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I recently learnt about Saddam's son, Uday, and, erm... good lord. He makes Saddam look nice.

The way Saddam purged his political opponents on live TV while smoking a cigar is the most gangster thing I have ever seen. He also understood that combating theocratic sentiments is very important

I used to work with an Iraqi man. He said everyone he knew had a family member killed by Saddam. But he also said Iraqis would rather have Saddam in power than be occupied by George Bush and the US. Imagine how much hate they could have for such a barbarous man. Now imagine how they would prefer him over being occupied. A benevolent dictator is sometimes the best leader for a people.

There's no disputing that dictatorships and authoritarian regimes can bring stability - at least temporarily. But if that stability is dependant on repression and the rule/whims/worship of one leader with no accountability, it's just liable to fall apart after a while.

"I am the president of Iraq and I am willing to negotiate." -Saddam Hussein upon his capture.

Another great video Hikma!

Great video as always hikma

15:01 If Saddam's image was "as constant as the sun in the sky" does that mean it disappeared for 12 hours per day?

He was a hero, brave, pride, showed his hard side, humble side, proud side, never left his nation and gave its best for it.

I am not surprised many Iraqis look at him fondly. Here in Africa, some people now venerate dictators and brutal tyrants like Idi Amin😮‍💨

I was watching the films from "disturbing movie iceberg" When I watched a film under his rule, I literally threw up. I was amazed what this man was shown as a hero meanwhile what he committed on Shi'a Muslims, Marsh Arabs, Kurdish people. I request not to watch that documentary on archive website as you might need anti-depressants after it or may have sleepless nights. It has literal scenes of amputations on the streets, lashings, b-headings, I wonder how was he different from ISIS. His only safe group was the Assyrian/Chaldean Christians as he spent millions of dollars in their churches from Iraq to the Chicago, US in funds citing they are the only native people of modern Iraq meanwhile, all others like Circassians, Turkish, Mandeans, Shabaki, Kurds, everyone else were Arab. I mean - whaaaat?

Great video. Hikma is one of my favorite creators. Being from the US, it’s extremely important to understand the dynamics and history of the Middle East.

Hakimaa hakimaaaa please make one video about Hafez al assad

I was quite shocked when I learned that a lot of Jordanians see Saddam as a hero figure, very often having his portrait on cars and so on. As I was told by one Jordanian, they believe that Saddam could do much better for the ME if only the rest of the Arab countries were willing to help him with his cause.

Good video.

I've seen so many videos of Saddam Hussein, but this one is another one to add to the great vault. Thanks Hikma History for another great video! Love learning more about the history of the Middle East.

Saddam is an example of what intellectuals like Hobbes like but what every citizen hates!

He might have impoverished my whole family, but he was a lion 🦁🦁🦁

تمضرط شبعنا منه .... المهم هو تبرءة أمريكا من دمار العراق .

Another banger video. Keep it up

Iraq wasn't stable under the Ottomans, it spent decades effectively independent under Georgian Mamluks then under several more under direct Ottoman rule. The British mandate didn't have entirely unnatural borders they corresponded roughly to theboundaries of the three Ottoman vilayet Thad had usually been considered together. The British administration was incompetent as was true across Asia from the Mediterranean to Burma. The idea of handing the country over to a monarchy drawn from a small segment of the population was a particularly bad one. The Baathist coup produced another unrepresentative regime but one important factor was missed in the video and that's US failure to mens bridges with Iran. From 82 onwards Saddam was only able to fight the Iran-Iraq war because of US assistance funneled through other countries like Britain and and Italy plus arms dealers to which America turned a blind eye. The US also gave Saddam diplomatic cover for its use of chemical weapons and didn't do anything about the USS Stark incident. Saddam seemed to believe that once The US had supported him they always would and that turned out to be a grave error

You got it wrong buddy. The reason for invading Kuwait had to do with Kuwait pumping more oil than agreed with other gulf nations. Maybe don't do documentaries if you're not going to do proper research

Hikma, you're a treasure-trove of insight from a MidEast perspective, thank you!

And the Iranians always had a much more powerful navy than Iraq. So Saddam probably wasn't going to be taking control of the Persian Gulf in the Iran-Iraq War.

Hum... I feel that this video, for all it's good intentions, suffers from murrica's "worldview propaganda". Oh, it's a good opportunity to recommend the first season of the podcast Blowback. It's obligatory listening (the Gulf War was partially instigated by murrica).

