Fox News; EFL. Main article includes a link to streaming video, if you can stand to watch it.
A grisly videotape showing acts of torture carried out by Iraqi Republican Guard and Saddam Fedayeen militiamen has been declassified and obtained by Fox News. The 23-minute long tape contains several scenes of Saddam Fedayeen fighters carrying out corporal punishment and at least one execution, probably of a Saddam Fedayeen member. Sources told Fox News that the man who handed over the current tape is cooperating with U.S. troops and will provide more tapes. The punishments include fingers being chopped or shot off, tips of tongues being cut off, wrists being broken by sharp blows from a wooden rod, lashes by whip or cane, a bound man being tossed off a building, a beheading involving a sword and a knife and a man being humiliated by riding a donkey backwards. Tom Malinowski, a director of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, said the tape provided a clear picture of how the former government instilled fear in the Iraqi people. "It reminds us that Saddam’s regime took sadistic pleasure in documenting the horrors it perpetrated on the Iraqi people," Malinowski said. "In fact, they wanted people to know this, because the purpose of this treatment was to terrorize the population so no one would even think of opposing Saddam." Similar tapes have been found in Iraqi prisons, military facilities and even the private video collections of Uday and Qusay, Saddam’s sons, who were killed by U.S. forces in a dramatic July shootout. Copies of several tapes have become brisk sellers in Baghdad marketplaces.
Remember, kids, that Uday and Qusay considered these tapes a pleasant diversion.
Though at times improperly termed an "elite" unit, the Fedayeen was a politically reliable force that could be counted on to support Saddam against domestic opponents, according to GlobalSecurity.org. It started out as a rag-tag force of some 10,000-15,000 "bullies and country bumpkins" but later helped protect Saddam and Uday and carried out much of the regime’s dirty work. A special "death squadron" was created to carry out secret executions.
According to our old friend Murat, we should have left Saddam in power and let this all continue. After all, the Iraqis were so much better off with the Fedayeen in charge, weren’t they? |