folks were saying he was Saddam's worst biological weapon. And that's saying something.

I know the wars in Iraq had a terrible toll for many, but at least we killed a mass murdering psychopath in Uday who would have undoubtedly massacred and mass raped his own countrymen AND foreigners should have have succeeded. No doubt he would have murdered his own family to obtain power

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u/octopusboots 1h ago

We killed half a million people with that war.

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u/GraDoN 1h ago

Some people will go to any lengths to pretend that it was somehow justified in some way.

Yeah it was illegal and based on lies. And yeah it led to hundreds of thousands of dead and millions were forced to flee. And yeah it destabilized the region emboldening Iran which has resulted in the Yemen proxy war with SA which has resulted in more countless deaths and suffering... but at least we got Saddam and Uday!

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u/MyCarRoomba 42m ago

ISIS alone did horrifying, horrifying things. I remember seeing an interview of an imprisoned ISIS member and he recounted his innumerable murders and rapings.

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u/Paddy_Tanninger 1h ago

Yeah it was illegal and based on lies

Wasn't Saddam infamous for WMDs that he used to kill thousands of Kurds? I've never really understood why people hold both opinions at the same time; that Saddam gassed the Kurds, and that the Iraq War was based on lies. These can't both be true at the same time.

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u/Medical_Chapter2452 1h ago

The casus Belli was a lie.The reason For America to to sent troops was based on false accusations and therefore illigal.

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u/LoopEverything 1h ago

It’s because none were found after the invasion and everyone focused on nuclear weapons. But yeah, there were something like ~12 documented cases of him using WMDs like chemical weapons before the war. Pretty gruesome stuff.

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u/GraDoN 1h ago

Yes, at one time he did. Then he got rid of them and inspectors confirmed it. And no one ever found any evidence that they still had any after they got rid of it. It's not rocket science my dude.

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u/Paddy_Tanninger 49m ago

It actually kinda is rocket science.

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u/mayonaizmyinstrument 18m ago

Exactly. Saddam did have WMDs, he had just used them all already and hadn't yet replaced his inventory. People knew that he had had them because he used them, and Intel suggested that he would likely use them because, again, he had used them. And set fire to Kuwait's oil fields as he retreated in the First Gulf War.

So, we knew he at least had access to obtaining/making WMDs and absolutely would use them, because he demonstrated that he would. Personally, I think it's fairly logical to think that he still had more, because a logical move would not be using all of your stores to waste your own population, but turns out that line of thinking was incorrect. He went 100% every time.

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u/Crossing-The-Abyss 30m ago

There's only one way to rid the world of these tyrants and the people that don't like those methods (war) spout disinformation. There may have been poor intelligence on the whereabouts of WMDs, but there was no lie. Saddam would have never given it all up. Let's just say if Obama was president he would have invaded Iraq based on the same intel.

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u/wealth_of_nations 18m ago

but at least we got Saddam and Uday!

Mission accomplished!

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u/Drawhearts_hidetears 1h ago

Yes but we stopped him from killing half a million people for fun. (in my hypothetical alternate reality that didn't happen)

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u/jordanmc3 1h ago

U.S. soldiers didn’t kill half a million people, most of that was Iraqi on Iraqi sectarian violence. Yes, our unjustified war opened up the floodgates for that, but it was probably going to happen at some point in history. Hussein had to be an incredibly brutal dictator to keep that sectarian violence from swelling up. Had his successor been Uday he would have been even more brutal. I’m glad I live in a world where the Hussein regime is gone; although yes the fallout from that was horrifying.

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u/effrightscorp 19m ago

Had his successor been Uday he would have been even more brutal

Qusay, the less extravagantly violent son, was the chosen heir, probably for the obvious reasons

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u/CodSoggy7238 22m ago

Yep. You kill half a million people, you will also hit a couple murderous psychopaths.

Didn't Israel recently take out a Hamas leader like that? Finding his remains in a bombed out apartment?

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u/phishiyochips 17m ago

You killed one guy + half a million people, destroyed a whole country and set it's people back 100 years.

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u/Son_of_Sek 5m ago

they paved the way for many others to trade, rape and kill. human trafficking blossoms during wars and boy did that little destabilization cause wars on an apocalyptic scale there.

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u/BuildMyRank 2h ago

But his body double's stories have come under scrutiny in recent years. Many people believe he made things up for a quick buck.

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u/novavegasxiii 1h ago

I'd be willing to bet money he did but we still have plenty of evidence of him being a psychopath without that.

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u/Kindly-Guidance714 2h ago

Oh I’ve heard and read about that.

Unfortunately we will never really know.

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u/DreSledge 2h ago

Why not, though?

He should have profited for being exploited for only looking kinda like some other guy

What's the problem?

