Kim Sun-Il Beheading Video

This is surely one of the most horrible beheading videos I have ever seen. I have only watched it once, soon after it came out. I had earlier watched the Nick Berg beheading video, and it had traumatized me badly for week or two afterward. Then I watched this video. It's way more fucked up than the Nick Berg video!

Kim Sun-Il was a young South Korean man with degrees in theology, English and Arabic from South Korean universities. The Arabic degree was a graduate degree.

He had hopes of becoming a missionary in the Middle East when he signed on with Gana General Trading, a South Korean company that was doing business with the US military as a contractor. He arrived in Iraq on June 15, 2003.

He worked as an Arabic translator for the US military until he was captured by guerrillas on May 30, 2004 in Fallujah by Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, Abu Musab Zarqawi's group that later became Iraqi Al Qaeda.

The group issued a demand of South Korea that they withdraw their 660 medics and military engineers already in the country and that they cancel plans to send another 3,000 troops. Otherwise, they would kill Sun-Il. The South Korean government denied the demands.

The group initially set a June 21 deadline for their demands to be met or they would kill Sun-Il. On June 22, Al Jazeera received a videotape of his brutal execution. His body was later found, but I am not sure where.

The video opens with Sun-Il seated on the ground in front of some Al Qaeda ogres dressed in black and wearing masks. One of them is reading from some script in Arabic. There is Arabic music in the background.

As they are reading in the script, Sun-Il, is, horribly, screaming over and over, ""I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" He is screaming it at the top of his lungs with all the passion you would expect of a man who knows he is doomed.

Finally they finish the speech and one guy grabs Sun-Il and pins him down as he struggles. The other guy pulls out a huge knife and saws the poor guy's head off as he screams. The head is quickly chopped off, then the bloody head is held up for all to see.

It's Sun-Il's head all right, but there are long trails of bloody entrails, guts looking things hanging off his head, the remains of his neck apparently. The entrails are swaying with the head and there is a huge amount of blood dripping off. Then you see the frozen expression on the chopped head. The bloody tissue swaying and dripping off the gross severed head really did it for me.

Truly horrible!

Fucked up!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enterrement de Saddam

The video is no longer available.

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). Spanish translation (en Español ).

This is the French translation of the Video of Saddam's Funeral post by super translator Natalie from France.

Voici encore une vidéo divulguée, celle des funérailles et de l'enterrement de Saddam Hussein à Al Awja. Al Awja est une petite ville près de Tikrit, qui a donné naissance à Saddam. La vidéo dure 10 minutes, donc si vous êtes impatient, il vaut mieux renoncer. La qualité de la majeure partie de ces images est assez bonne, je soupçonne qu'elles aient pu être tournées par un téléphone portable dernière génération.

La cérémonie et l'enterrement ont eu lieu au coeur de la nuit, et l'on ne voie aucune femme. Même si vous ne comprenez pas l'Arabe, il est impossible de ne pas reconnaître les cris continus de « Allah Akbar » qui frappent l'air du désert.

La scène, comme celle de l'exécution, était un chaos de rage, de menaces et de vengeance. Mais c'est une autre sorte de vengeance qui se prepare.

Mentre l'esecuzione di Saddam è stata una gioiosa, settaria festa di vendetta per gli Sciiti Iracheni del partito DAWA (e in misura minore del Partito Sciita e dell'Armata Mahdi), il suo funerale è stato una 'danse macabre' notturna, un crescendo rabbioso di invettive Sunnite.

C'è un'atmosfera carica di odio e la rabbia è palpabile, ci sono molti uomini a viso coperto pronti sicuramente ad immolarsi nella lotta, mi ha fatto venire i brividi alla schiena.

Alors que l'exécution de Saddam était une victoire pleine de joie, une fête pour le parti DAWA des chiites irakiens (et dans une moindre mesure du parti chiite de l'armée Mahdi), son enterrement était une danse macabre nocturne, un crescendo enragé d'insultes. L'atmosphère est chargée de haine et de rage, il y a beaucoup d'hommes prêts à lutter, cela m'a glacé jusque dans les os.

À présent le problème le plus important en Irak est de savoir comment contenir cette vague de haine sectaire. Les vidéos de l'exécution et de l'enterrement n'ont fait qu'attiser le feu, son exécution n'a pas été une chose positive.

Je ne sais pas qui sont ces sunnites irakiens dans les images. Ce sont probablement des sunnites de la zone de Tikrit, longtemps foyer de soutient à Saddam Hussein. Est-ce que ce sont des membres du parti Baath? Soutiennent-ils le sick, sont-ils des intégristes qui déchirent l’Irak comme les hyènes dépècent un cadavre? Moi je ne sais pas, mais peut-être quelqu'un pourra répondre à ces questions.

Je sais seulement que ce sont les images d'une bande d'exaltés irakiens sortis pour avoir du sang et de la vengeance. Dans le contexte actuel de l'Irak, c'est une chose terrifiante.

Al Qaeda Derribando un Helicóptero de EEUU

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Serbo-Croatian translation (u Srpsko-hrvatski).

Aquí está el video de iraquíes de Al Qaeda derrivando lo que fue inicialmente reportado como un helicóptero Chinook de EEUU, pero resultó luego un helicóptero CH-46 Sea Knight. Siete soldados fueron asesinados en este ataque.

El Sea Knight, al igual que el CH-47 Chinook, es usado comúnmente para transportar soldados, dados de baja y suministros para el campo de batalla. Se fabricaron hasta 1971 pero aún son usados ampliamente por la Marina. El CH-46 fue de hecho el primer Chinook producido por la Armada pero lo rechazaron por ser demasiado pequeño. Pero resultó del tamaño perfecto para la Marina. Luego de 1962, se le cambió el nombre a Sea Knight.

Desde 1971, el Sea Knight ha atravesado una serie de mejoras. Planos comparando el SeaKnight y el CH-47 se pueden ver aquí. El Pentágono se rehusa a decir que lo que derribó el helicóptero fueron las fallas mecánicas de éste.

Si miran de cerca el video, en 1:16 verán lo que parece ser un misil SAM impactando el helicóptero. No creo que haya sido una falla mecánica. Es estremecedor mirar el moribundo helicóptero por un minuto hasta que se estrella. Imaginarse el terror de los ocupantes durante ese último minuto de sus vidas…

Karma está al noroeste de Bagdag y un poco hacia el noreste de Fallujah. Cuando oigas “Karma”, sólo acuérdate de Fallujah. Es prácticamente el mismo sitio, población, terreno, etc. Karma ha estado extremadamente inestable últimamente.

Oímos reportes de que la Marina ha creado bases hace 1-2 años, tratando de estabilizarlo. Los reportes sugieren que esta es una de las áreas más calientes de Irak, con una población hostil, un desconfiable ejercito iraquí aliado con la Marina.

La Marina lidia con los problemas de bombas, cohetes, morteros, etc. Virtualmente, nadie de la población local puede ser de confianza. No importa lo que uno piense de la guerra, uno tiene que demostrar simpatía por su ejército apartándose del desastre.

¿Cuántos de la Marina podrían escribir un ensayo de 500 palabras sobre el imperialismo de EEUU? ¿Cuántos negaran que el imperialismo de EEUU ha existido? Los soldados, son simplemente soldados. Raramente son los malos de la película.

Karma ha continuado con altas temperaturas y con sus esfuerzos para estabilizar el área, esfuerzo que ya lleva varios años y que parece fallar. Muchos de la población de Fallujah se han desplazado a Saqlawiyah y Karma, pueblos a las afueras de Fallujah, se refugian frecuentemente en tiendas de acampar o en casas de amigos o familiares.

Un reportero de EEUU que visitó los campamentos luego del primer ataque estadounidense a Fallujah en abril de 2004, reportó que el 100% de los 150.000 habitantes o bien apoyaban a los grupos insurgentes, o bien pertenecían a ellos. Eso significa 150.000 guerrileros en esos campamentos.

Mucho se ha escrito sobre los seis helicópteros derribados en las últimas 3 semanas. Los grupos insurgentes parecen estar en una racha de buena suerte. La mayoría de estos ataques han sido realizados al parecer con poderosas ametralladoras, nada de AK-47, ametralladoras que tienen suficiente potencia para derribar un helicóptero.

Razón por la cual los helicópteros evitan alturas debajo de los 1000 pies (rango de alcance de las ametralladoras) Por encima de los 3000 pies, los helicópteros quedan vulnerables a misiles SAM. O sea que quedan con un rango seguro de vuelo entre los 1500 y 3000 pies de altitud.

Pero los helicópteros necesitan volar bajo para atacar al enemigo y para arrojar y recoger tropas, suministros y heridos. Además, EEUU se apoya primordialmente en los helicópteros en la guerra de Irak.

Al final del día, es más un concurso entre el piloto del helicóptero y sus enemigos del suelo, y el mejor ganará. A pesar de todas las historias sombrías de los helicópteros condenados, los helicópteros destruidos en la guerra de Irak, han sido menores que los perdidos en otras guerras.

