Dearbhail McDonald Legal Editor.

AN Iraqi exile who claims he was forced to become the body double of dictator Saddam Hussein's playboy son Uday says he is "in a legal limbo" as his fight to become an Irish citizen enters its 11th year.

Despite being married to an Irish woman, and having an Irish child, Latif Yahia's application for citizenship has been rejected twice.

The former army captain, who has been waiting for more than five years for a decision on his third citizenship application, was involved in a movie about his experience as a "fidi" or body double, which were widely used by Saddam's regime.

The 2011 movie, 'The Devil's Double', starred British actor Dominic Cooper, who won critical acclaim for his portrayal of both Mr Yahia and Uday, Saddam's sadistic eldest son.

Mr Yahia told the Irish Independent that he finds it "hurtful and humiliating" that he has not yet received a decision from Justice Minister Alan Shatter, who has been credited with reducing waiting times for decisions in citizenship applications.

America made it's perfect excuse to go into Afghanistan and Iraq when it fabricated Al-Qaeda (see my other blog), but it also gave Iran it's perfect means of spreading its Jaysh al Quds (Army of Jerusalem) Refugees. I am not saying that all refugees are sleepers, that would be far too much of a generalization, what I am saying is that some refugees, especially those from Iraq, were not even Iraqi never mind true refugees, Iran used the Iraq/Iran war to send out it's first wave and the "War on Terror" to replenish their numbers (it is hard to stay ideologically pure when surrounded by temptation)
 
I think that the time is right to explore why people become "extremists" what drives someone to be a suicide bomber for instance? Well, obviously there are the fanatics, religious or otherwise that believe their way is the only way and are who willing to sacrifice their lives and yours for their cause.
Then there are the people who started out without any particular convictions, who, during the course of their lives witnessed and suffered such cruelty and injustice that they lost all hope and were taken in by fanatics, these people are victims, their pain and suffering is taken and twisted by the true fanatics, they are given an enemy, someone on whom the blame can be placed and sent off to do the fanatics bidding. They are damaged people and they are used in the worst possible way.
Please, please do not believe that fanatics are confined to the Muslim faith, there are Christian, Jewish and many other types too. Recent events in Norway have proved this.

Before I continue I will make this statement again, just in case you haven't read any of my other articles and also to explain.
I am not anti-Shia, while growing up in Iraq we did not have such a divide, everyone celebrated whatever it was with whomever, Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Turkmen, Christian, nobody bothered.
For those that don't know or understand the differences between Sunni and Shia for example, the Sunni came first, Sunnis are followers of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) the Shia or Shi'ite came later when Hussein the son of Prophet Ali was killed in Kuffa, Iraq,(which is why you will see them slap themselves, it is to cleanse them from the sin of his and his families murder) they follow the teachings of Ali, whom they believe should have received the miracle of the Q'uran instead of Prophet Mohammed although Ali was nine at the time, when the Angel Gabriel came down to give the news to Prophet Mohammed that he shall bring the Q'uran to the world, he was sleeping in Ali's bed.I suppose it is similar to the difference between Catholic and Protestant and with just as much divisiveness these days. I think the true test of any religion is when you don't have to kill in the name of it.
There is also a difference between Iranian Shia and Arabic Shia, when I use the term Shia or Shi'ite I am referring to  the Iranian Shia that follow the Ayatollahs, A lot of Arabic Shia were opposed to the war of 2003 and supported Iraq.

With regard to Saddam Hussein and his regime, he was an equal opportunity employer ( he employed Sunni, Shia and Kurd etc) and an equal opportunity killer, if you committed a crime against Iraq/Saddam it made no difference to him what creed your name came under.

No organisation would be able to function without a network, so in the next paragraph or two I will give an example of how the "wrong" kind of people can claim asylum in your country. I'm using a case in Ireland that I have made the authorities aware of but they have done nothing about.

Pre-2003 there were three Mosques in Dublin, the very large one in Goatstown, a smaller one on the South-Circular road and a Hussainiya at Dundrum Bridge.

Television Son of Saddam tells the story of Latif Yahia, who was the body double for Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday.
Director David Bartlett talks about the making of the film

Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double (2011) gave us an inside view of the horrors and excess in Saddam Hussein’s household. Based on the eponymous book by Latif Yahia, The Devil’s Double told his story as the Fedai or bullet catcher of Saddam’s eldest son, Uday, who seems to be an all-round crazy psycho person. The super hot Dominic Cooper played both Uday and Latif (Uday was so much more eye catching) and the movie celebrated Eighties excess in every frame. There was drugs, sex and rock n roll and torture aplenty in the overripe film.

“That was classic Hollywood,” says director David Bartlett over the phone. Talking about Son of Saddam , an episode on Banged Up Abroad for National Geographic that he directed, Bartlett says: “This is very gritty. The styling is based on the Bourne films. There is a lot of handheld camera work. It is edgy and visceral.”