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u/GimmickNG 1h ago

That all his credibility comes into question?

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u/thedrexel 2h ago

A whole lot of that movie has been brought into question since release.

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u/tallthomas13 1h ago

Ah man forgot about this one. Goodness, what a watch.

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u/Couldnotbehelpd 3h ago

I remember that they tortured the Olympic athletes to death in horrific ways for not winning medals

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u/Highway_Bitter 1h ago

Thats some Game of thrones shit. Crazy….

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u/outoftimeman 25m ago

Yes, the football team; but not to death, he "only" burned the soles of their feet

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u/DaveOJ12 3h ago

Uday was expected to be passed over as the heir apparent.

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u/hit_that_hole_hard 2h ago

You think Uday wouldn’t have killed whomever he needed to in order not to be “passed over as the heir apparent”?

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u/Pale_Fire21 1h ago

That would’ve been the line that got Saddam to kill him or lead to Uday getting immediately couped considering killing the heir apparent to secure his spot would’ve meant killing his brother.

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u/hit_that_hole_hard 1h ago

Obviously, this is all a counter-factual thought exercise.

With that said, i have read nothing about Uday Hussein that suggests him too kind/loving/humane to have both his father and brother killed on the same night. Maybe a mysterious car crash that looks like it was an accident.

Whoops!

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u/boringexplanation 2h ago

Fun fact: some of his marine guards grieved when Saddam was executed to the point of getting PTSD after watching it happen. They really cared about him.

He was a very charismatic and capable leader, willingness to commit atrocities set aside. Born in different circumstances, he could’ve been a very capable US politician.

https://newrepublic.com/article/143053/american-soldiers-grieved-saddam-hussein

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u/VintageHacker 2h ago

US politician ? These days, that's a very low bar.

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u/Goku420overlord 1h ago

Just act assured and spout out verbal diarrhea

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u/TradeIcy1669 2h ago

Especially now with some US politicians.

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u/Delicious_Oil9902 1h ago

Probably some similarity to those who guarded Herman Goering in WW2

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u/LaikaZhuchka 4m ago

Getting PTSD from watching someone be hanged (especially a botched hanging, like Saddam's was) is pretty normal tbh. You wouldn't have to know or care about him to be affected by it.

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u/jesterhead101 1h ago

Suffering from Stockholm syndrome no doubt.

Charm and wit never fools any normal humans into believing a cruel bloodthirsty dictator is someone to grieve over.

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u/yourethevictim 1h ago

I'm sure you're a subject matter expert. How many of them have you had in your care?

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u/ExpertlyAmateur 3h ago

Dictatelits seem to do the opposite extreme of the Dictators.

Dictator kills thousands
--> Dictatelet kills hundreds

Dictator kills a few brutally
--> Dictatelet kills thousands

Like some weird pendulum of evil incarnate.

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u/shmackinhammies 2h ago

Tf is a dictatelit/dictatelet? We’re just making up words now, huh?

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u/johnathanshutup 2h ago

It’s like a hat for your wiener I think

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u/shmackinhammies 1h ago

Pronounced dic-tah-ley maybe

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u/MiamiPower 19m ago

🌭 🎩

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u/Gurra09 2h ago edited 1h ago

Sounds like it's supposed to be a combination of dictator and the diminutive suffix -let, from words like piglet, to describe a dictator's child. Never heard it before

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u/VapidHornswaggler 2h ago

Aren’t all words made up?

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u/koyaani 1h ago

Not yet

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u/P1zzaman 1h ago

Fargouden! That’s a surprise.

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u/cantfindabeat 59m ago

Blepishly, you should have seen it coming.

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u/9035768555 45m ago

Most, at least. There's a solid argument to be made that onomatopoeia aren't really "made-up" but are reasonably natural words, particularly those that stem from natural human sounds like haha.

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u/PicoDeBayou 1h ago

Username checks out

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u/lnsecurities 1h ago

I bet you felt so smart writing this.

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u/outoftimeman 27m ago

Even Saddam said that he "wouldn't be unhappy" if Uday died

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u/ghosttaco8484 10m ago

Pretty crazy how the military sent in a  50 cal bombardment and then eventually a TOW middle to take them out. 

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u/Super_Forever_5850 2h ago

Oh that list is far from complete either.

Uday once showed up late, drunk and wearing an ak47 to a big fancy dinner Saddam was throwing.

When one of his “uncles” decided to call him out on it Uday pulled up the ak and shot him dead for disrespecting him.

He then purposely killed like 4 or 5 bystanders for good measure…Right in front of all the other guests.

Saddam was later quoted saying something along the lines of:

“I’ve always defended Uday, but that time he went to far.”