El Funeral de Saddam

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Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). French translation (en Français ).

This is the Spanish translation of the Video of Saddam's Funeral post.

Aquí hay otro vídeo filtrado, este es del funeral y el entierro de Saddam en Al Awja, cerca de Tikrit. Al Awja es el pequeño pueblo donde nació Saddam. El vídeo dura más de 10 minutos, así que si eres impaciente será mejor que lo olvides. La calidad de gran parte de este vídeo es bastante buena, aunque sospecho que fue tomado con un telefono móvil.

El funeral y el entierro tuvieron lugar durante la noche, y no había ni una sola mujer. Aunque no entiendas una palabra de árabe, es imposible no oír los gritos contínuos, "Allahu Akbar", atravesando el aire del desierto.

La escena, como la de la ejecución, refleja alboroto, caos, rabia, peligro y venganza. Pero la venganza que se avencia es algo diferente.

Mientras que, por una parte, la ejecución de Saddam fue una venganza victoriosa y jubilosa por parte del partido de venganza sectario iraquí Shia y el Partido Dawa (y en menor medida, por parte el partido SCIRI y el ejército Mahdi), su funeral fue una sesión de rabia y profunda tristeza para los suníes iraquíes. La amenaza que se respira en el aire (por no mencionar los insurgentes enmascarados) es lo suficientemente palpable como para hacer que se te pongan los pelos de punta.

El problema principal de Iraq ahora mismo es cómo reducir el frenesí de sectarios locos que se está comiento vivo a Iraq. Los vídeos de la ejecución y ahora el del funeral son prueba de que la ejecución de Saddam sólo avivará la hoguera de los asesinos, y por lo tanto no fue algo positivo.

Realmente no sé quién son estos suníes iraquíes. Seguramente sean suníes del área de Tikrit, desde hace mucho el caldo de cultivo del soporte a Saddam Hussein. ¿Son miembros del partido Baath? ¿Son los que apoyan a los integristas suníes trastornados y inhumanos que están despedazando Iraq como harían las hienas con un cadáver? No puedo responder esas preguntas; tal vez alguien pueda.

Yo sólo sé que este es un vídeo de un montón de hombres iraquíes que buscan la revancha y sangre. Y en el contexto actual de Iraq, eso es algo terrible.

El Cuerpo de Saddam Luego de la Ejecución

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This is the Spanish translation of the Video of Saddam's Body After the Hanging post by super-translator Fabián Aguilar, a crazy guy from Bogotá, Colombia who likes Saturdays.

He aquí otro video de la serie de la ejecución de Saddam Hussein. En primer lugar el video famoso de su ahorcamiento fue publicado, luego el que muestra su cadáver en un ataúd el cual fue posiblemente filmado por dos trabajadores de la morgue, y por último un video de su funeral en Tikrit. Todos los videos están disponibles en este sitio.

En este video, lo que parece ser de dos trabajadores de la morgue chiitas (podemos decir que son chiitas por el nombre de uno de ellos - Abu Ali es un nombre chiíes - y el hecho de que son amigos) están filmando clandestinamente el cuerpo en una camilla a toda prisa, como si tuvieran miedo de ser atrapados.

Tiran de la cubierta a un lado y rápidamente filman la cabeza de Saddam, a continuación, lo cubren de nuevo y salen corriendo.

Saddam tiene contusiones en la cara, la cabeza grotescamente hacia un lado y el cuello rasgado y expuesto, con una herida desagradable roja brillante, causada por el corte de la cuerda.

Existen falsos rumores que flotan alrededor de Internet que el vídeo es una falsificación. Los pro-suníes, anti-chiitas, anti-iraníes racistas afirman que las contusiones en la cara de Saddam son evidencia de que su cuerpo fue violado después de su muerte.

Esto no puede ser cierto, los moretones pueden ser de la misma horca. Otro rumor es que la garganta de Saddam fue cortada después de su muerte - por garganta cortada se refiere a lo que se presencia en este vídeo.

De hecho, la herida en su garganta, sin duda alguna fue causada por la propia horca. Él pudo haber caído de 6 pies y 7 pulgadas, cuando bajó de la horca. Probablemente sólo se necesita una caída de 5 pies con el fin de matarlo, de acuerdo con las "Drop Tables", publicadas en 1913.

La alta caída es la causa de la herida del cuello y como otro ejemplo, es lo que le sucedió al medio hermano de Saddam, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, que fue decapitado, debido a una ejecución fallida. Tikriti cayó 8 pies, demasiado lejos para caer, y la alta caída fue lo que hizo rodar su cabeza.

En una alta caída el cuello se corta el cuello o se decapita, y con una caída que es demasiado corta, se obtiene lenta estrangulación. Obviamente, los verdugos del gobierno iraquí no saben lo que están haciendo.

Este video fue publicado originalmente en Google Video, pero se ajó luego del sitio, posiblemente por contenido inapropiados. La versión que ven aquí es una copia que apareció más tarde en YouTube. Fox News tradujo el video en un reportaje sobre éste:

Abu Ali!

- ¡Date prisa! ¡Date prisa!

¡Date prisa!

Vamos amigo...Vamos hombre!

- Te lo recompensaré.

Ya voy. Ya voy.

- Un momento, un momento

Ya voy. Ya voy.

- Abu Ali, Abu Ali...Cuida esto.

Ok vamos, vamos

- Vamos, amigo mío! Ven amigo!

Ok, ya voy. Ya voy.

Este video, que muestra a los asistentes chiitas de la morgue irrespetando el maltratado cuerpo de Saddam sólo por filmarlo, junto con la herida en el cuello causada por la cuerda, es probable que tenga como propósito enojar más a los sunitas y empeorar ya la horrible guerra de sectas en Irak.

Originalmente apareció en un sitio web baasista con la obvia intención de irritar aún más a los sunitas de Irak. La fallida ejecución de Saddam continúa.

Mucho se ha hablado de la ejecución de Saddam, pero no mucho sustancialmente de su juicio. Para mí, estaba claro que Saddam es culpable de la matanza de Dujail pero aún así, los juicios justos son importantes. Una de las características de una dictadura cruel es que ataca a los abogados de los sospechosos de desagrado popular.

En el Perú, la terrible dictadura de Fujimori (instalado en un golpe de 1992 apoyado por los EE.UU.) detuvieron, golpearon y torturaron, a veces hasta la muerte, a los abogados de Sendero Luminoso. Nunca hubo acusaciones de que los abogados fueran miembros de la organización, sino que bastaba con que se representa a la organización.

En los EE.UU, hoy en día, el gobierno se niega a ascender un grupo de abogados militares que representaron a los detenidos en Guantánamo. ¿Su crimen? Cumplir con su deber - es decir, defender a sus clientes con fuerza vigorosa. No hay tal cosa como un abogado demasiado fuerte defendiendo a un cliente.

Esa decisión de Bush fue uno de las muchas que añade peso a la acusación de que esta es una de las administraciones más anti-democráticas en la historia de la nación. Esta administración ha convertido sin duda el país a que esté más cercano a la dictadura más que en otro gobierno de los EE.UU., y no estoy exagerando en absoluto.

¿Y lo del juicio de Saddam? Tres de los abogados de Saddam fueron asesinados - dos de ellos, al parecer, por el gobierno iraquí en sí. Vean el post de mi amigo Postman Patel para más detalles - tengan en cuenta que uno fue asesinado después de ser secuestrado por 10 hombres con uniformes de policía y otro fue asesinado por sicarios que llegaron a la escena en un vehículo del gobierno.

Seguramente nunca habrá ninguna justicia para los asesinos de los abogados de Saddam. ¿Sobre qué base fueron los abogados asesinados? ¿Seguramente Saddam tenía derecho a ser representado por un abogado? ¿Representar a Saddam en la corte es una razón para matar a alguien?

Video of Saddam's Funeral

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Spanish translation (en Español ). Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). French translation (en Français ).

Here is another leaked video, this one of Saddam's funeral and burial in Al Awja, near Tikrit. Al Awja is the small town near Tikrit where Saddam was born. It's over 10 minutes long, so if you are impatient, you may wish to forgo it. The quality of most of this video is actually quite good, although I suspect it was also shot with a cellphone.

The funeral and burial took place in the dead of night, and there was not a woman to be seen. Even if you can't understand a word of Arabic, it's impossible to not hear the continuous cries of "Allahu Akbar" punching the desert air.

The scene, like the one at the execution, was one of pandemonium, chaos, rage, menace and vengeance. But this is a different kind of revenge gathering.

While Saddam's execution was a victorious, joyful, sectarian Iraqi Shia revenge party for the Dawa Party (and to a lesser extent the SCIRI Party and Mahdi Army) his funeral was a mournful rage-session for Iraq's Sunnis. The menace in the air here, not to mention the masked insurgents or insurgent supporters, is palpable enough to send shivers down your spine.