Brilliant video

Saddam was great for iraq yes he was a dictator and did bad things which politician doesnt but saddam was great for iraq just look at the situation today even iraqi people are wishing saddam was still ruling them and he protected the sunni muslim from shia kafir

To be very clear: Saddam was a horrible leader who committed horrible crimes, however the framing of this video is absurd. The reason why Iraq was impoverished is transparently because of the USA. You at least mentioned the sanctions of the 90s but brushing aside the first gulf war is crazy… that war literally destroyed the entire Iraqi infrastructure, water plants, agricultural fields, electrical grids etc. Iraq had the highest standard of living in the Middle East at that point.

I think what you're offering with this video is truly valuable, and I say so in particular because of our current context in time. English language media has had a series of oversaturated gluts of Saddam indictments on repeat in the past, and in such a context a documentary like this would address real facts but in an environment where their meaning as political intervention would be limited and (for example in the run up to the 2003 invasion) potentially distracting. Today, particularly for a younger and more politically engaged audience, circumstances are different, and I admire how you recognize that. Today the most strident social media-based discourse on recent and historical violence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen etcetera has an issue that pervaded US dialogue to disastrous effect preceding and during the Iraq War: the trappings of ethics used to cloak a primally-motivated good-guy against bad-guy form of tribalism. The magnitude of the impact of netizens extolling Assad, Saddam, or their Islamist counterparts elsewhere is obviously not comparable with that of the US intelligence and political establishments' manic convulsions, at least I don't see how anyone taking themselves seriously could compare them. Still toxicity in political discourse undercuts its efficacy and alienates us all. In the same way Saddam's disgusting cruelty impacted Iraq both through the culture of internal state repression and by reflection through external actors and their Saddam-contingent choices, we can expect historical cults of personality and selective ethics in general to hurt the dialogue of history/politics/intergroup relations both as a toxic culture and through its reflections produced when such toxicity is seen by free-agents in the external political space. Sometimes the most searing counterargument to a serious political movement can be listening to its most vocal proponents. This is always such a tragic shame. Again I appreciate this video as an intervention against partisan apologism for a creature who is increasingly recast as a solution to injustice. I trust in your intentions because of your willingness to challenge hypocrisy, but to be honest if you'd asked me in advance about whether a video called "How Saddam impoverished Iraq" were necessary I'd be like, "nah man the English language audience doesn't need to hate on Saddam more, once you recognize evil as evil further litigation against it mostly risks the exclusion of wider understanding". Reading your comments I see how wrong I would have been. Apparently an upsettingly large contingent of the internet only has the mental bandwidth to process the existence of one bad-guy. I find it impossible to blame those who have had their dreams and safety, loved ones or life ripped from them by violence if they see the world in black and white. At the same time even if I tried I couldn't smother my shame in those who pantomime political perspectives that emerge from trauma like the pro-Saddam revival, in spite of living privileged lives like my own. Hopefully this video will help detoxify our culture of dialogue. All the best.

You purposefully didn't mention that Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil in 1989-1990, and Saddam negotiated with them for more than one year before invading.

True life is how people remember u after u...

@HikmaHistory i thought you tended to stay impartial?

Iraq and the Baath party nationalised the Iraqi oil.

your information regarding the invasion of Kuwait, the first gulf war and the economic embargo are very inaccurate. Also in regards to the chemical attack on Halabja, you failed to mention the involvement of both the CIA and Iran. All and all, your video is very biased.

Saddam Hussein from his beginning of his political career was treacherous always betrayed his comrades to achieve his rank as the dictator. He tortured and imprisoned his political opponents and many innocents, the videos are online showing how innocents are beaten and tortured cruelly. His war against Iran crippled the economy and saw the loss of over one million Iraqis die fighting for him. He used chemical weapons against the Kurds killing thousands and against the Iranian when they managed to push back Iraq at the end of the war. His impulsive behavior continued when he invaded Kuwait where every family there lost a member; there are countless records of executions in broad daylight and war crimes of this war and the destruction of oil fields which caused one of the most catastrophic environmental disasters in the middle east. Let alone his son who tortured football players for losing matches and raped many women in universities and night clubs. This man is no hero. People turn a blind eye to all of his crimes just because Iraq was better off with him than the mess that was left after his downfall.

He was a bad guy, but you kind of have to be if you were him.

America calls everyone a dictator except themselves.

Fajr Zuhr Asar Maghrib Isha and Witr Namaz, Dua Qunoot ♥❤👌

Ask thousands of kurdish children being taken of their villages to the deserts to he buried alive....