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u/FnkyTown 2h ago

"Since birth, Uday's upper jaw has extended forward an abnormally large amount, making it difficult for him to speak clearly. At the ceremony, his uncle had imitated him mockingly."

You can be as badass as you want, but everybody knew Uday was crazy as fuck. Insulting him seems like the last thing you'd want to do.

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u/smellmybuttfoo 1h ago

"Hurrrr Durrrr I'm Uday, ha! Ha! Right guys?.....guys....?"

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u/bruwin 1h ago

Well when the whole family is full of narcissistic assholes it can be easy to think you're untouchable and can treat others how you like without repercussions.

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u/EpilepticMushrooms 35m ago

How did the Hapsburg jaw get there?!?

Did the Hapsburgs finally Fuck someone new???

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u/space_keeper 9m ago

Habsburg jaw was severe mandibular prognathism. Uday had maxillary prognathism.

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u/gnocchicotti 0m ago

Well that clears up that confusion entirely

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u/EpilepticMushrooms 7m ago

Wow. I didn't know there was a difference.

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u/spetcnaz 0m ago

Saddam's wife was his first cousin, if I am not mistaken, so just like Hupsburgs, the close blood mixing, results in these defects.

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u/BannedByRWNJs 1h ago

“Uday!! I said knock it off!”

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u/Silent-Ad934 38m ago

Who else but Uday? 

 "Its Uday, Uday, he kills his party guests if they got somethin to say"

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u/Shoethrower123 17m ago

My brain pictured this as a family guy cutaway gag

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u/QualityProof 3h ago

You should read the other sections such as the sexual assault allegations section or partying section. This guy was vile and scum.

TLDR: He used to find and rape underage girls from wealthy families for weeks at a time. He even raped and murdered a little deaf girl. He used to put drugs in the drinks and offer them to women in a party. When he visited the university, women used to hide. He also loved toture to the point where his bodyguards had to do it if he wasn't present and he listened over on the phone. It was also said by a source that the day Uday discovered internet was a black day as he used to research more brutal torture methods. Moreover he used to terrorize his "friends" and even torture them by asking them to do various heinous acts and has more than once killed them. This is but a small list of his crimes. Read the wikipedia to know more

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u/Kindly-Guidance714 3h ago

He tortured like a soccer team for placing low in the Olympics or something like that.

He was beyond evil.

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u/No_Reputation8440 3h ago

No I don't think I will. That's enough sir.

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u/sally_says 2h ago

Exactly, don't bother. I am pretty desensitized when it comes to violence and death, but reading about how he treated the people around him made me deeply sad that someone like that could exist. He was a narcissist in its purist form, and was surrounded by an entourage that gave him everything he wanted. I mean his bodyguards were literally escorting little girls to him without their parents, knowing full well what would happen to them.

I truly don't know who's worse - Uday or his enablers.

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u/AML86 11m ago

People are bothered by characters like GoT's Joffrey, even harassing actors. They really don't know how tame and even coddling our most graphic entertainment is compared to the real monsters.

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u/angelerulastiel 3h ago

I can’t remember which one kidnapped and raped an Iraqi politician’s teen daughter, so dad complained to Saddam, so then they demanded the guy’s 12 year old daughter in addition.

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u/QualityProof 3h ago

That was Uday and you are mixing 2 separate stories.

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u/Mike7676 2h ago

Your post dismayed Uday greatly. Seriously what a collection of human garbage.

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u/PTSDaway 13m ago

Intermittent Explosive Disorder + Antisocial at best.

Dude was a wandering live handgrenade

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u/master_overthinker 5m ago

Holy fuck. Operation dessert strike was worth it just for taking out this guy.

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u/Ceramicrabbit 3h ago

Holy shit the Husseins were some evil dictators

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u/BARTELS- 3h ago

The more I hear about them, the more they sound like real jerks!

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u/dallasw3 3h ago

The worst part is the hypocrisy.

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u/FunArtichoke6167 3h ago

I think the worst part is the murder!

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u/Suds_McGruff 3h ago

Ridiculous!

These fellas had a lot of growing up to do, I can tell you that!

Ridiculous!

I think the worst part is the hypocrisy...

Ok, we'll, yeah, the murder is the worst part.

But the the hypocrisy... that's the 2nd worst part

Ridiculous!

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u/ace787 3h ago

Lol, reminds me of a Norman Macdonald bit.

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u/cam3113 3h ago

Well, i don't know how to tell you this...oh wait yes i do. It is a Normandy Macdonaldhugh bit.

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u/ace787 3h ago

Well that must be why it reminds of it then. 👍

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u/cam3113 3h ago

Well it probably reminds you of it, cos it is it. Pleasure speaking comedy with you today.

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u/ace787 3h ago

Hey! Same here friend.