The main question in Iraq right now is how to tamp down the mad sectarian frenzy that is eating Iraq alive. The videos of the execution and now of the funeral are evidence that Saddam's execution will only feed the murderous bonfire, and therefore it was not a positive thing.

I really don't know who these Iraqi Sunnis in the video are. They are probably Sunnis from the Tikrit area, long a hotbed of support for Saddam Hussein. Are they Baath Party members? Are they supporters of the sick, deranged Sunni fundamentalists now ripping Iraq apart like hyenas on a corpse? I can't answer those questions; maybe someone else can.

I only know that this is a video of a bunch of really pissed-off Iraqi men out for payback and blood. And in the context of today's Iraq, that is a terrifying thing.

Unedited Video of Saddam Hussein's Hanging

Video is no longer working, but the write-up should be interesting anyway. Hat tip to the blog The Reaction for a link to the video, which I then embedded.

This is a video of the actual hanging of Saddam Hussein at a two-story building the Shia Khadamiya District in Baghdad at 6:10 AM on December 30, 2006, as shot surreptitiously by a cellphone camera held by one of those in attendance.

This is not the more tame video that is being shown on US TV but is instead the more gruesome video being shown on Arabic websites and now spreading virally around the web and the world.

In the video, Saddam was taunting and being taunted by some of those who were getting ready to hang him. As he was getting ready to be hung, he recited the Muslim prayer a couple of times. Saddam refused to wear a hood over his head and carried a Koran in his hand. His team of three black-hooded executioners (called a mashmawi) had noticeable Shia Southern Iraqi accents.

All of his executioners were members of the SCIRI political party, and they and his guards tormented Saddam in the six hours before his execution, refusing to let him sleep much by waking him up every half an hour to taunt him. One of the taunting executioners had the Shia sectarian name of "Ali The Butcher". Saddam reportedly refused a last meal of chicken the night before and asked only for a Koran.

At 5 AM, he was offered breakfast, but he refused and asked for a cigarette instead. The request for a cigarette was refused and he was taken to an execution cell where a judge read the details of the sentence to him and asked Saddam if he wanted to make a last statement.

While the judge was reading the verdict, Saddam periodically shouted out slogans, at one point yelling, "Long live Iraq! Long live the people! Long live the Palestinians!" He declined to make a final statement and was taken to the execution chamber.

The building where he was killed in Khadamiya was formerly used as a torture chamber by a special branch of Saddam's security forces that focused on the Shia fundamentalist Dawa political party. Indeed, some of the men present had been tortured by Saddam's thugs in this very building.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq, was a prominent member of Dawa and was himself sentenced to death in absentia by Saddam's regime in 1980 before he fled the country to Iran. Presently, Maliki is the head of the Dawa Party. Ibrahim Al-Jaafari is number 2 man in the party.

Dawa was even involved in the case for which Saddam was sentenced to death - the assassination attempt on Saddam in Dujail was carried out by Dawa. There are suggestions that Jaafari made the relatively minor Dujail case the focus of Saddam's trial as part of the Dawa versus Baath feud.

As you can see, this execution had strong elements of a revenge party attack on the Baath Party by the Dawa Party. Adding weight to this theory, the first tape showing Saddam's dead body in a coffin was leaked to the Dawa Party TV station.

Just before Saddam was killed, a Shia observer in attendance shouted, "Praise to Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr!" The uncle of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr was tortured to death by Saddam along with his sister in 1980.

One version says that Baqir was executed by first having a nail hammered into his head and then being set on fire. Another version, in Robert Pelton Young's World's Most Dangerous Places, has Saddam's henchman Chemical Ali personally strangling Baqir to death.

When you read the gruesome accounts of how Saddam's men killed Baqir, you can begin to see how the execution of Saddam was a nasty act of revenge by Baqir's followers for the gory killing of Baqir.

Baqir founded the Dawa Party and is revered by all the main Shia factions in Iraq - the SCIRI and Dawa political parties and the Mahdi Army. Baqir's son-in-law, Muqtada al-Sadr, is the young radical cleric whose forces, called the Mahdi Army, have repeatedly battled the US in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr's father and two of his brothers were assassinated by Saddam in 1999.

One of the Shia executioners shouted, "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution." Saddam said, "I saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Americans and the Persians." The guard then said, "God damn you." Saddam responded, "God damn you."

According to Munir Haddad, the judge at his trial who was witnessing the execution, "[Saddam] said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians."

As they put the noose around his neck, Saddam yelled out, "Ya Allah!", or "Hear me God!".

Those in the audience then started chanting, "Those who pray for God and the family of Mohammad have won", and "God bless Mohammad and his family".

These are both Shia sayings, because the Shia revere Ali and Hussein, the actual members of Mohammad's family, as opposed to the unrelated Umayyads, rivals in the early succession struggle for the leadership of Islam. The first saying is highly sectarian, meaning, "In the battle between the Shia and the Sunnis, the Shia have won."

Then Sadr's supporters chanted, "And may the Mahdi return soon! And the Hell with his enemies! And victory to his son! Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" Saddam looked down dimly at the hecklers and smiled caustically, mocking their taunts by asking, "Moqtada al-Sadr? Is this how you act like a man?"

This is probably a reference to rumors that Muqtada's wife left him, saying that he was gay. So what Saddam is asking here is, "This is how you show you're a man - by chanting the name of this fag Muqtada al-Sadr?"

Then, in a barely audible retort, Saddam muttered, "Gallows of shame..." but he was drowned out by voices yelling, "Go to Hell!"

Saddam responded, implying that his Shia executioners and their US allies had ruined Iraq, "The Hell that is Iraq?" As the rope was put around Saddam's neck somebody shouted, "Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr!" Onlookers then yelled more insults at Saddam.

Some of his last words before reciting the Shahada were "Down with the traitors, the spies, the Americans and the Persians." Traitors means everyone who supports the pro-US regime. Persians refers to anti-Baathist Shia Iraqis. One onlooker, Haddad, then tried to stop those shouting insults at Saddam, yelling, "I beg you, I beg you - the man is being executed!"

Saddam then said the Muslim shahada prayer, "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his witness", that all Muslims are required to say before they die. He said it once, then said it again, but they didn't let him finish.

When he got to the "Mohammad", the trap door fell in the gallows, and immediately he was swinging. It took him a full minute to die, and the scarf around his neck (placed there to keep his neck from being cut open) had not prevented the rope from cutting a gash in his neck.

As Saddam fell through the door, an onlooker shouted, "The tyrant has fallen! God damn him!" Others yelled triumphant Shia slogans. An onlooker tried to remove the rope from Saddam's neck, but a voice said, "No, wait for three minutes." They let him swing for 10 minutes, chanting Muslim slogans praising Mohammad the whole time, and then they cut him down.

I would like to point out that at least some of the sectarian Shia chanting at this execution is not dignified or acceptable in this setting. To some extent, it is like a crowd of Whites hanging a Black man while dancing around, grinning and yelling, "Hang, nigger, hang!" The analogy with a US Southern lynching is intentional.

The Arab nationalist and Sunni chauvinist Internet publication Islam Online reported that the "Safavids", meaning the Iraqi Shia, burned Saddam's Koran after he was hung. Safavids is a very insulting term for Arab Shia.

It refers to the Persians that conquered and ruled part of Iraq from 1508-1534 and again from 1623-1638, periods that Sunni Arabs in the region still smart over. The purple bars on this map show the part of Iraq that was conquered.

The Safavids were also the dynasty that first cemented Shiism as the state religion of Persia in the early 1500's. By the mid-1600's, majority-Sunni Iran was now majority-Shia.

This was accomplished by aggressive proselytism of Shiism, in part by converting huge numbers of Persian Sunnis by the sword. Those who would not convert were put to death. Doubtless this is another source of Sunni anger at the Safavids.

Calling the Arab Shia "Safavids" is common amongst Sunni Arab Muslims in places like Iraq and Lebanon and is the equivalent of calling Jews "kikes".

The site also said that Saddam was denied a Sunni imam's last rites; that Iraqi Shia Ayatollah Sistani blessed the execution (this is true); that Saddam's body was abused after death; that Saddam shouted, "Palestine is Arab" before reciting the shahada; and that Saddam exchanged insults with audience members and said, "God damn you, you Persian midget!" to one of them.

All of these claims except for the body being abused (evidence shows it was not - the bruises on his face were just from the hanging) and the shout about Palestine (he shouted about Palestine in the judge's chambers next door, not in the execution chamber, and there is no evidence of him shouting this on the tape) are possibly true.

Saddam was hung on the first morning of the Muslim holiday Eid, which is the equivalent of a Christian being hung on Easter morning. That is likely to outrage many Muslims, and could at least be considered poor taste. What is worse is that he was hung on the first day of the Sunni Muslim Eid, December 30. The Shia Muslim Eid did not start until the next day, December 31.