Can you do Hafiz Al Assad next?

Clumsily is a kind understatement. Lol

Yeah saddam was bad but he wasn't that bad compared to people that currently in charge of the country , iraq is literally a failed state because of their mismanagement

For anyone who is interested, check out the book "Republic of Fear" by Kanan Makiya. There is a more recent version, but the 1989 one is still very insightful. The forced disappearances of citizens would occur over things as simple as criticizing the clothes Saddam wore in televised addresses. If the body was returned, and that's a big if, the crude box it was in would be sealed with notices that opening the crude casket was a crime that carried the death penalty. So you were forced to accept the "suicide" of your husband or wife, son or daughter, lest you become another "suicide" victim. Really sick stuff.

This message was approved by the American and Israeli government

Excellent video, the nation's biggest problem is that there's still such a big divided amongst religious tensions ethnic tensions and tribalism to the fact that they don't trust each other enough in order to create a functioning government. Yes Saddam could do that but only because he basically forced people to get along they as a society has just not developed enough yet but they can get along with each other without trying to monopolize power or trying to take it from those who have it.

Didn't watch the video yet, but i have an aunt who was 12 when got executed, i have relatives who were 2 and 4 years old when executed , and in the year 1991 there was an uprising, and Saddam's army was massively killing everyone even those who were trying to escape. Man was genociding his own people, not to mention the killing and the rape that happened after he invaded kuwait

Thanks!

Saddam defended Iraq against theocratic Iranian regime, and tried to reclaim Iraqi rights in Kuwait.

All great men are complicated

Never show serix this video 🤫 🤫

saddam hussein was a pretty nasty guy, but iraq was better during his time than after

Its best to say, Autocrats usually end up driving their countries to the ground.

Already wrong at the strat Major right was given to the land borders

He was basically what the Arabs could ever expect of their masters. Authoritarian dictators are the gifts that God gives these people.

Saddam was deposed by the US after many a times they tried through public revolts. Bqsically it was done to serve Iraq on a platter to shia IRan. Since Iraq has nearly all the sacred cities of Rafidism.

03:19 this is 90s propaganda. In revealed interviews of US interrogating officers, Saddam said that his stepfather was very loving and warm, never discriminated between the children of the household, Saddam never held any grudge against him, rather he respected and loved him.

20:00 correction its more likely for money rather than revenge

Casual Historian just did some Gulf War stuff, Saddam def made some poor choices

Neither

People forget the impact Iran had on Iraq. Many Iraqis despise Iran and the Ayotollah

In the Arab world we believe israel is the core cause of most tragedies in the region , it is the anomaly that keeps distorting our lives throughout the middle-east, Saddam was the first to attack and humiliate israel, this is THE origin of emotional attachment to him in the Arab world.

pre - video thoughts: hero?? HERO?????

I love your video. But the prejudice is strong with this one. Iraq has the highest standard of living in the middle east back then. Until the gulf war and the sanctions afterwards destroyed it

0:18 is this guy Shashi Tharoor talking with saddam?

Establish regular Namaz and Pay ZAKAT..

hero

sae aljbrab company in Baghdad iraq my grandpa used to work there in late 1970s to late 80s as a munchie operator my mom always telling stories from my grandpa he brought school supplies all had face of saddam yes he did good but his advisers put him in decisions positions that becomes saddams end his advisers blinded saddam of the reality wtf really going or whats happening outside iraq by the international community ......during the op desert storm there house in there compound sharked from america and iraqi bombings and when america started op desert storm my grandpas employer send them home all of them and pay them the full contract event its not yet finished ...

Obviously Saddam as leader should take full responsibility for the deterioration of almost all aspects of Iraqi socioeconomic life. But to seemingly ignore the role America & it's lackeys played in the slow destruction of Iraq, is to me unfair. Take for example the issue of UN sanctioned weapons inspectors. The whole matter was basically a wild goose chase formulated by America as one of the key reasons justifying the harsh raft of sanctions. Which hurt ordinary Iraqi's than the elites.

Do you think Saddam was good for the region ?

21:08 " Iraqi court of law",, under American military occupation.... What a Joke

There's little "Hikmeh" in asking the question Hero or Villain. He is pure evil.