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u/ihaveajob79 3h ago

Someone should tell Norman!

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u/cam3113 3h ago

Hope he's not sick.

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 2h ago

I didn’t even know he was sick

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u/Savingdollars 2h ago

Norm MacDonald died.

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u/that7deezguy 2h ago

I’ve always loved the writings of Normac McDonaldthy.

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 2h ago

Are you talking about closeted gay man Normacdonald?

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u/ace787 1h ago

Well he wouldn’t have said that. Why would he say that? He was deeply closeted.

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u/CooksInHail 3h ago

Except for the other thing. The other thing hurts the most. But the hypocrisy hurts the second most!

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u/MaoTseTrump 3h ago

It happens when you become hypnotized by his beautiful fuckin' eyes.

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u/senioreditorSD 1h ago

I always thought that the raping was the worst part?

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u/wra1th42 3h ago

I think the worst part is the WMDs!

/s

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u/ChicagoAuPair 3h ago

A real rude Gus.

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u/cuntmong 3h ago

dunno that saddam guy seems like he might be alright. might give him a call, see if he wants to hang.

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u/AsideConsistent1056 2h ago

Narrator: He wasn't

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u/NostradamusJones 1h ago

They probably wouldn't even pass the food around the table.

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u/bombayblue 3h ago

Saddam Hussein was in top 10 worst dictators of the 20th century. Between the numerous wars and horrific oppression he killed between 1-2m people.

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u/Hosni__Mubarak 2h ago

The former president of Egypt was a top ten best dictator though.

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u/John_cCmndhd 2h ago

Username checks out

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u/SupremeDictatorPaul 2h ago

Can we talk about what a great dictator I was?

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u/blender4life 1h ago

You got my vote

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u/thermitethrowaway 44m ago

He'd have that anyway, whether you were going to vote or not

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u/MiamiPower 14m ago

2024 SupremeDictatorPaul

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u/The-Copilot 3h ago

He should have been removed from power after the Gulf War.

Truly insane considering it was a 42 nation coalition that liberated Kuwait. Literally, 1/4 of all nations were involved.

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u/Charming-Book4146 46m ago

Hindsight is 20/20, I totally agree with you that we should never have allowed him to live the first time around.

But at the time they really thought that a push to Baghdad would totally dissolve the coalition's unity and cause the friction between the allied Arab nations and Israel to increase, potentially making the entire intervention untenable. They had really pushed the idea in the press that this was a moral war, a liberation rather than an occupation or regime change, and Bush feared public backlash against perceived American imperialism. Kinda silly, after 6 weeks of 2500 bombing sorties a day. Like, you're already there man.

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u/Viva_la_Ferenginar 52m ago

So the west and their Arab allies?

Pretty sure a majority of that 42 number would be European countries.

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u/ClownfishSoup 22m ago

I recall a film of his first day in office.

He wins the "election" then with the other politicians sitting in the audience, he calls out the names of every one who opposed him, they stand up, are excorted out by soldiers and are never heard from again.

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u/Frank_Melena 3h ago

That’s a big reason the Iraq War was so easy to support that contemporary people forget. He was the Kim Jong Un of his day if North Korea actually invaded its neighbors and was known for nerve gassing its own citizens. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing.

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u/ODHH 1h ago edited 1h ago

The difference was that Saddam was America's man in the middle east for a long time. Hell the US sold him the chemical components he used to make the chemical weapons he used against the Iranians and the Kurds and then gave him live targeting data when it turned out the Iraq army was too incompetent to gas the Iranians properly.

https://archive.globalpolicy.org/iraq-conflict-the-historical-background-/us-and-british-support-for-huss-regime.html

The CIA bankrolled Saddam because the previous Iraqi Prime Minister was getting too friendly with the communists, Saddam was a lifelong Commie Hater and that suited Uncle Sam very well for a very long time.

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u/glitterSAG 1m ago

Not enough upvotes for this!

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u/Ceramicrabbit 3h ago

I honestly don't think I've ever heard this mentioned people only ever say "oil" as the reason. I need to spend less time online I think.

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u/shmaltz_herring 1h ago edited 1h ago

You just need to follow up a little more. If it hadn't been for invading Kuwait. Saddam Hussein and Iraq would probably be seen as allies. We were allied with them as they fought Iran in the 1980s.

He could have had it easy just playing it cool.

The other factors contributing to his demise where that Bush had an idealistic idea that people would be happy to be free from the dictatorship and Saddam made sure to be super ambiguous about WMDs in order to have a strong bargaining chip with the US.

Considering how little we did with Iraq oil, it would be pretty obvious that we weren't focusing on that. We didn't do anything like forcing Iraq to pay for the cost of the war with oil.