That is a direct slap in the face to Sunnis everywhere. As an analogy, try this: It would be as if Protestants and Catholics were fighting, and celebrated Easter one day apart. Catholics captured one of the Protestants' top leaders and deliberately hung him on the Protestant Easter, and then made a party of his hanging.

According to the Iraqi Constitution, you cannot kill someone on Eid. The Shia government simply avoided that by declaring that December 31, not December 30, was the first day of Eid. This declaration effectively made Iraq a de facto Shia country.

The Saudi regime, no friend of Saddam's, called the timing of the execution an affront to Islam. The Libyan regime, no friend of Saddam's either, called for three days of mourning. Furthermore, the fact that he was dropped through the chamber midway through the Shahada is considered by Sunnis to be another sectarian insult.

Although in many ways he was a terrible person, Saddam's behavior prior to being hanged was dignified and proper. No matter how he would have behaved, his enemies would have spun it to make Saddam look malevolent, humiliated or weak.

Despite propaganda from Iraq's National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie that Saddam was "weak and frightened", he did not appear that way in the video at all (check for yourself). Nor did he seem especially defiant, except when taunted. At any rate, to those gloating that Saddam seemed a wee bit frightened, I would like to see how they hold up to being hung by a rope.

This execution could have been conducted with solemnity and professionalism, in which case you could argue that it was an act of justice. Instead it was turned into a squalid act of sectarian revenge. Saddam, a mass murderer, took the moral high ground and went to his death with class, composure and pride, while his hooded Shia executioners looked like little more than street thugs.

Saddam surely deserved this fate but I cannot see any good come of this. Surely this will only fan the flames of sectarianism in Iraq (and there are already signs that it is doing just that), in which case, what good did it do but sink the Iraqis deeper into this flaming Hell?

The fact that praise for Sadr was being shouted implies that some of those in attendance were supporters of the Mahdi Army, who are rightly referred to as sectarian militiamen.

When you hear about X number of bodies, tortured, blindfolded and handcuffed, found in Baghdad on a given day, it is the Shia Mahdi Army, not the Sunni guerrillas, who are generally responsible for all, or almost all, of those killings. This fact is conveniently almost never explained by the US media. The media simply says that X bodies were discovered, describes their state, and says "militias" killed them.

The Mahdi Army is supported by the US-supported Iraqi government. At first, most of those killed by the Mahdi Army were at least Salafist Sunni religious radicals. It could be argued that many were either guerrillas or sympathized with them.

Now, outrageously, the Mahdi Army is targeting any and all Sunnis Arabs, especially the men, and in particular the young men, merely because they are Sunni Arabs! They are also killing middle aged and old Sunni Arab men and even some of the women.

These death squads were set up by the US Government, specifically by US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, who set up and ran similar death squads in Honduras in the 1980's when he was ambassador there. More on that theory here, here, here and here.

This is a case of the Frankenstein monster created by the US coming back to bite the US on the ass, as has happened so many times in the past.

All the talk of Iran and Syria "interfering in Iraq" is dubious.

Let us deal with Iran first.

First, Iran does not support the Mahdi Army; they do not even like it. Iran doesn't give Sadr any money; probably the only thing Iran wants to give Sadr is a bullet in the head. It's true that Iran used to support Sadr a bit, but that was a while ago.

Instead, the Mahdi Army is supported almost totally by funds gathered inside of Iraq. For their part, the Mahdi Army is well-known for being an anti-Iranian, Iraqi nationalist or even Arab nationalist group.

For a long time, I could not understand why the Mahdi Army was behind so many death squad killing in Iraq these days. A ready explanation is now at hand but first an understanding of Shiism is in order.

The Shia of Iraq and 80% of the Shia in the world are Twelvers, since they follow what they see as the first 12 imams after Mohammad. Sunnis believe in a different path of succession, the Umayyads, who were not related to Mohammad but instead were just leaders of various parts of the Arab World who assumed the role of caliph.

There are other schools of Shiism called Seveners or Fivers, who split after either five or seven imams in who they consider to be the correct fifth or seventh imam. The 12th imam is said to be Muhammad al-Mahdi.

After his father, the 11th imam, died, his 5-year-old son was said to lead the prayers after his death. At that time, the boy disappeared and went into a state called occultation.

The Askariya Mosque that was blown up by Iraqi Al Qaeda in February, 2006, is said to be where the boy disappeared. A shrine was then built on the scene of his disappearance. Twelvers believe that he is coming back some day and that is he going to bring absolute justice to the world (like the belief in the return of Jesus).

Most Twelvers probably believe in this to some extent but do not make a virtual cult out of it (sort of like the way that many Christians only halfheartedly believe in Jesus' return and others become passionate about it.

The Mahdi Army has almost made a cult out of belief in the Mahdi, to the point where some of them may think that Muqtada al-Sadr himself is the either the son of the Mahdi or perhaps even the Mahdi himself. Sadr himself has made illusive comments that added weight to these beliefs. At any rate, the Mahdi Army is a millenarian movement that believes that the Mahdi will reveal himself at any time.

While the destruction of the the Askariya Mosque was no doubt painful to most Twelvers, it simply drove the Mahdi Army insane due to their cult-like belief in the Mahdi. It is after that attack that the Mahdi Army went on their wild mass murdering spree against Sunnis in general.

Iran supports SCIRI, which has an armed wing called the Badr Brigades. Lately SCIRI is hardly involved in sectarian killings at all, although that is controversial. SCIRI is also part of the Iraqi government. You certainly could argue that the Iraqi government, dominated by SCIRI and Dawa, could be doing more to stop the killings.

For some time now, SCIRI and apparently also Iranian intelligence has taken advantage of the chaos in Iraq to carry out sporadic assassinations of former high-ranking members of Saddam's regime. For SCIRI, this is vengeance, as SCIRI was formerly fighting an insurgency against the Baathist regime.

For Iran, similarly, it is a case of revenge - revenge for the Iraq-Iran War that Saddam started with considerable encouragement from the US. At any rate, SCIRI are simply Shia Iraqis, fired by the history of the Shia in Iraq - they are no Iranian puppets.

When they kill former top Baathists, they are doing it for their own reasons, not in service to the Iranian regime. The sporadic assassinations of former top Baathists in Iraq form a very small part of the Civil War and insurgency in the country. Hence, any suggestion that Iran or Iran-allied movements are tearing Iraq apart is nonsense.

For a long time, the Sunni guerrillas agenda, aside from attacking US forces, has been "kill the Shia". The Sunnis who did not actually kill the Shia themselves were disgustingly silent when the racists did.

For years, the Shia were shockingly quiescent in the face of this regular terror. Iran was supporting SCIRI and Dawa while they were refusing to retaliate against the Sunni killers. Now that SCIRI and Dawa are not doing much to protect Sunnis against Shia killers of the Mahdi Army, Iran still supports them.

Iran will support SCIRI and Dawa practically whatever they do, just as the US supports Israel no matter what it does. But neither party is an agent of Iran anymore than Israel is an agent of the US. The Iraqi Shia have their own reasons for doing whatever they do. The notion that they are operating under orders from Tehran all this time is preposterous.

Fact is, it is not in Iran's interest at all to have an insane Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq, a war that threatens to spread sectarian horror across the whole region, including their own country.

What Iran wants is simple: they want a peaceful, stable situation in Iraq, hopefully with a friendly, pro-Iranian regime in charge. Iran receives no benefit at all from the Inferno raging in Iraq, and the mess causes a lot of problems for Iran.

Iran also wants the US military out of Iraq, since by our presence there, we are threatening both Syria and Iran (this is one of the reasons the neocons plotted to have a large US troop presence in Iraq - to menace those two countries).

Second, isn't the one country "interfering in Iraq" more than any other called the US?

Talk of Iran interfering in Iraq is coming from three different sources.

The first is US imperialism, which hates Iran for a variety of reasons.

These reasons date back to Khomeini's revolution, the seizure of the hostages at the US embassy in Tehran immediately afterward, and then the attacks on US targets in Lebanon in the 1980's and Saudi Arabia in the 1990's by Shia radicals.

These attacks in Lebanon included a car bomb attack on the US embassy, a suicide truck bomb attack on a Marine barracks that killed 100's of Marines, kidnappings of various Americans and the capture and execution of a US CIA agent.

The kidnappings and killing of the CIA agent were done by Hezbollah, but it is not clear at all that Hezbollah attacked the barracks or bombed the embassy. For one thing, Hezbollah may not even have been formed yet when those attacks occurred. The barracks attack was claimed by a separate group that is not Hezbollah. However, it seems clear that Iran was involved in all of the above attacks.

The attacks in Saudi Arabia included the car bombing of the US military barracks at the Khobar Towers which killed two dozen US soldiers and wounded hundreds more. That attack is being pinned on an obscure organization called Saudi Hezbollah, not on the Lebanese Hezbollah as the US press often ignorantly states.

