A Freedom Fighter or Terrorist Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

A Freedom Fighter or Terrorist - Essay Example His step-father was a known sheep thief and he taught the young Saddam his trade however this turned tragic when Saddam was caught in the act and forced to leave and stay with a far away uncle, Khayrallah Tulfah. His uncle enrolled him in school and tried to do the same in the military but the young Saddam was turned away due to bad grades. Out of anger and rage, he joined the radical faction Ba’ath. One of the Ba’ath’s objectives as a radical faction was to topple the existing regime of King Faisal II and form a Unitary Arabic State. In 1958 after a failed assassination attempt of General Abdul Qassim by the young Saddam Hussein, Saddam fled to Egypt where he enrolled in school to pursue a degree in law. After a short stay in Egypt, back in Iraq the Ba’ath faction managed to have in their control the city of Baghdad in 1963 and General Qassim was publicly tortured and eventually put to death. The group called Saddam back home and gave him the position of head torturer at the â€Å"Palace of the End.† However this did not last for long because the Nationalist soldiers deposed the Ba’ath and arrested several of its members in 1964, one of them was Saddam Hussein. A General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam’s cousin, advocated for Saddam and had him released. He later on endorsed Saddam to the post of assistant secretary general of the Ba’ath Party and saw to it that he formed and made effective an unknown police force, Jihaz Haneen. In 1968 while Saddam was chief of internal security as well as the head of the Revolutionary Command Council, he participated heavily in the coup led by his cousin and he was an undercover agent always secretly searching for those opposing his cousin and intimidating them or even at times killing them. He became highly feared and popular for the next ten years always playing the position of the right hand man of his cousin. In 1978 he swayed his now aging cousin to step down as ruler of Iraq citing poor health and later on had the party heads choose an heir to the throne of Iraq. He outwitted everyone by having them choose him as the heir to the throne. During the first conference of the Revolutionary Command Council in 1979, Saddam’s first order of business was to have all the people he thought might pose a threat to his rule executed. These included judges, military men, legal representatives, bankers, reporters, religious leaders, his fellow party members as well as scholars. In a span of one month he had ordered the putting to death of about 450 people he claimed were foes of his regime (Arnold, 2008). These became known as the Pyramid of Skulls and to create more intimidation and fear among those who opposed him, he had some of these executions done in public and recorded then later on have these recordings delivered to rulers of the other Arab States. The Kurds who were a marginalized group had been calling for their sovereignty for as long as Iraq existed and they faced a lot of oppression and persecution under the reign of Saddam. 1987 saw the total demolish of their villages and killing of many of their own. It is reported that between 1983 and 1988, about 180,000 Kurds were killed by Saddam. These mainly took place in their oil rich province of Kirkuk because Saddam wanted the region to be owned by another tribe and not the Kurds who had been in that place for decades. Saddam had a lot of his people under his mercy because of external enemies like Iran who were always ready to strike. He assured them of their safety under his rule and used this strategy to control them while at the same time oppressing them. He increased his influence over his people by always making himself and his image a constant sign of intimidation. It is said that his portrait appeared in every learning institution, learning text