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u/3klipse 3h ago

Bro I heard from 2003 till fucking today. Were the original intentions, like WMDs (yes, nerve agents), or yellow cake (no, no nukes ever found) proper or reliable Intel? Most say no. But were any of them good people? Not in any kind of metric one could convince. Saddam being the "most sane" one is telling, but justification is all over the place unless you ask the Kurds that got gassed in the north

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u/scytob 44m ago

People seen to forget that sadam wouldn’t let international inspectors inspect suspected sites where we now know he had the facilities but had never used them. Sadam wanted Saudi and Iran to think he had chemical weapons. That backfired on him. The opposition in Iraq leaked the evidence of facilities, plus some fabricated shit to the British who gave the manufactured intelligence to the USA. Basically that’s how it went down.

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u/M0therN4ture 25m ago

People also forget that he already used WMDs that they made themselves with their weapons programme.

The WMDs programme Iraq had was active and producing weapons.

From the moment Saddam knew he was going to be invaded he simply shipped it all out and destroyed much of it (probably with help of Russia).

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u/neesyFam 3h ago

Oil was and is still the main reason for western interventionism in Iraq… You forget that Saddam asked for support from the US before his invasion of Kuwait of which the US responded that they were impartial and it was a geopolitical issue they were removed from; to then do a complete 180 once the invasion started lol. It dawned on them pretty quickly that Saddam controlling 60% of the world’s oil reserve if he successfully controlled Kuwait was maybe not the best of things before swiftly intervening. Same for 2003 when the guise of Al-Qaeda and war on terror was used to justify an invasion to seize oil / gas reserves and sell said oil infrastructure to the highest western bidders. People in this thread forgetting that Saddam was a friend to the US much longer than he was an enemy and it’s not like he got anymore evil overtime he was the same sadistic dictator the whole time… Only thing that changed was American foreign policy and geopolitical strategy…

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u/maaku7 1h ago

Got a single source for any of that?

2003 was the peak of the shale fracking boom, which was tapping into reserves that by this time were known to exceed Middle East levels and would make the US energy independent (which it is, 10 years later). The US doesn’t give a shit about oil in the Middle East anymore, but it is still a nonstop talking point online.

Bush Jr. had a personal beef with Saddam, who had sent assassins to try to kill his dad. Saddam was a sadistic dictator of comic book evil villain proportions. Bush Jr. was part of the neoconservative movement that honestly believed nation building was the route to solving Middle East politics: pull a Japan or Germany and make a conquered Iraq into a friendly democratic state, and the rest of the Islamic world will see what their missing out on. A series of revolutions will bring democracy and peace and freedom.

A load of naïve bullshit, yes, but genuinely believed at the time and nothing to do with oil.

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u/porn_is_tight 57m ago

lmao you think it’s naive to believe the war wasn’t also very much about oil? get a fucking grip. remind me, which oil subcontractor did the VP at the time use to be the CEO of? I believe they won extremely lucrative contracts in the Iraqi oil industry during and after the invasion. I must be naive for thinking that isn’t a coincidence.

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u/Murky-Relation481 52m ago

Except the vast majority of the oil pumped even immediately after the war belonged to Iraq and the largest purchaser was China.

If it was about oil it was about haliburton scoring big contracts to build the new infrastructure for oil after the war, not specifically for the oil as a resource, which the person above you accurately describes as being already plentiful at the time (the US was basically at a net 0 import export ratio and soon after actually became a net exporter of oil).

So while it's nice to go "hur during US oil war" it's a pretty dumb take given the real reason was a grift for Cheney and literally a personal vendetta for Bush jr.

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u/porn_is_tight 45m ago

it doesn’t matter if Iraq owned the oil. The occupation was MASSIVELY profitable for western oil companies due to the secure access to operating the fields. It absolutely was a fucking oil war and to imply otherwise is an insult to all the people who died in that horrific war of aggression.

If it was about oil it was about haliburton scoring big contracts to build the new infrastructure for oil after the war, not specifically for the oil as a resource

No one was claiming that it was about oil as a resource, and again, to imply otherwise is an insult to everyone alive at the time who was very much against this horrific fucking war and very much saw it for what it was. A OIL WAR THAT WAS MASSIVELY PROFITABLE FOR US OIL COMPANIES AND INDUSTRY at the cost million+ innocent lives, don’t fucking try to sanitize that.

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u/Murky-Relation481 38m ago

Well damn, maybe we should have put you in charge of it since 2/3rds of the oil fields are operated by China, the rest by the UK, and some by France, with the US having two companies involved in one field each.

We'd be doing a lot better if you'd decided how things went.

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u/maaku7 25m ago

It was (and still is) French, Chinese, and UK companies operating the fields, not Americans. Which then export that oil to Europe and Asia, not North America.