Saudi Hezbollah is one of maybe 50 small, shadowy armed Shia groups in Arabia, where the Shia are fired up about the outrageous racism they experience at the hand of Wahhabi Sunnis, who contemptuously regard them as infidels. The suggestion is that Iran was behind that bombing too.

The second source of anti-Iranian talk is coming from the KKK-Jews (Zionists) in Israel, who also have it in for Iran right now. They got rid of Iraq; now Syria and Iran are next on their list as they go for broke trying to wipe out all resistance in the region to their racist regime.

As Israel is now virtually a state of the US, Israel's interests are US interests. The fact that the US media is dominated by Zionists (both Jewish and Gentile) helps matters. Congress is completely controlled by a heavily Jewish Israeli Lobby, which also includes fundamentalist Christian elements.

The third source of anti-Iran sentiment is coming from Sunni Arabs, and Sunnis in general, who often hate Iran for various reasons, none of which are reasonable, and all of which are simply based on virulent racism.

An essential introduction to the tragic legacy of vicious anti-Iranian racism via Arab nationalism is Kaveh Farrokh's Arab Nationalism's Legacy of Confrontation With Iran.

The fact that US imperialism and World Jewry is in alliance with these ferocious, Nazi-like Sunni Muslim ultraracists is sickening and revolting.

The Jews of all people.

Yet Zionism has turned the Jews into a nation of killers, liars and thieves; those who cheer them on from the sidelines; and those who hide the criminals from justice or acquit them in court. Astute readers will note the analogy with the Jim Crow South. That is intentional.

As anti-Semitism hates Jews for what they are, not for what they do, there is nothing anti-Semitic in that statement. As the racists in the Antebellum South could cut it out any time they like, so can the KKK-Jews. Just say no to racism. It's not hard at all.

Along similar lines, neither is Syria supporting the Sunni guerrillas much. The Syrian regime is run by Alawi Shia, who are not even considered Muslims by many or most Sunni Muslims, due to the extreme heterodox nature of their sect.

To the fundamentalist Sunni guerrillas in Iraq, the Alawi are hated first for being Shia, and second and even worse for not even being real Shia. To too many Sunnis, Alawis are simply infidels.

The Alawi regime is threatened by the majority-Sunnis of Syria, many of whom support the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Hafez Assad waged war on these fundies in 1982, when they took over the city of Hama and declared an Islamic state in Syria.

The Syrian army invaded, destroyed the city and killed 10,000 people, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was effectively destroyed. It remains in ruins in Syria to this day, where membership in the group is punishable by death.

The membership scattered to the far winds, especially to Saudi Arabia, where they joined the exiled Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt (exiled in another crackdown, this time by Gamel Nasser, President of Egypt). Both exiled Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) groups became religious teachers in Saudi Arabia around the time a number of religious schools were being set up there.

Wahhabi Islam in Arabia has not always been vicious, deranged and terroristic. Prior to the 1970's, it was largely quietist (a Muslim religious term for Muslims who are not active in politics, especially in armed politics).

The infusion of radicalized Ikhwan exiles with Saudi Wahhabi Islam (still ultra-radical, even if quietist) metastasized to create a savage, militant fundamentalist Islam in Saudi Arabia by the 1980's.

With the added boost of the Iranian revolution (which radicalized both Sunni and Shia Muslims around the world) of 1979 and the ensuing radical turmoil in Arabia (armed radicals captured the Kaaba, took hostages, and were routed in an armed counterattack that left hundreds dead) and the injection of the Afghan jihad of the 1980's, the result was we call the Al Qaeda type groupings of today.

To this day, all Al Qaeda groupings are still significantly associated with the Ikhwan. One could even say that when it comes to Al Qaeda-like groups, "All roads lead to the Ikhwan".

Based on that history, the notion that the super-secular Alawis of Syria would be supporting their most murderous enemies, the Sunni ultra-radical Salafist guerrillas in Iraq, is comical and pitiful.

Instead, my understanding is that Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and even more so, wealthy Saudis, and probably wealthy Arabs from other Gulf States, are supplying the Sunni Iraqi guerrillas. The dominant Arabian Sunnis are as frightened of Shia political power as White racists in the US South were mortified by the threat of Black political enfranchisement.

The dominant theme here is, "Shia is the nigger of (Muslim) World".

As you can see by the blatantly bigoted and murderously racist behavior of the Iraqi Shia militias described above, the Iraqi Shia are becoming "Niggaz with an attitude." Which only proves that, barring intervention, the abused will become abusers as surely as day follows night.

The accusations against Syria are coming from US imperialism and the KKK-Jews. Imperialism hates Syria, probably just because it is not an ally. Syria is not an ally because it is an Arab nationalist regime still locked in conflict with Israel. As the US wildly supports Israel, Syria is not happy with the US.

But Syria really has no interest in the US per se. Their main problem is with Israel, which is still illegally occupying Syrian land, in violation of all international law, and in defiance of 98% of the nations on Earth.

Due to this Occupation, Syria and Israel are legally still at war. Syria's interest is not to wipe out Israel, or kill all Jews or any of the crap that Zionists will tell you. Syrians just want the Golan back. To get it back, I am sure they will sell out Arab nationalism, the Palestinians, and the whole nine yards.

As a consequence of Israel's theft of the Syrian Golan Heights, Syria retaliates by funding and supporting various Palestinian armed groups. Due to this ongoing conflict, Syria is on Israel's list for regime change, along with Iran. The US simply has no real beneficial national interest in supporting Israel in this fight, other than that Israel is the 51st state of America.

Whenever you hear a US neoconservative commentator ranting about "Iran and Syria", the ghost of Ariel Sharon may as well be pulling the puppet strings in back of them while they speak.

In my opinion, the KKK-Jews, who were part of the plot to get us into this insane Iraq War, also hoped to drag Syria and possibly Iran in too. With US troops in Iraq, hardline Zionism worked to use US forces to taunt Syria. Only the Iraqi resistance stopped US forces from attacking Syria, and probably also Iran. Terrible as the Sunni guerrillas are, the world does owe them something.

A huge US army in Iraq de facto menacing Syria is a taunt to the Syrians, in order to provoke them into supporting the Iraqi resistance to keep the US at bay. But once they start supporting Iraqi guerrillas, the US has cause to attack Syria.

Yet if Syria cooperates in crushing the Sunni guerrillas and pacifying Iraq, the US will then be free to evacuate most troops from Iraq and invade Syria. Yet the mad civil war in Iraq tears the region asunder and actually threatens Syria in many ways, mostly that the jihad of their radical Sunni Islamist enemies can spread to Syria.

What does Syria want? Same as Iran. A peaceful and stable Iraq that is friendly to Syria. Like Iran, they also want all US troops out of Iraq, since those troops are threatening Syria by their very presence.

Syria is in a poignant spider's web; damned if she does; damned if she doesn't. This is the trap Zionism-imperialism has set for her, with the only way out being abject surrender to imperialism-Zionism in the region, as almost all of the other Arab states have already done.

Yes, Zionism actually wants to provoke Syria into conflict with the US. Incredible, no? As if the world did not have enough problems as it is, the cancer of World Zionism adds another huge dollop of instability to the quivering mess as it pumps the black poison of its influence, menace and power through the veins of a cringing and suffering world.

Truth is that Syria has cracked down ferociously on those who have gone to fight in Iraq. Many jihadis have been imprisoned, beaten and tortured. Their relatives have also been harassed. Supporters of the jihadis inside Syria have actually set up organizations to protest this crackdown. The blog Syria Comment has been covering this story for some time now.

The Sunni guerrillas are being supplied mostly from inside Iraq itself but also by neighboring Sunnis, as noted above. The Sunni guerrillas' external support is from US allies. The Shia militias are being funded from inside Iraq and are part of the US-allied Iraqi government.

Both sides of the Iraqi civil war are being funded and supported by US allies, not Syria and Iran. This is the lugubrious truth.

Many have wondered about the controversial study showing that 655,000 Iraqis had been killed by the US invasion of Iraq. Though the media has predictably poo-pooed the study, I studied it in depth and it is apparently a valid study. The same authors previously conducted a study in 2004 that found 100,000 deaths. That study was also very controversial.

The author of both studies, Les Roberts, wrote a piece in February 2006, prior to the latest study, in which he estimated 300,000 deaths. He lays out his reasons in the piece.

On July 12, 2005, an Iraqi group called Iraqiyun working with the Iraqi government counted 128,000 dead. These dead were lined up with actual names and records of the deceased based on door-to-door interviews throughout Iraq. Only dead confirmed by relatives were included, and the many who have vanished without a trace were not.

A study including infant mortality and looking at raw death rates has found an excess mortality of 900,000 deaths in Iraq since the US invasion, including 400,000 by infant mortality and 500,000 by other excess mortality. Note that the 500,000 figure includes excess deaths due to all causes related to the invasion - crime, stress, disease, dirty water, suicide, poor medical care, etc.

