Following a tip from a source inside Iraq, IRC obtained a copy of the smuggled out cell phone video of Saddam Hussein’s execution.
At first, we couldn’t believe our eyes and then saw clips of the “official” video tape on CNN (why hasn’t the “official” tape been released unedited to the public?).
So IRC posted the story right away with the famous link to the infamous video. Read the original breaking story published on Dec. 30, 2006 – the day of the execution.
IRC was the first blog on the Internet to release the full, unedited video. We posted the video just about 10 minutes after we watched it three times on Saturday, December 30, 2006.
It’s a raw inside look at a historic event, but in the most unusual of circumstances. Some have said the treatment of Hussein was inhumane. Everyone has their right to their own opinion. It certainly wasn’t worth more than 3,000 Americans’ lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
We had already posted the video in it’s original form here on IRC – somehow hours before the major news and media organizations fretted and stammered on the air trying to decide what to do with the raw footage. Our logs show that some new organizations, including FOX News in New York (IP address), downloaded the raw video from our site and then went on the air with it, but of course, edited out the moment the trap door drops and Saddam falls and hangs. We understand the reasons for doing that; this is why the Internet is so important (until it’s not) for the unedited truth about the world we live in, and wars (and their ramifications). It does not make the U.S. liberators like we were in Europe in 1944-45.
The video wasn’t even posted on YouTube until late Saturday night or early Sunday morning and almost all the various versions were edited or manipulated in some way. (Sunnis protest Saddam Hussein’s execution in photo to the right.)
How is this relevant to an indie music site?
Indirectly, it is, but we posted the video because it wasn’t available to the general public at the moment even though we had it on YouTube – which is still a new and unrefined.
Under Saddam’s 25-year iron fist, oppression and threats, torture and murders, he outlawed music, except propaganda and traditional music. People were tortured, jailed and even killed for smuggling in music, especially western music.
SPECIAL: Don’t miss the Death to Dics!! iRock Podcast with songs against dictators by some of the best artists on the scene today, and some from yesterday.