Talking about the difference between the film and the documentary, Bartlett explains that the two ends at different points and also Son of Saddam has Latif facing the camera to tell his story. “Latif Yahia is a man who chooses carefully who to open up to. He is a very intelligent man, and has been through a lot of trouble and pain. He has written two books on his experiences, The Devil’s Double and The Black Hole and when Raw Television contacted him with a view to dramatising his life story, he was very keen to engage with us, on the grounds that we would faithfully represent his and his family’s plight. He is a relatively private man, but I gained his trust through many conversations, and we came to a position of mutual respect. From that position, Latif felt comfortable enough to open up very candidly and bravely in what turned out to be a very long interview in front of the camera.”

While most episodes on Banged up Abroad feature people who are stuck in a foreign country, Son of Saddam features Latif who was Iraqi in a different kind of prison in Iraq. “The series tells the story of survival when caught in difficult situations and Latif’s story is true representation of human spirit that refused to get bogged down by the situation.”

Like the movie, the same actor plays both the roles — the honest, good Latif and the evil psychotic Uday. “We needed either twin actors or the same actor playing both the roles.
Sam Vincenti played Uday and Latif. It was a terrific performance as quite often he had to act against himself. There was clever editing involved as well.”

Shot on the northern coast of Tunisia, in La Marsa principally, the feature is gripping for the window it offers into another world.

Son of Saddam will air on 5/September/2012, at 10 p.m. on National Geographic Channel.

UK support for military action in Syria is not in America's best interest
Lessons of Iraq show that British support should not be seen as a green light to American leaders to send in the troops.
The last time a British prime minister endorsed an American president's plans for military intervention, it resulted in the US invasion of Iraq – one of the worst foreign policy blunders in recent American history.

That is why last week's endorsement by David Cameron of a warning by Barack Obama that even the threat of chemical weapons by Syria could trigger a military intervention should be viewed with alarm on both sides of the Atlantic.

There is something in the psyche of Americans that gives British views on foreign policy more credit than they deserve. If the Brits say it is so, it must be so is the common reaction of many Americans to pronouncements by British leaders. Americans are inclined to believe their friends across the Atlantic, given their centuries of involvement with countries around the world, have acquired skills to deal with foreign policy issues that Americans – with barely a century of global domination – simply do not possess. This is simply not true.

While there may be some truth to this belief in British prowess in dealing with other countries, there is an overriding reason to not give British support too much credence: The UK's support is rarely based on facts on the ground and objective analysis. It is driven instead by a self-serving exaggerated view of the "special relationship" with the United States.

I have always believed that former President Bush would have had a very difficult time selling his unilateral invasion of Iraq to Americans had Prime Minister Blair refused to support American military plans.

Why then would Britain, America's closest ally, the co-inventor of modern Iraq, with intimate knowledge of, and deep historical ties to, the Middle East, and with its powerful understanding of Arabs and Islam, not have influenced its American ally's actions more wisely?

Dean Acheson, one of America's most gifted Secretaries of State, would have had a ready explanation for why it was not in Britain's best interest to oppose the United States' plans to invade Iraq.

Addressing a student conference at the US military academy, West Point, in 1962, he presciently said, "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role. The attempt to play a separate power role, that is, a role apart from Europe, a role based primarily on a 'special relationship' with the United States … is about played out."

The American invasion of Iraq destroyed the delicate balance of power relationships involving Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. A balance that Iraq's ruthless dictator had maintained for years.

A precipitate collapse of the Assad regime in Syria would magnify this instability in the heart of the Middle East by, for instance, encouraging a push by Syrian Kurds for an independent Kurdish State – the worst nightmare of Turkey, one of America's closest allies in the Middle East. That is why Turkey, the country most affected by the mayhem in Syria (over 200,000 refugees have crossed into it for safety), is politically divided about militarily intervening in Syria.

And, American military involvement in Syria, would further damage the relationship between the United States and Russia, Syria's benefactor. That would doom American and Nato plans to remove US troops and material from the war in Afghanistan through Central Asia and Russia; leaving Pakistan as the only route out of the Afghan quagmire. Is that in American national interest?

If Britain wants to help re-engineer Syria, a country it helped to invent in the first place, it should be free to do so. But Americans would be wise to make it clear to their elected officials that they have no wish to intervene on one side of a civil war. America has other priorities for its blood and treasure, and they do not include another war in the Middle East.

In this closely fought US presidential election season when President Obama is being hammered by conservatives to act militarily in Syria, what the world did not need is a public declaration of UK support for US military intervention in Syria. The US has been down this road before, in Iraq. Does anyone really want to repeat that movie?