The same study, using raw death rate figures once again, found excess mortality of 2.9 million Iraqis from 1990-2003, almost all attributed to US and British sanctions, which were deliberately written to kill as many innocent Iraqis as possible. That figure includes 1.6 million via infant mortality and 1.3 million via other excess mortality, respectively. The study uses raw death rates, so the figures should be pretty good.

Those figures are from Gideon Polya, an Australian scientist who works, at least in part, in the field of excess mortality. He is the founder of the "Theory of Excess Mortality".

The US and Britain killed 2.9 million Iraqis via sanctions, then started a war that killed another 900,000 Iraqis. That adds up to 3.8 million dead Iraqis. Either way you cut the cake, the US and Britain killed far more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein, whose number of victims is estimated at 300,000 and who also started a war with Iran that killed another 875,000, for a total of 1.175 million dead.

In reality, the mad Iraqi racist war against completely innocent Iran was fully egged on by and coordinated by the US and later many other nations all over the world. We even gave Iraq detailed maps of Iranian front line military positions before he attacked. Later, with the war on, we supplied him with the chemical weapons he fired at Iranian troops.

So in reality, perhaps Saddam and the US should share the guilt for the Iran-Iraq war dead. Even granting (dubiously) Saddam full culpability for the Iran-Iraq war toll, the US and Britain still killed over three times as many Iraqis as Saddam Hussein.

In a just world, would any other leaders deserve to be swinging from the end of a rope, due to mass murder of Iraqis? Something to think about...

For those who are interested, I authored an 80+ page dossier on the state Iraqi guerrilla groups as of April 15, 2005. It was published in 3 parts, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The report is now pretty much out of date but still holds historical interest on the state of the Iraqi resistance at a certain point in time. In that report, I believe I identified over 120 separate groups fighting the US Coalition.

Video Al Qaede Obaranje Američkih Chinook Helikoptera u Karmu, Irak

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German and Bulgarian. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español).

This is the Serbo-Croatian version of the Video of Al Qaeda Shooting Down a US Chinook Helicopter in Karma, Iraq post. I am very happy with this first S-C translation in a very long time. Hopefully there will be more!

Ovdje je video od iračke Al Qaede razočaranost što je izvorno naširoko izvijestili da se helikopter Chinook SAD, ali je zapravo CH-46 Sea Knight helikoptera (usko povezane sjeckalica) u Karma 7. veljače, prije tri dana. Sedam vojnika poginulo je kada je helikopter bio oboren.

Sea Knight, kao što su CH-47 Chinook, koristi se uglavnom za prijevoz vojnika, žrtava i isporuke do i od bojištu. Zadnji put je bila proizvedena u 1971, ali je još uvijek široko korišten od strane američkih marinaca. CH-46 je zapravo prvi Chinook proizveden za vojsku, ali vojska ga je odbacio kao premalen. Marines je odlučio da je sasvim u redu. Nakon što je 1962, to je bio preimenovan u moru Knight.

Od 1971, Sea Knight je kroz niz nadogradnji. Crteži uspoređujući Chinook i Sea Knight su ovdje. Pentagon je odbio reći što oboren helikopterom implicira da mehaničkih problema uzeo ptica dolje. Ako tražite usko na video, oko 1:16 vidjet ćete ono što se čini SAM projektil leti i udaranje helikopterom. Ne mislim da je to mehanički kvar.

To je posebno creepy gledati umiranje helikopter mlatilice za minutu ili tako da u zraku prije nego pad. Jedan tresu zamisliti kako posada mislio da je jedan u posljednjoj minuti svog života ... Karma je sjeverozapadno od Bagdada i malo načina sjeveroistočno od Fallujah. Kad čujete "Karma", samo mislim Fallujah. To je ljepušan velik dio isti način razmišljanja, stanovništvo, teren, itd.

Karma je užasno nestabilan za mnogo mjeseci sada. Čuli smo izvještaje marinaca 1-2 godine sa sjedištem u tom gradu usred primitivnim uvjetima težak to stabilizirati. Izvješća ukazuju da je ovo jedan od najtoplijeg područja u svim Iraku, s neprijateljski stanovnika, nepouzdan iračke vojske s ugrađenim marinaca (irački vojnici su imali čudan običaj kreće na periferiji baze neposredno prije pobunjeničkim raketne napade.

Marines bavila kontinuirano ivičnjak bomba, raketni, malter, malog oružja i RPG napada gotovo. nijedna od lokalnog stanovništva može biti pouzdana.

Video of Al Qaeda Shooting Down a US Chinook Helicopter in Karma, Iraq

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German and Bulgarian. Email me if you are interested.

Serbo-Croatian translation (u Srpsko-hrvatski). Spanish translation (en Español).

Here is the video of Iraqi Al Qaeda shooting down what was originally widely reported to be a US Chinook helicopter, but was actually a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter (a closely related chopper) in Karma on February 7, three days ago. Seven soldiers were killed when the helicopter was downed.

The Sea Knight, like the CH-47 Chinook, is used mostly for transporting soldiers, casualties and supplies to and from the battlefield. It was last produced in 1971 but is still widely used by the US Marines. The CH-46 was actually the first Chinook produced for the Army but the Army rejected it as too small. The Marines decided it was just fine. After 1962, it was renamed the Sea Knight.

Since 1971, the Sea Knight has undergone a series of upgrades. Drawings comparing the Chinook and the Sea Knight are here. The Pentagon is refusing to say what downed the copter, but is implying that mechanical problems took the bird down.

If you look closely at the video, around 1:16 you will see what appears to be a SAM missile flying and hitting the copter. I don't think this was mechanical failure. It is particularly creepy to watch the dying chopper flail for a minute or so in the air before crashing. One shudders to imagine what the crew was thinking during that one last minute of their lives...

Karma is northwest of Baghdad and a little ways northeast of Fallujah. When you hear "Karma",just think Fallujah. It's pretty much the same mindset, population, terrain, etc. Karma has been terribly unstable for many months now.

We heard reports 1-2 years of Marines based in this town amidst primitive conditions trying to stabilize it. The reports suggested that this was one of the hottest areas in all Iraq, with a hostile population, an untrustworthy Iraqi Army embedded with the Marines (the Iraqi soldiers had the odd habit of moving to the periphery of the base just before insurgent rocket attacks.

Marines dealt with continuous roadside bomb, rocket, mortar, small arms and RPG attacks. Virtually none of the local population could be trusted. No matter what one thought of the war, you had to feel sympathy and pride for our troops trying to stick it out amidst this mess.

How many Marines could write a 500-word essay on US imperialism anyway? How many Marines would not understand the question or deny that US imperialism even existed? Soldiers are soldiers everywhere. They are rarely the bad guys.

Karma has continued to be hot and efforts to stabilize the area, ongoing for possibly years now, appear to have failed. Much of the Fallujah population has displaced to Saqlawiyah and Karma, towns outside Fallujah, often in refugee camps or else staying with friends or relatives.

A US reporter who visited these camps after the first US offensive on Fallujah in April 2004 reported that 100% of the 150,000 population either supported the guerrillas or were part of the guerrillas in some way or other. That's 150,000 guerrillas or active guerrilla supporters right there.

Much has been written about the six US helicopters downed in the past 3 weeks. The guerrillas appear to be on a roll. The majority of these take downs appear to have been with very heavy machine gun fire. That's heavy machine gun fire - not AK-47 automatic weapons fire. Withering fire with a heavy machine gun, or better yet multiple guns, can indeed take down a helicopter.

Which is the reason that the copters try to avoid altitudes below 1,000-1,500 - the machine gun fire kill zone. Above 3,000-3,500 feet, the copters start getting vulnerable to shoulder-fired surface-to-air (SAM) missiles. That leaves a narrow envelope between 1,500-3,000 feet that is a safer zone.

But helicopters need to fly low to attack the enemy and to drop off and pick up troops, supplies and casualties. Furthermore, the US relies very heavily on helicopters in the ground war in Iraq.

Bottom line is that flying a helicopter in Iraq is not that much different from flying one in Vietnam, where many US copters were also shot down. Even lunatic $700 billion US defense budgets cannot cure some endemic problems. The Chinook is one of the better-defended US copters but no helicopter is invulnerable and the newer Russian-made SAM's are very good.

At the end of the day, it's more a contest of wits between the helicopter pilot and his enemies and may the best man win. Despite all the gloomy talk about doomed copters, the rate of US copters shot down in Iraq has been low compared to other wars.

Video of Saddam's Body After the Hanging

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Spanish translation (en Español).

Here is another in the series of videos of Saddam Hussein's hanging. First the notorious video of his hanging was released, then this surreptitious of his body in a casket shot by two apparently Shia morgue workers, and last a video of his funeral in Tikrit. All of the videos are now available on this site.

In this video, what appears to be two Shia morgue workers (we can tell they are Shia by the name of one of them - Abu Ali is a Shia name - and the fact that they are friends) are surreptitiously filming the body on a gurney hurriedly as if they are afraid of being caught. They pull the cover aside and quickly film the head of the dead Saddam, then cover it back up and rush away.