Saddam was a dictator And this is true But those who paid the price for the Gulf War, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the American invasion of Iraq were other than the Iraqi people themselves You said Saddam was tried for his crimes Why were the soldiers who killed Iraqi civilians not tried, and why was Bush not tried for his crimes for lying to his people and killing only 1 million Iraqi citizens? Bush is still suffering from the Iraqi invasion, and this memory will accompany him throughout his life

It was all about ancient Babylon artifacts and Star Gates

just call me your old pal saddam hussein hey relax fella you need a rest guy

This is misinformation

اصبح العراق مكان للمجرمين والارهابيين من بعده

He was a traitor to Baathism he was the reason why the Syrak unification never happened

✌

Appreciate your summary of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. I do not know how much of your report is accurate and how much of it are lies. Assuming you report is accurate then it demonstrates the challenge of Middle Eastern states in the modern era. The obvious truth is that the modern world is dominated by the truly industrialized countries. These modern industrialized nations are the most developed in the world. They are economically, socially, and politically developed when compared to the rest of the countries in the world like India, China, Iran, Iraq, ... I hear the narrator claiming Saddam modernized and Iraq prosperous by selling petroleum to the rest of the world. The truth is Iraq is a backward, pre-industrial country. Saddam's modernization was imported from the industrialized countries (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, ...) to raise the standard of living for the Iraqi people. The industrialized countries created the modern machines. Saddam is a product of a pre-industrial, backward society. He only understands absolute power. He understands that his power comes from his military. He understands that he can use his military to take wealth from other people. Today it is the industrialized countries (the US, the UK, France, Germany, ...) who really control the world. It is the industrialized countries who can impose their interests on the rest of the world. Israel exists because the industrialized countries of NATO want Israel to exist. The four Arab and Muslim countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) that surround and attack Israel were defeated in 5 days. Can you imagine that? A tiny, little country like Israel can defeat 4 of its neighbors in 5 days. That is not the power of Israel. That is the industrialized power of the US, the UK, France, Germany, and other NATO allies. The existence of Israel and the defeat of its 4 Muslim neighbors in 5 days demonstrate the dominance of the industrialized countries of Western Civilization. Saddam can attack Iran or Kuwait, but that is all Iraq can do. The world has changed very little since WWII. The developed, industrialized countries of today are the same countries as before WWII with the addition of South Korea. The remaining countries are still backward. The rest of the world will remain under-developed until they can create a modern society. A democratic society with a republican form of government. A society governed by the Rule of Law and protection of individual rights and property.

Leave it to a westerner to comment that Saddam is some how misunderstood 😂

This guy hates Saddam

Whenever you go to the Masjid please put some coins in the Zakat Box 📦 Allah loves Zakat Alhamdulila 📦❤😊😊😊

Like Iraq's doing any better now.

This is a horrible video. Lost respect for your content

Good or bad. Saddam had an iron grip on the Middle East. There was no terror going on. He actually said before his death that the Middle East would be taken over by extremism. Whatever he was he was the last hope for the Middle East. Play attention to what happened after him and gadafi were taken out.

Desert Storm, the sanctions (specifically the 1996 death sanctions that killed 100,000 children) are why Iraq was poor.

Saddam Hussein is a hero because Muqtada Alsadr didn't take power, if he did, one would be justified in hating Saddam; this is the nuanced Hegelian view.

Saddam was the greatest Arab leader of his time.

Shiite channel.

Good leader, propagandized forever by the media

Saddam gassed Iraqi Kurds (innocent men, women and children), invaded Kuwait (killing many), invaded Iran (killing over 1MM souls), attacked Israel with SCUDS, was belligerent with neighbors Jordan and Saudi Arabia. His sons committed the most vial acts against their own people, especially women. Seeing the fear in his face, his childish, impish reaction to the IRAQI COURT that sentenced him to death, it makes me so proud to be an American. I once vehemently opposed this war. Over time, I matured, and I revere George Bush and Tony Blair for the foresight in neutering a completely rogue state. A state populated with wayward zealots, a failed state held together by guns and the promise of an Arab socialist revolution that would never come (Ba'ath), and then a corruption and rot that puts Saudi to shame. I admire our President for having the fortitude to see this through to the very end, despite the complaints of Western media and peaceniks. Saddam met his earthly end in the gallows, but rest assured, if there is a hell, he is indeed there. George W. Bush and his father recognized the danger this man presented to all of humanity, and they clipped his balls.

That's what you get for being a CIA puppet. False promises and an undignified end. Glory to the party of Imam Ali as who still stand against the tyrants and oppressors.

All the information you put on your documentries can be heard on CNN and BBC. No Hikma in it just repeated troupes.

Documentry is western propaganda

Sunni biased channel deleting comments 😂