I know that network news channels will do their best to disgust all of us with the Saddam’s capture news. However, looking back at all the influences this man’s actions have had on my life, I thought is worth a couple of lines. At least, I will be refreshing my memories.

I was in third grade, when his air force bombarded my hometown for the first time. Glasses shattering and classmates screaming on that day is one of the clearest memories I have from that period of my life. For the next couple of months, we would run to bunkers setup in our elementary school to avoid those bombs. Next came complete school closure for more than 3 months (which we really didn’t mind much back then).

During the same period of time, I started to develop an understanding of my Kurdish heritage. And by now, it should be no secret to world population that Saddam was not very fond of Kurds. I have many relatives that have been in the so called torture chambers of Saddam. Stories of the victims’ heroics and Saddam’s family revenge techniques have been an ongoing family talk topic for many years. Somehow, Saddam always managed to top his cruelty.

Next came Halabja and the chemical bombardment of this Kurdish Iraqi town. Living very close to Iran-Iraq border, my family was involved in helping the survivors in any way we could. The Kurdish community in Iran tried to rally support for these survivors through Red Cross and other organizations. Even finding a warm blanket for the survivors was a challenge, let alone hospitalization and proper treatment of the people exposed.

Back then, there was practically no press coverage of this event. It took more than a decade for Washington officials to hear about this event, just in time to use it in their propaganda machine for war. It is amazing how slow the free world media could be.

Saddam made a big mistake when he thought that the punishment for genocide or oppression against different people is the same. Killing Kurds for more than 20 years could be tolerated. However, occupying Kuwaiti oil fields didn’t settle well with Bush, the first. The first golf war started. Saddam retreated from South and assaulted North (i.e. Kurds again).

A huge refugee wave of Kurdish people flew to Iran and Turkey. I remember driving to camps close to Iran-Iraq border with my parents to provide the people with food and blankets. For a while the Iranian government was not allowing the refugees to come to the Iranian towns and people were living in Red-Cross provided tents in the freezing temperatures of the area. Slowly, these people were allowed to come to Kurdish towns in Iran where they were sheltered by relatives or mosques.

As I look back at all that my people have been through because of Saddam’s tenure in Iraq, I find myself very pleased to see him fall from the power and hopefully stand before a just court for crime against humanity and genocide.

Even though I have a lot of personal motivation for wanting Saddam out of power, I still didn’t agree with the process through which US went into Iraq for reasons that I am not going to discuss here. However, I, as a human being and as a Kurd, am releaved that finnaly this savage man is captured and hopeful that he will be prosecuted in a just court.