Saddam has bruises on his face, his head grotesquely to one side and his neck is ripped open and exposed, with a nasty bright-red gash from where the rope cut it. There are false rumors floating around the Net that the video is a fake. The pro-Sunni, anti-Shia, anti-Iranian racist website Islam Online alleged that the bruises on Saddam's face are evidence that his body was violated after his death.

This is may not be true; the bruises may be from the hanging itself. Another rumor is that Saddam's throat was slit after his death - the slit throat being what you see on this video. In fact, the gash on his throat was no doubt caused by the hanging itself. He may have fallen 6 feet and 7 inches when he dropped from the gallows. He probably only needed a 5-foot drop in order to kill him, according to the "Drop Tables" published in 1913.

The excessive drop is what caused the neck gash and is another example, as with the subsequent hanging of Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti that decapitated him, of a botched execution. Tikriti fell 8 feet, way too far to drop, and the excessive fall is what cut off his head.

With an excessive drop, you get a cut neck or decapitation, and with a drop that is too short, you get slow strangulation. Obviously, the Iraqi government's executioners do not know what they are doing.

This video originally appeared on Google Video but was then taken down, possibly due to inappropriate content. The version you see here is a copy that surfaced later on Youtube. Fox News translated the video in a story on the video:

Abu Ali!

- Hurry up! Hurry up!

Hurry up!

Let’s go my friend...come on man!

- I’ll fix it up for you.

I am coming. I am coming.

- Just a moment, one moment

I am coming. I am coming.

- Abu Ali, Abu Ali...You take care of this.

Ok let’s go, let’s go

- Come on my friend! Come on my friend!

Ok, I am coming. I am coming.

This video, showing obviously Shia morgue attendants disrespecting Saddam's battered body by filming it, along with the gash in his neck caused by the rope, is likely to further inflame Sunnis and worsen already horrid sectarian warfare in Iraq. It originally appeared on a Baathist website with the obvious intention of further inflaming the Sunnis of Iraq. The botching of Saddam's execution continues.

Much has been made of Saddam's execution but not a lot substantially of his trial. While it was surely more fair than Saddam's trials, a good case can be made that the trial process had serious problems. To me, it was clear that Saddam was guilty of the Dujail killings but still, fair trials are important. One characteristic of a vicious dictatorship is that it attacks the attorneys of unpopular trial suspects.

In Peru, the terrible Fujimori dictatorship (installed in a 1992 coup cheered on by the US) arrested, beat and tortured, sometimes to death, attorneys for Shining Path guerrillas. There were never any charges that the attorneys were members of the organization; it was enough that they were representing the organization.

In the US now, outrageously, the US government is refusing to promote a number of US military attorneys who represented Guantanamo detainees. Their crime? Doing their duty - that is, representing their clients too vigorously. There is no such thing as an attorney being too vigorous in defense of a client.

That Bush decision was one of many his Administration has made that adds weight to the charge that this is one of the most anti-democratic administration in the history of the nation. This administration has arguably moved the country closer to dictatorship than any prior US government, and that is no exaggeration at all.

And what of Saddam's trial? Three of Saddam's attorneys were murdered - two of them, apparently, by the Iraqi government itself. See my friend Postman Patel's post for the details - note that one was killed after being abducted by 10 men in police uniforms and another was killed by hitmen who arrived at the scene in a government vehicle.

Surely there will never be any justice for the killers of Saddam's attorneys. On what basis were those attorneys killed? Surely Saddam had a right to be represented by counsel? Surely representing Saddam in court is not a reason to kill someone?

Video: Danse Macabre! Il Funerale di Saddam

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Finnish, Russian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

This is an Italian translation of my post Video of Saddam's Funeral. Translator: Paolo from Trieste.

Spanish translation (en Español ). French translation (en Français ).

Eccovi il terzo documento filmato su Saddam Hussein. E' il video del funerale svoltosi a Al Awaja, città natale di Saddam, vicino a Tikrit. Il video dura più di 10 minuti, ed è pesante, snervante, a volte fastidioso. Ma è un documento storico. Se non avete pazienza di vederlo tutto, leggete il commento e cambiate canale...La qualità è buona, il videofonino utlizzato era sicuramente di ultima generazione...

Il funerale e la sepoltura si sono svolti in piena notte. Non si vede in giro nemmena una donna (ma...dov'erano mogli, figli/e, i parenti di Saddam?).

Il sonoro ha un leit-motiv, due parole, Allah Akbar - Dio è grande - cantilena incessante, snervante per tutta la prima parte del video.

Non c'è il nostro silenzio davanti al grande Mistero della Morte, la ricerca del silenzio, il raccoglimento in preghiera.

Sembra di assistere ad un'esecuzione anzichè ad un funerale.

La scena è un pandemonio di urla, minaccie, rabbia, voglia di vendetta, un caos insomma. Questo è stato un funerale un pò diverso dagli altri, c'era una frustrata assemblea che chiedeva Vendetta!

Mentre l'esecuzione di Saddam è stata una gioiosa, settaria festa di vendetta per gli Sciiti Iracheni del partito DAWA (e in misura minore del Partito Sciita e dell'Armata Mahdi), il suo funerale è stato una 'danse macabre' notturna, un crescendo rabbioso di invettive Sunnite.

C'è un'atmosfera carica di odio e la rabbia è palpabile, ci sono molti uomini a viso coperto pronti sicuramente ad immolarsi nella lotta, mi ha fatto venire i brividi alla schiena.

Di più, a volte mi è sembrato di vedere il volto del Saddam vivo confuso tra la folla, come dei flashback, come se fosse stato presente ad incitare quei fanatici, a chiamarli a vendicare la sua morte.

L'Iraq ha davvero un grosso problema: come arginare in qualche modo questa ondata di odio settario. I filmati dell'impiccagione, della Morgue, del funerale, non hanno fatto che gettare benzina sul fuoco, purtroppo l'esecuzione di Saddam non ha portato benefici...

Non mi è noto come sia arrivata la salma e chi potevano essere i partecipanti al funerale. Sunniti della zona, di Tikrit, da sempre fedeli adepti del Rais? Forse membri del partito Baath? Fondamentalisti Sunniti che con le loro azioni contribuiscono a lacerare sempre di più un paese così devastato?

Non lo so, forse qualcuno di voi mi può rispondere.

Dopo aver posto una bandiera sopra il feretro (una bara pentagonale, interessante) un religioso prega e finalmente c'è un pò di silenzio...solo qualche secondo e poi ritorna il clamore, siamo in un'altro mondo che si chiama Iraq.

Passano delle immagini del volto tumefatto di Saddam avvolto nel sudario. Scoperchiano la bara ed inizia il rito della sepoltura.

La preghiera funebre calma l'uditorio, ma l'atmosfera non è mistica...no, non c'è alcun senso di trascendenza...è solo una piccola parentesi...per uomini bramosi di versare sangue umano.

E' un funerale terrificante, foriero di nuove violenze ed orrori.

Posso solo dire che in questo video ho visto un branco di esaltati, di fanatici assetati di sangue e vendetta, ed ho sempre in testa quelle urla incessanti...Allah Akhbar...Allah Akhbar...Allah Akhbar.

Kurdish Teenager Stoned To Death Near Mosul

Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano).

Original video here. Thanks to Not Ready For My Burqa for this one.

This video of a Kurdish Yezidi woman being stoned to death by her relatives for running away with a Muslim man and converting to Islam is one of the most disturbing videos making the rounds these days.

This incident occurred around April 10 in the Yezidi village Ba'shiqa, near Mosul, not in Mosul itself as many news reports are saying. Doa Khalil Aswad, 17, a Yezidi student from Ba'shiqa, had fallen in love with her neighbor, a Muslim Kurdish shopkeeper. Then she ran away from home to marry him and converted to Islam.

This is shameful and forbidden, according to the Yezidi religion, an ancient religion that combines aspects of Gnosticism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mithraism and Judaism, but likely predates all of the above.

It is thought to be one of the oldest religions on Earth, possibly dating back 10,000 years or more.

The girl was apparently sheltered in the home of a Muslim cleric for several months to keep her away from enraged townspeople. In early April, her family encouraged her to return home on the promise that her relatives had forgiven her for her mistake. But it was all a ruse.

This video shows what happened when she came home. A group of up to 1000 Yezidi men ambushed her on her way home, grabbed her and threw her to the ground. A small group of the men, about a dozen or so, all members of Doa's extended family, then partially disrobed her and stoned her to death, while cellphone videocameras recorded the sordid deed for all time.

In the video, she is partially disrobed, attacked with stones, then taunted and kicked until a man finishes her off with a rock to the head. If you look at the video closely, you can see she is still in pretty good shape up until between 41-44 seconds into video, when a man steps up and bashes her over the head with a large concrete block. After that, she is bleeding badly from the head and never moves again.

