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April 19, 2003
More details emerge on Uday's abuse of athletes
It was a qualifying match in Jordan, and at full time Iraq were drawing three-all against the United Arab Emirates. Arab League rules called for a penalty shoot-out. Abbas Rahim Zair walked up to the penalty spot with a prayer on his lips and his heart in his boots. Any player knows the pain of missing a penalty, but for a member of the national team, it carried the certainty of ritual humiliation, imprisonment, and torture. Only three Iraqis dared to take penalties, and Zair was one of them. The rest of the story from The Guardian. The white elephant in this article is the fact that the Guardian hardly gave a crap about all this kind of thing prior to (and during) the war. Posted by: americanstreet at April 19, 2003 05:48 AMMuch worse stories about Uday are going to start appearing. Even Saddam was embarassed by him. Posted by: General Patton, in France at April 19, 2003 08:52 AMThe "white elephant" ? I'm curious what americanstreet thinks that means. Posted by: Tom at April 19, 2003 10:18 AMTom: I'm American and have no idea. About the article, they keep saying Uday has fled. Has that been established, or is it more likely that he's dead? Posted by: Babaloo at April 19, 2003 10:23 AMI took it to be a reference to this sort of thing: As a soccer fan, I was aware of this but I also knew that FIFA, the international soccer federation, had swept it under the carpet! FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, the UN, and most of these other multilateral organizations are useless, corrupt, and in some instances, complicit in the repression of human rights. Read up on how Soviet hockey players, Cuban baseball players, East German swimmers, etc., were/are treated. International sports are a scandal. Posted by: JDB at April 19, 2003 10:44 AMA white elephant is an extravagant gift that is a burden to the recipient. From Southeast Asian folklore. The elephant in the room is the topic that everyone pretends doesn't exist. I wouldn't be exceptionally hard on FIFA: Players described elaborate preparations to dupe Fifa investigators, who visited Iraq, with officials hiding those players still carrying the scars from recent beatings. It's hard to say how what they knew made them complicit: there was little they could have done. Also, the comparison with Warsaw Pact athletes isn't that accurate: though failure could be devastating, torture and persecution of one's family wasn't normally part of the package (except in the event, say, of defection), and successful athletes were treated like royalty. This stuff is pretty much a unique Iraqi invention. Posted by: Dan Hartung at April 19, 2003 11:51 AMYeah, the elephant in the room. (Is this so god damn difficult people? If you don't grasp just don't make your first reaction an accusation of stupidity or illiteracy. Thank you. (This is the second one of these, first on this thread.) Posted by: americanstreet at April 20, 2003 01:59 AMSo the Guardian never covered executions? http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,259863,00.html That was 1999. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,320527,00.html So was that.... The Guardian (and it's sister paper) have known and reported for years on the brutality of Saddam's regime; they know from first hand experience, from 1990, when Saddam executed Farzad Bazoft, an Observer journalist. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,193434,00.html Posted by: anonymous brit at April 20, 2003 04:21 AMPost a comment
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