Dear Harry,
always glad to have such a distinguished person to
kick around. I'm afraid the ex mossback liberal
neo-conservatives would class us both as "whining" on this. My
old teacher teacher used to say: "If you choose the role of teacher you have to
be able to stand the heat or get off the pot." We both
put ourselves up to be "kicked" on that matter.
You said: > Who was the Iraqi
torturer?
Saddam Hussein. I used to
wonder why he could so blithely shoot his enemies in the
government. Then I saw this information on ABC that he
began his career in charge of torturing people for information. He
had the job for several years. I'm sure that you
realized that George I was the head of the CIA. Here is a
quote and the URL for the info.
Ray
Saddam joined the socialist Baath party
when he was 19. He made his mark three years later when he participated in a
1959 assassination attempt against Iraqi Prime Minister Abudul Karim Kassim.
Saddam was shot in the leg during the botched effort and fled the country for
several years, first to Syria, then Egypt.
In 1968 he helped lead the revolt that finally brought the Baath party to power under Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr. In the process, he landed the vice president’s post, from which he built an elaborate network of secret police to root out dissidents. Eleven years later he deposed Bakr and plastered the streets with 20-foot-high portraits of himself.
Saddam’s years as a revolutionary left him keenly aware of the danger of dissent. Shortly after taking office, he purged and murdered dozens of government officials suspected of disloyalty. In the early 1980s, he used chemical weapons to crush a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq. Saddam’s power struggles extended well beyond his country’s borders; bent on dominating the Muslim world, he attacked neighboring countries. In 1980 he invaded Iran, launching an eight-year war that ended in stalemate.
In August 1990 he invaded the oil sheikdom of Kuwait, proclaiming it Iraq’s 19th province. He defied U.N. directives to retreat from Kuwait, provoking what he called “the mother of all battles,” the Persian Gulf War. That brief conflict decimated Saddam’s military forces, but he has managed to rebuild his republic and his power base, beginning with the secret police force. http://www.abcnews.go.com/reference/bios/shussein.html
In 1968 he helped lead the revolt that finally brought the Baath party to power under Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr. In the process, he landed the vice president’s post, from which he built an elaborate network of secret police to root out dissidents. Eleven years later he deposed Bakr and plastered the streets with 20-foot-high portraits of himself.
Saddam’s years as a revolutionary left him keenly aware of the danger of dissent. Shortly after taking office, he purged and murdered dozens of government officials suspected of disloyalty. In the early 1980s, he used chemical weapons to crush a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq. Saddam’s power struggles extended well beyond his country’s borders; bent on dominating the Muslim world, he attacked neighboring countries. In 1980 he invaded Iran, launching an eight-year war that ended in stalemate.
In August 1990 he invaded the oil sheikdom of Kuwait, proclaiming it Iraq’s 19th province. He defied U.N. directives to retreat from Kuwait, provoking what he called “the mother of all battles,” the Persian Gulf War. That brief conflict decimated Saddam’s military forces, but he has managed to rebuild his republic and his power base, beginning with the secret police force. http://www.abcnews.go.com/reference/bios/shussein.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Karen Watters
Cole" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 10:37
AM
Subject: Re: FW: Drawing a line in the
sand
>
> Thanks!
>
> Who was the Iraqi torturer?
>
> Since then we've learned more efficient ways to kill, but it seems to me
> that nothing is more fiendish than sending frail bodies across open space
> into the teeth of the stuttering machine guns.
>
> My father was lucky. He was a national class rugby player. He wasn't shot.
> He got frostbite in his legs in the "Mespot" (Mesopotamia). The men were
> freezing until supplies came from England. They sent raincoats.
>
> They saved his legs, but he lost all his toes. That was a "blighty wound"
> and he got back to England.
>
> So, if it were not for my dad's frostbite, you wouldn't have me to kick
> around any more!