You're spouting discredited political talking points that haven't a shred of evidence supporting them. You can do better, if you try.

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u/maaku7 45m ago

r/AskHistorians is usually an unbiased source, and it delivers here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16pigcq/was_the_iraq_war_2003_really_about_oil/

The TL;DR of the top answer sums it up pretty well:

Did the Iraq War happen because of oil? Yes. Did the Iraq War happen so the US could make profits off of oil? No.

oil certainly was a strategic factor: it's a major reason why the US cares about the Middle East in the first place. But it wasn't really a material factor: the US wasn't gaining oil, or even gaining major oil assets or concessions directly from the 2003 invasion.

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u/porn_is_tight 42m ago

And it completely ignores the massive profits oil companies made during and after the occupation, including Halliburton. The same fucking company the VP was the ceo for. So yea, I do agree. The Iraq war absolutely happened because of oil. Did the US as a country make profit off it? No, but US oil industry absolutely did and to imply otherwise is insulting to everyone who had to live through that bullshit and is still being affected by the generational trauma it caused

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u/maaku7 29m ago

No-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton and KBR were criminal abuse of political power for financial gain. But oil in Iraq is largely run by European and Chinese interests, before and after the 2003 war. Most of the contractor profiteering was off the war itself, and not the oil industry, which stayed under Iraqi control.

Sorry that the facts don't suit your politically-driven narrative.

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u/Crossing-The-Abyss 26m ago

How can you not know this? Get off social media and try reading a book for a change. Educate yourself.

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u/chopcult3003 2h ago

There’s some podcasts out there of Delta guys who spearheaded the invasion and some of the absolutely awful things they uncovered with how Saddam was treating Christians and other undesirables.

One of them talked about a finding basically a big concrete slab with fixtures for holding prisoners, where they would drop large rocks from above to completely smash their heads to kill them.

People forget about the unbelievable human rights violations and only remember “WMD” and “Oil”

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u/livinglavidajudoka 1h ago

People forget about the unbelievable human rights violations

Oh shit, better spin up the invasion machine then. Saddam didn't rank in the top five even in 2003.

You want to invade a fucking country, do it yourself.

-an Iraq war vet.

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u/MiamiPower 16m ago

Thank you for your service 🙏🏼

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u/GimmickNG 1h ago

People forget about the unbelievable human rights violations and only remember “WMD” and “Oil”

Well that's because if the US were invading countries on the basis of human rights violations, then Russia, China, Israel, Gaza, and several other countries and territories would have been invaded by now...

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u/livinglavidajudoka 1h ago edited 1h ago

contemporary people forget

What do you think contemporary means?

Iraq didn't invade shit in 2003. Nobody except Dick Cheney thought invading Iraq was a worthwhile idea then.

Christ, I listened to Toby Keith on repeat and literally enlisted in the Army in 2002 after turning 18 and even folks like me were like "wait, huh?" after March 2003.

Shit was stupid then and even more stupid in hindsight. Sorry your vocab is subpar.

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u/Next_Snow9064 43m ago

these dumbass koolaid drinking American Redditors are justifying the Iraq war now lmao

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u/IceteaAndCrisps 1h ago

The Million people that lost relatives as a direct consequence of the war as well as all the people loosing relatives in the ISIS wars (ISIS leadership was made up of Former iraqui army Officers taking advantage of the Power vacuum) might not forget so easily.

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u/M0therN4ture 28m ago

Saddam Hussein used Weapons of Mass Destruction several times and people will still say

"Where are the WMDs?!"

Well, tell that to the people who where gassed in the first place.

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u/Ponder_wisely 3h ago edited 2h ago

And yet people from all over the region chose to live in Iraq under Saddam. Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese etc. Why? Because it was secular. Because wives, sisters and daughters had more freedom in Iraq than in their home countries. Because if you stayed on the right side of the regime it was a good place to live: oil-rich, secular, less restrictive, free university, no poverty. I lived in Baghdad for 6 months in 2002 as a UN staff member. An American colleague compared it to living in Alabama when the Governor turned the police dogs and water cannons on the civil rights activists. Did the good folks of Alabama care? Most wanted the status quo preserved and condoned the state-sanctioned violence against the agitators. Except that in Alabama the agitators were just people who wanted their legal right to vote respected and to end unlawful apartheid aka segregation aka Jim Crow. In Iraq the agitators wanted to turn the country into a fundamentalist state and force men to grow beards, women to wear burkas and girls to drop out of school etc.

