Television: Facing: Saddam Hussein on National Geographic

I watched "Facing: Saddam Hussein" on National Geographic on the television recently. I have searched and found this on YouTube below:

I remember when Iraq had invaded Kuwait in 1990. I was young at that time but I still have memories of watching the news on TV in the evenings on DD1; the scenes of nights lit up by anti-aircraft missiles being fired. 

I was in 2nd year at engineering college when the US was attacked and WTC twin towers were destroyed in year 2001. I remember how in our hostel news broke out in the evening and everyone watched the news with horror on the common room television. And then the US attached Iraq and in year 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured. 

At my college we used to have debates in the class on this topic whether USA was right in attacking Iraq. Curiously some folks were anti-USA and they insisted strongly that USA had no right to attack Iraq even though they accepted the killings and human rights violations that Saddam had done. I could not understand them at that time.

For me, it was a simple case. Saddam was a violent dictator having killed thousands of men and he should be punished. USA was world super power and if USA had decided to channelize the world community and bring Saddam to the books; so be it. But the boys insisted, "what right the USA has to attack another country?" I said that suppose the USA sat and did nothing; then they would all be crying that no one bothers about the dead and tortured people in Iraq and why no one did anything. But when USA does something, they are crying injustice!

At that time I was young and had not seen all kinds of men. At that time I did not know that not all men sought "solutions" to problems. I did not know that many people love problems and they want to remain incapable of doing anything. All they want is someone or something to put the blame on. So in this case, they just wanted to blame the world community with doing nothing about Iraqi people; and for that they did not want the world community to do anything! George W. Bush changed everything by acting bold and decisive, like Americans are famous for. 

This documentary shows many new aspects to the war. I agree with the portion where it appears that Saddam Hussein had vastly underestimated the power of American armed forces and when he said that US Air Force would never act as a deciding force in that "kind of war"; he was actually acting foolish. It seems Saddam had turned too over-confident and arrogant and arrogance is known to make people do foolish things. 

Although the documentary does not touch this topic; but I think the disaster in Iraq and rise of ISIS in particular did not directly happen due to Saddam's ouster. It happened due to wrong foreign policies by George W. Bush's successor Barack Obama who was bent on proving his worth about his "Nobel Peace Prize" and being too favorable to the Middle East countries, he made a mess of the original US plan in Iraq. 

This is a great documentary and a must watch for all. Saddam was no ordinary dictator and the future generations who were not born during the years of his atrocities would not be able to understand his fury completely. 

- Rahul Tiwary