A couple of photo grabs are here and here. Another set of five of the videos, which adds some footage not seen here, can be seen here.

The stoning went on for 30 minutes until the girl finally died. She was probably partially stripped to symbolize how she had dishonored her family and her religion by marrying a Muslim and converting to Islam. At the end of the video, you can see one of the men covering her legs with a jacket.

It is interesting that they think it is shameful to have a girl's bare legs showing in public, but it is not shameful at all to brutally murder a girl in public.

After she was killed, her body was taken outside of town, burned, and buried with the bones of a dog, to show how worthless she was. An autopsy showed she died of a fractured skull and spine.

This is not the first time the Yezidis have killed one of their women for such an offense. A few months ago, another Yezidi woman converted to Islam and her family killed her with a single bullet to the head.

Note the Kurdish police at the scene who apparently went along with the whole outrage. After a while, Kurdish Army soldiers came by and refused anyone entry to the scene of the crime. There was a significant blowback from this barbaric incident.

Many local Yezidi religious figures, to their credit, condemned this bit of depravity. Unfortunately, local Muslims went nuts afterward, attacking Yezidis and their institutions in response to "the killing of a Muslim woman". Never mind that these same Muslims would gleefully kill any Muslim who dared to convert out of Islam...

The Muslims of Kurdistan are incredible hypocrites about this stuff, as usual for Islam, a religion that oozes hypocrisy from its very essence. Four months ago, a Muslim girl and a Yezidi man eloped . Local Muslims set fire to Yezidi homes in the village where this took place. They also found the girl, brought her home, beheaded her.

So...let's see now...non-Muslim women get to run off and marry Muslim men and convert to Islam - no problem. But a Muslim woman goes off with a non-Muslim man and marries him, they get to kill her and then burn down the non-Muslims' villages? WTF? You call that a religion? Is this the Islam of Kurdistan? Are Kurdish Muslims proud of the behavior of the Muslims of Kurdistan?

Iraqi Al Qaeda stopped a bus full of Yezidi workers in Mosul, separated the Yezidis from the others, drove the bus to (Kurdish) Eastern Mosul and executed 23 Yezidis in broad daylight. Attackers shouted "God curse your Devil!" a reference to the fact that many Muslims think that Yezidis are devil worshipers.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which is just a fake name for Iraqi Al Qaeda, took credit for the attack in this statement, where they threatened "the worshipers of Satan" (read: Yezidis) in general. Nice people. Kurdish Muslims and local Sunni Takfiris have been issuing threats to the Yezidis of Kurdistan.

On April 26, a Yezidi baker and three of his Yezidi workers were murdered in Mosul. Two days later, two Yezidi policemen were murdered. The Takfiri group the Mujahedin Army ordered all Yezidis in Mosul to either convert to Islam, or be killed if they wish to stay in Mosul. Otherwise, they need to leave the city.

Over 800 Yezidis fled Mosul University after local Muslim animals issued the typical Muslim "convert or die" orders. Yezidi workers also fled Mosul. In addition, Yezidis were attacked at their workplaces and dormitories in Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, inside the Kurdish Autonomous Zone. Most are fleeing back to their Yezidi villages. In Bashiqa, Yezidis were ordering Muslim residents of the town to leave.

"Convert or die", of course, is an ancient Muslim tradition that most other religions do not engage in in recent years. In recent weeks, the fundamentalist jihadis in Baghdad's Dora District have told the local Christians to pay the jizya tax and become dhimmis, convert to Islam, or be killed. Consequently, many Christians have fled.

Since the killing of Doa, honor killings have exploded in Kurdistan, and men seem to think they have the license now to kill women for any reason they want. Even previously, honor killings and female self-immolations were occurring at a rate of about one a day in Kurdistan.

Female self-immolations are often actually murders by men disguised as suicides. In other cases, the women are pressured to kill themselves for having violated the family's honor.

The Yezidis do worship Malak Taus, a blue peacock archangel, whom the Muslims mistake for the devil. In the Abrahamic religions, the archangel, of king of the angels, was condemned by God and sent to Hell, where he now rules as the Devil. Since the Yezidis worship the archangel, Muslims conclude they must be worshiping the Devil. However, the Yezidis vociferously disagree that Malak Taus is the Devil.

Yezidi cosmology is mostly secret and highly complex, but upon analysis, it appears that they may be right in that they do not worship the Devil at all. The holy books are only accessible by a tiny elite, are guarded, and outsiders are not allowed to access them.

However, recently, a copy of the Yezidi Holy Book was captured and translated and attempts were made to analyze the religion. The book and the analyses of it can be read on the web. I have read them but I still don't understand the religion. Most Yezidis are only told part of their religion and the secrets of the religion are kept from them.

The situation with the Alawi, the sect that rules Syria, is similar. There are also parallels with the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, when services were done in Latin in part because the commoners could hardly understand the language. The idea was that keeping the common folks ignorant of even their religion was a good idea, as they lacked the skills necessary to properly understand it.

Yezidi culture and religion is derived from the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. Like the Zoroastrians, the Yezidis still have a backwards caste system. I believe they have seven castes. Marriage to non-Yezidis is strictly forbidden, as is marriage across castes.

An excellent progressive analysis of this killing and why the Yezidis stoned this woman can be found here. Dr. Showan Khurshid, a Ph.D student of political theory at Cardiff University in Wales, takes on Muslim, Kurdish and Yezidi culture and gives them all the appropriate lashings that any progressive ought to mete out to these backwards societies. Khurshid is a Kurdish intellectual from Kirkuk (biography).

He has some interesting views - the thinks that Turkomen, Yezidis and Assyrians should all have their own ethnic cantons inside Kurdistan. He has unleashed some superb attacks on Islam from a progressive point of view (most anti-Islam polemics suffer from a pro-imperialist, pro-neoconservative, pro-colonialist or pro-Zionist mindset). Kurdistan needs more thinkers like Khurshid.

Two more Yezidis were killed and Yezidi buildings were set on fire in the unrest that followed the stoning. To their discredit, a number of Kurdish Muslim clerics issues fatwas sanctioning attacks against Yezidis for the stoning. Yezidis then rioted at the local KDP Headquarters, destroying furniture, throwing stones and setting cars on fire.

Not counting the 24 Yezidis killed in Mosul in the bus incident, another 192 Yezidis have been killed since the invasion, mostly by Islamists who have issued the usual charming "convert or die, infidels" orders to Yezidis in general.

Since Yezidis tend not to convert, they are being killed. Excuse me? Is there any other religion on Earth that issues demands that non-practitioners of the religion either convert to the religion or be killed? You call that a religion? For how long have Muslims been ordering non-Muslims to "convert or die"? From the start of Islam. When will they stop? Can Islam be reformed?

Honor killings are very common in Iraq. In the Sunni Muslim areas, one woman a day was being killed in honor killings recently. They have gotten much worse as Islamists have taken over Iraqi society. In the Kurdish north, they are also very common, even though the Kurds are supposedly more secular.

The outrageous crime of female genital mutilation is epidemic (60%) in Kurdistan, while being uncommon in much of the Arab World. It is widely practiced in Egypt (70%) and Yemen (20%) but these areas have strong African influence. Outside of Africa, FGM is uncommon, despite attempts of anti-Arab propagandists to smear Arabs with this practice.

There is a bit of FGM amongst Bedouin tribes in Palestine, Israel (in the Levant it tends to take less more trivial forms) and Saudi Arabia and there is some amongst the Bedouin in Southern Libya, although Qaddafi has tried to quash it. Other than that, FGM is mostly confined to Sub-Saharan Africa, where it tends to be associated with Islam, with a locus on the Horn of Africa for some reason.

Propagandists screaming about FGM and Islam are being disingenuous. FGM, while associated with Islamic Africa, is best seen as an Africanism. Hence the FGM epidemic in Kurdistan is both curious and outrageous.

Although this killing was done by tribal Yezidis, honor killings tend to be associated with Islam. They are common in Morocco but not in the rest of North Africa - they are rare in Libya, Tunisia (there has not been an honor killing in 16 years in Tunisia) and Algeria. They are unheard of in all of Muslim West Africa, Bangladesh and Indonesia, for some odd reason.

They are very common in Israel, Palestine, Syria , Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. They are common in the Kurdish areas of Turkey and in Iran. They are also very common in Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan (there is a veritable honor killing epidemic in Pakistan).

Although the Kurdish government has supposedly introduced reforms to try to crack down on the insane barbarism of honor killings, the crimes are almost never investigated, much less prosecuted.

Muslims say that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. That may be true, but why have they persisted mainly in Muslim areas, and why is it the Islamists who always defend them so much?

If you, like me, regard honor killings as the nadir of barbarism and beastliness, you might want to check out the Stop Honor Killings webpage.

Predictably, this crime is being used by the Muslim-haters to bash Muslims, as if Muslims did it, when in fact it was done by Yezidis.