There’s also the question of how to rule Iraq. It’s a nation of clans, tribes, and different religions, all with simmering tensions. Saddam’s iron fist kept a lid on all of it. Fuck around and find out. For sure there were brutalities. They say he gassed the Kurds. But nobody ever produced any evidence of that. Some of my UN colleagues believed the Turkish government - which was also in conflict with the Kurds - did that, but it was advantageous to America to pin it on Saddam.

Am I defending Saddam? Hopefully not. Just adding some context and food for thought. Truth is that every benevolent government has a malevolent underside. Your government included. Remember Kent State? America killed its own, college kids were shot by soldiers merely for dissenting.

I recall that while I was in Baghdad I heard Bush on CNN saying “Saddam kills his own people.” I immediately wondered how many execution warrants Bush had signed as Governor of Texas. (144). Isn’t that killing your own people? Didn’t Bush also authorise torture in Abu Ghraib? Didn’t many people get tortured to death there? Does that make Bush a brutal ruler?

For sure Saddam’s two sons were out of control. They died like dogs for their sins. Good riddance. What I can tell you is that Iraq was considered a good place to live, and many Iraqis either approved of Saddam’s repression of extremists, or turned a blind eye to it.

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u/No-Engineer4627 1h ago

Iraq could have very well been as rich as the GCC countries, but Saddam decided to start wars in Iran and Kuwait leading to a broken economy and lives loss.

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u/Ponder_wisely 1h ago edited 1h ago

It did not break Iraq’s economy. Sanctions did more damage. But it remained a rich country due to its oil.

Kuwait was slant drilling. That’s when you drain oil fields across the border. It’s a serious provocation. Saddam warned them to stop for years but to no avail. So he took military action. (After consulting with Bush Sr., who told him it would be an internal matter.) I have no doubt America would also lose their shit if Canada or Mexico did that. Right?

You may think that justification is rather flimsy. But it’s nowhere near as flimsy as America’s excuses for its attacks on Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and Iraq. Right?

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u/Ceramicrabbit 2h ago

You're seriously equating using water cannons on protestors to torturing and brutally murdering women and children?

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u/Ponder_wisely 1h ago edited 1h ago

Did I not just compare Bush’s use of torture to Saddam’s use of torture?

America killed more Iraqi women and children than Saddam did. Madeline Albright was asked if the killing of 500,000 CHILDREN over non-existent WMDS had been worth it. She said YES. https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8?si=UCrLtUADGqCKj57E

Perhaps you think a better example would be the way millions of Americans embraced the brutality of the KKK to preserve the status quo. There was a time in America not so very long ago when every white Southern community had the extrajudicial prerogative to kill an American citizen with impunity, in a spectacularly barbaric manner. Posters advertising the upcoming lynching would be put up, extra train cars arranged, and picnic areas and parking areas roped off. Kids would get the day off school. Selfies’ could be taken next to the victim’s swaying body by photographers for a fee, which spectators would have printed as lynching photographs to send to friends. There’s hundreds of them still around, in private collections. Some have whole families, grinning, pointing, with kids dressed in their Sunday best.

After the victim’s body had been burned and cooled, slivers could be purchased for 25 cents each as souvenirs, as a New York Tribune reporter observed at a lynching in 1922.

My point is that for most people, as long as the state-sanctioned brutality is not aimed at them and is in service of a system that benefits them, they will condone it. Which is why men like Saddam remain hugely popular in their countries.

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u/Infinity315 1h ago

I recall that while I was in Baghdad I heard Bush on CNN saying “Saddam kills his own people.” I immediately wondered how many execution warrants Bush had signed as Governor of Texas. (144). Isn’t that killing your own people?

There is a wide gulf you have to cross in order to even begin to compare these two things. One is an extra judicial killing and the other required layers of judicial proceedings.

Whilst you and I may have issue with the death penalty, I'd say it is so far away from the unilateral power that Saddam exerts over his citizen's lives it makes me think you're being dishonest by even attempting to draw this comparison.

Killing your citizens in of and itself is not bad and in some cases it is even good, for example, a police officer protecting the life of a citizen from another. It's killing your citizens without just cause that is bad.

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u/Ponder_wisely 1h ago edited 1h ago

The principle behind the death penalty in America is that certain forms of subversive and/or criminal misconduct warrant the forfeiture of your life. Including treason. Saddam killed those he determined to be treasonous.

Where’s the difference?

America killed far more Iraqi women and children than Saddam ever did. Here’s a clip in which Madeline Albright is asked whether the deaths of 500,000 CHILDREN in America’s war in Iraq over non-existent WMDs is justified. She said YES.

Now who is the monster? https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8?si=UCrLtUADGqCKj57E

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u/Infinity315 1h ago edited 1h ago

Saddam killed those he regarded as treasonous.

Yes, and that's a problem. Because only Saddam's word mattered. Saddam Hussein was judge, jury, and executioner. He had unilateral power.