>
> Harry
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ray wrote:
>
> > Harry said:
> > > I also wonder how we know all these things. Are there leaks from the
> > > war-room - so to speak?
> >
> >Seven Songs of Wilfred Owen
> >I.
> >So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
> >And took the fire with him, and a knife.
> >And as they sojourned both of them together ,
> >Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
> >Behold the preparations, fire and iron...
> >But where the lamb for this burnt-offering ?
> >Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
> >And builded parapets and trenches there,
> >And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When
> >Lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying,
> >Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
> >Neither do anything to him. Behold,
> >A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns ;
> >Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
> >But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
> >And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
> >Harry says:
> > > Something I am sure he knows - the estimate of casualties should we attack
> > > Iraq - 10,000 dead? Perhaps 20,000?
> >
> >II.
> >What passing-bells for these who die as cattle ?
> >Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
> >Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
> >Can patter out their hasty orisons.
> >No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
> >Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
> >The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells ;
> >And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
> >
> >What candles may be held to speed them all ?
> >Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
> > Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
> >The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
> >Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
> >And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
> >
> >Harry continues
> > > Or, maybe, the "all be over by Christmas" crowd have the most persuasive
> > > voices. Or, maybe he listens to no-one.
> >
> >III.
> >'O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said. and died.
> >Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
> >The Bullets chirped-In vain! vain! vain!
> >Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
> >And the Big Gun guffawed.
> >
> >Another sighed,-'O Mother, mother! Dad!'
> >Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
> >And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud Leisurely gestured,-Fool!
> >And the falling splinters tittered.
> >
> >'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
> >Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
> >And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
> >Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned ;
> >And the Gas hissed.
> >
> >V.
> >Move him into the sun-
> >Gently its touch awoke him once,
> >At home, whispering of fields unsown.
> >Always it woke him, even in France,
> >Until this morning and this snow.
> >If anything might rouse him now
> >The kind old sun will know.
> >
> >Think how it wakes the seeds,-
> >Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
> >Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
> >Full-nerved-still warm-too hard to stir ?
> >Was it for this the clay grew tall ?
> >-O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
> >To break earth's sleep at all ?
> >
> > VI.
> >Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
> >Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse ;
> >Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
> >Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
> >Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
> >And beat it down before its sins grow worse ;
> >Spend our resentment, cannon,-yea, disburse
> >Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.
> >
> >Yet, for men's sakes whom thy vast malison
> >Must wither innocent of enmity,
> >Be not withdrawn, dark arm, thy spoilure done,
> >Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.
> >But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,
> >May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul !
> >
> >VII.
> >After the blast of lightning from the east,
> >The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne ;
> > After the drums of time have rolled and ceased,
> >And by the bronze West long retreat is blown,
> >
> >Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
> >All death will he annul, all tears assuage ?-
> >Or fill these void veins full again with youth,
> >And wash, with an immortal water, Age?
> >
> >When I do ask white Age he saith not so :
> >"My head hangs weighed with snow."
> >And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith :
> > "My fiery heart shrinks, aching.
> >It is death Mine ancient Scars shall not be glorified,
> >Nor my titanic tears, the seas, be dried."
> >
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------------------
> >As we move into this time of contemplation of war, it is helpful to
> >remember those who have experienced, spoken with the eloquence of their
> >Art and died barely two weeks before the Armistice. What they lost,
> >what we lost. It is also helpful to remember that the man that so
> >effects GWB was the man in charge of torture, in Iraq, for several years
> >in the late sixties when this country, once again, decided that it could
> >play with evil and not be tarnished by it. That we too hired a man who
> >was head of the CIA and seemed bland and noncommittal but whose son seems
> >so intent upon vendicating. It is helpful if we both see ourselves
> >truthfully and realize the effects of our actions.
> >
> >Ray Evans Harrell
>
>
> ******************************
> Harry Pollard
> Henry George School of LA
> Box 655
> Tujunga CA 91042
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Tel: (818) 352-4141
> Fax: (818) 353-2242
> *******************************
>
>
>
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