Your Poetry Dot Com - THE TRIAL OF SADDAM - HOW DID WE GET FROM THERE TO HERE?

(As Saddam appears in court in Iraq here is a very long poem covering much of what is a very long and very ugly history)

Saddam insane
Caused so much pain
Control through oppression
Sprang from his brain

In a hard land
He was a hard man
Harder than anyone
Can understand

Like dictators before
The tough rose to the top
In fields of violence
They were the worst crop

In power they were
But surrounded by fear
Knowing the ambitions
Of those most near

Forming a clique
Of family and tribe
No one else
Was allowed inside

Then those others
Who’s loyalty was bought
Only available for cash
Or for privileges bought

So a pyramid of fear
is quickly built
Where suspicion pervades
and ugly guilt

Who will be next
To feel his awful wrath?
Better do as he says
Not stray from that path

And in the end
Doing such heinous things
Fearing one another
And what suspicion brings

If I don’t do it
Now in this moment to you
Someone higher will see
What it is -I- do

And then in your place
I will surely then stand
That is the nameless fear
We all can understand

And finally we reach a system
Reflecting an evil complete
Where the slightest humanity
Cannot at all compete

Where dictators rule
No matter in which lands
They control with lies and fear
Making their demands

Absolute obedience is required
To his brutal rule
And anyone against him
Is called dangerous fool

So it was with Pinochet
And others of our “friends”
Seeing their “goodness”
In terms of what we defend

So once was Saddam too
As you will know
A friend against Iran
Our implacable foe

All the million dead
We talk about right now
We helped to kill them
And lay them all so low

We gave Saddam
Satellite images so clear
Of where Iranians stood
So he could then draw near

His weapons to destroy
The Iranian lines
Often mere kids
In those awful times

Through the CIA
Saddam had his day
Giving lists for execution
Politicians for elimination

He was aided to power
by American hands
Provided with weapons
Fulfilling his demands

What Saddam did
Was unforgiveable it’s true
The savage terror he unleashed
Such a horror to live through

But there is one horror
Of that time said bold
That he didn’t do
But we are often told

He killed 5,000 Kurds
At Halabja they say
Said without doubt
“It happened that way”

Now Saddam IS a monster
And guilty of SO much
But this seems to be
Not guilty of his touch

If you read the CIA
The Iraq expert of the time
You will see it looks more
Like a propaganda find

The type of chemical weapons
IRAN used killed them all
In the battle for Halabja
That came after its fall

The Iranians had taken
this Iraqi town
While fighting raged
around

But the CIA chief says
He saw the dead
And all his conclusions
Inescapably led

To him saying quite sure
The weapons used there
Were IRANIAN WMD
He saw them everywhere

The symptoms and signs
Point to this and NOT Iraq
IRAN was to blame
For the Halabja attack

But of course Saddam
Is STILL insane
Such ugly suppression
Just poured from his brain

Saddam and Kuwait
Had a long and bitter fight
About oil and land
And exactly what was right

A fascist leader Saddam
Sought conquest
Like fascists in the past
Just like all the rest

Removed from Kuwait
As he should
The world wondered
If then he would

Have caused all this
expensive action from the West
If it had been only sand, not oil
Would THAT have passed the test?

After GW1 the Shia were urged
Rise up now and fight
Knowing Saddam would use
Every little bit of his might

To crush a rebellion
That threatened all his power
Using everything that he had
To win that ugly hour

America knows just how many dead
Fall in a civil war
Where no quarter is given
In a killing fest of gore

The U.S. let Saddam
Use ‘copters to simply crush
The Shia as they made
Their useless tragic push

The Shia were not merely walking
Toward Saddam’s lines
They were killing too
Not only GUILTY Sunni whines

Is it surprising
That so many then were killed?
Or that so many
Mass graves were callously filled?

When a brother fights brother
Or in some Rwandan tribal fight
Who really counts the cost?
And who holds to what is right?

The Shia’s puny force
America made to feel
Would get hard backing
From strong U.S. steel

But in the end they were left
Just to suffer and to die
And all that was left in the end
Was a lonely Shia cry

But kicked out Saddam had been
And quite rightly too
He was forced back to Iraq
Bent and bloodied too

Soon followed demands
That he start to disarm
To lay down his weapons
And do no further harm

Unknown to the uninformed
He did in fact comply
But Washington and London
Then began to lie

Sanctions came soon
With quite another aim
Regime change was now
The REAL goal of the game

Over 12 years in Iraq
With no WMD there
Sanctions were ever tightened
To an endless despair

500,000 Iraqi kids
Lost every innocent life
As the U.S. and U.K sought
Ever to contrive

To ban almost everything
To make life a living hell
And these poor Iraqi kids
Lost their lives as well

And just as that country
Was starting to climb back
To a life more normal
They came under our attack

9/11
Hit the U.S. hard
All options were now open
To the pre-emptive card

Al Qaeda was now
Our Enemy Number One
And Afghanistan was first to fall
Under the U.S. gun

That left one other
Clear villain in their sight
Saddam Hussein they saw
Could now be crushed by their might

A target of convenience
Virtually defenceless he stood
Who cared if it was RIGHT to do this?
Who cared if we SHOULD?

The opportunity was there
To do that awful thing
Just that one small window
To invade and then to bring

Saddam falling down
In one total shock attack
To cook up “legal” reasons
To smash a weak Iraq

Blair convinced Bush
To ask the U.N.
Needing a moral fig-leaf
Two determined men

Also needing sanction
To simply go ahead
A war that would leave so many
So disfigured and so dead

You can say it was right
A humanitarian war
But for what are these
Our precious laws then for?

To protect the right
Of a sovereign state
Against those who see them
With only a pure hate

And then there’s the question
If it was NOT for the oil…?
All those kid’s lives were lost
It makes our blood to boil

No WMD
No al Qaeda link
No terrorist plot
It all beigins to stink

But the goal was decided
On September 12th
Containment plans
Left up on the shelf

Through their pretence and lies
They thought they could easily weave
A chance for them to destroy
In a way we wouldn’t grieve

For a system of law
They cast aside
Making it possible every day
For so many to have died

They said it was a new front
On the “War on Terror”
But it really wasn’t true
It was a monumental error

Now al Qaeda is stronger
With a fierce cause in Iraq
And does ANYONE really know
Who’ll mount the LAST attack?

So, Saddam faces trial
This is so VERY good
All ugly dictators
Deserve this and truly SHOULD

But as in a trial
We must see the truth as a WHOLE
Not only partial
And then off to the gaol

Many things will come out
We must be ready to face
Saddam’s ugly crimes it’s true
But also homespun disgrace.

Our help to him
When we were friends
Rumsfeld and his grins
Achieving all HIS ends

The CIA and its assistance
On the killing fields
Bringing Saddam to power
To make Iranians yield

Saddam is guilty
Of much that is clear
But an unfair trial
We must surely fear

That would only be
More recruitment signs
For the violent men and
All their hellish designs

Now we will all
I hope get to see
The true cost
Of lies, death and misery

From ALL sides
These questions shout in fear
How did we REALLY
Get from THERE to HERE?

This poem is Copyright Â© Steeleyes