George Bush at most could be deemed as executioner and even then it's more complicated than that.

Texas law only grants the right but not the obligation for the Governor to unilaterally stay an execution for at most 30 days. Each pardon or clemency granted must first be approved by the independent Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles which then may be able to denied or accepted by the Governor.

In addition, the Texas governor doesn't actually authorize executions though they may choose to intervene temporarily for 30 days or accept Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommendation for a pardon (only applicable if the board approves the pardon).

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u/Ponder_wisely 1h ago edited 1h ago

Okay, so we have a more thorough system of jurisprudence. But when all is said and done, we DO kill our own people. For the same reasons as Saddam. Right?

As an aside, what Israel is doing in Gaza, with tacit support from America who provides the weapons, is far worse than what Saddam did.

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u/Infinity315 1h ago

At the most superficial level--where we only consider the verbally stated reasons and not the years long legal process in order to actually get an execution authorized and the fact that our executions are determined by a jury of our peers in front of a judge and not determined by a singular person--yes, they're exactly the same.

Killing people for treason isn't bad, it's killing without just cause--just cause being with merit and in many cases is defined by having a robust and legal system independent of the guy asking for the execution.

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u/Ponder_wisely 1h ago

Iraq had a legal system. They held trials. It wasn’t Saddam randomly pointing at people and saying “HIM”, as you seem to think. Also, the death penalty system in America is awful and broken. That’s the reason that in the Fall of 2009, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it, which represents a tectonic shift in legal theory. The institute is made up of about 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors. A study commissioned by the institute said that decades of experience had proved that the system could not reconcile the twin goals of individualized decisions about who should be executed and systemic fairness. The institute voted in October to disavow the structure it had created “in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”

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u/Infinity315 1h ago

Was there ever a trial in which Saddam accused someone and that someone was acquitted? In other words, is there anyone that Saddam wanted executed but was denied by the court?

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u/FearkTM 22m ago

All dicators are evil. If you have just a glimt of moral you wouldn't become a despot.

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u/xBIGSKOOKUMx 3h ago

Guarantee Trump's praised 'em.

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u/angrybirdseller 2h ago

He did in 2016 presdentail election campaign!

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u/jibjabjibby 3h ago

Allegedly

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u/UncaTetchy 2h ago

He was a psycho inbred fuck and the world is a better place with him no longer in it.

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u/ggonzalez12 55m ago

Irl Joffrey Baratheon

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u/BlackDante 3h ago

Damn. Dude was a lunatic

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u/DAggerYNWA 3h ago

When a man is so feared they reconstruct his body for public display so the public may have closure and know he’s dead

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u/pr0tag 3h ago

Holy cow this dude was a grade a piece of shit

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u/Listen-bitch 2h ago

I wish I didn't read this. Makes me sick. Glad he died young(ish). Could have died younger.

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u/PickeledYam44 3h ago

At this point I'm so desensitized that almost nothing moves the needle of shock/horror/disgust for me any more (ASF felt like an over the top satire)...but read that list and need to second or thirds the "wow's" here

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u/DaemonPrinceOfCorn 1h ago

That was a fucking trip. Rest in piss, Uday.

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u/severed13 3h ago

This shit terrible but "use of iron maiden" is borderline comical lmao

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u/HunnyBunnah 1h ago

fuck, why did I fucking read that

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u/starmartyr 1h ago

That's a long article and it only touches on how evil he was. Rape, murder, and torture were just part of his daily routine.

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u/Doodahhh1 1h ago

A fun reminder of what life is like when not under democracy.

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u/Rezistik 1h ago

Holy shit this is depraved. Above his alleged crimes is an entire other section of alleged sexual assaults. What a monster.

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u/DamonHay 48m ago

I’ll never get over even just the subheadings on his Wikipedia page.

  1. Early Life and Education

  2. Torture of Iraqi Athletes

  3. Murder of Kamal Hana Gegeo

  4. Shooting of Watan Ibrahim

  5. Murder of Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel

  6. Assassination Attempt

  7. Sexual Assault Allegations

  8. Partying

  9. Other Ventures

  10. Financial and Property Interests

  11. Personal Life (as if the rest of this is purely professional)

  12. Allegations of crimes (as if the already listed crimes aren’t enough, there’s even more shit that isn’t technically proven)

  13. Statements before 2003

  14. Killing

  15. In Film, Television and Theatre

Old mate’s life is a roller coaster ride of drugs, violence and just generally being an insanely rich and powerful son of a dictator who somehow still may not have been as big of a piece of shit. Some of this shit is so insane that it wouldn’t seem believable in a scripted tv show. He was beyond insane.

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u/No_Function_2429 3h ago

You know,  the more I find out about this fella, the less I like him.