Saddam's suspended sentence

Let's be clear in the preliminary. Those that opposed the war were accused of supporting Saddam's desire to develop WMD. We are no friends of Saddam and shed no tears on hearing of his death.

What is a shame is that the CIA man who was killed by pro-Iranian Shia factions was not tried for more deaths than the 148 people of Dujail in 1982. After all, remember what Tony Blair said in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Glasgow on 15 February 2003 - that historic day when two million took to the streets in protest against the neocon war:

If there are 500,000 on the march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.

As it was, he underestimated the numbers that actually turned up. And then he went on to ignore them and rival up to Saddam in the "number of people who died in the wars he started".

Much has already been written about regarding the obvious desire of the US and UK to avoid a wider trial where tales would include Donald Rumsfeld enjoying Quality Street with Saddam to supply the latter weapons used in, for example, the gassing of his own people in 1988 that we heard so much about before the war.

Saddam didn't get his day in court as far as this was concerned, but he had been under lock and key for three years. While not feeding birds and watering weeds, I speculate that he must have written some memoirs. I wonder what happened to them. Maybe the US or the Iraqis would release the papers under Freedom of Information.

Comments

[Yakoub/Julaybib]

Tariq Ali pretty much summed it up for me:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tariq_ali/2006/12/post_852.html

Wasalaam

[joe90]

I notice the US Iraqi puppet regime made kinown to the rest of the world that this was very much a 'Shia' lynching.

This lynching was also carried out on a significant date in the religious calender for some people of the area.

I can only assume, therefire, that the US is trying as hard as it can to foment as much religious-sectarian division in the region as it possible can.

When can we expect the trials of, say, Madeliene Albright, who participated in the slaughter of half a miliion Iraqi children under the genocidal US-UK Sanctions regime 1991-96 - and who, when asked about this abomination said, she though this crime against innocent children was was worth it!

When is the trial of Donald Rumsfeld (who only got the sack) for his crimes against Iraqi humanity over the decades and a key criminal accomplice of Saddam?

When is the trial of Tony Blair (who only got the sack) although he is still in his job and carries on with his war crimes against Iraqis, Palestinians etc?

Or the Commander-in-Chief himself, big-mouthed 'Bring em on' George Bush, ex-Vietnam War Veteran?

[MonkeyZerg]

His hurried execution was to prevent more embarrassments exposed. The choice of Eid Al Adha to murder him was to insult Muslims. Using Shia thugs to do him in after taunting him will only lead to more animosity between Shia and Sunni. The way he carried himself before his death will only make him gain respect despite all his previous crimes, while his murderers in the White House and Baghdad will lose respect for lynching him.

Importantly, he was assassinated even though he is a prisoner of war of an army illegally occuapying his country. He was rushed to murder by a sham, kangaroo court that lacks any legitimacy because it was put in place by the illegal occupation. He was 'convicted' by a very unfair trial heavily biased against him. The murder of Saddam is a big blotch on the USA's supposed pursuit of freedom and justice, it was a travesty.

And the irony? The little they tried him for (in order to not uncover other people's complicity if other cases were investigated) turned up much less evidence against him than most people expected. He was actually exonerated for crimes people have assumed he was responsible for. The trial was such a farce that many witnesses turned out to have witnessed nothing, the judges were changed several times till one anti-Saddam enough was found, Saddam's defence lawyers were being threatened and killed, etc, etc. How can you have a fair trial under such conditions?

Saddam was slaughtered on the Festival of Sacrifice to cover up crimes and insult Muslims. This had nothing to do with justice.

[ainelivia]

Lets see, the things that disturb me. The haste, the televising, the serving up this "execution", as a "victory", the hypocrisy - we do not have the death penalty in Europe - why was he not tried at The Hague?

Not saying that he did not commit atrocities. But this execution is a hypocrisy, its message is "one evil is barbaric, and another evil is justice."

And most of all, that this event was made public, whatever he did, he had a family, was a husband and father.

And that it casts a shadow, creates a lot of questions, and a feeling of disgust at politicians and media. Notably, most have been silent, and I wonder what bad news, as if this wasn't bad enough, got "buried".

[F4P]

The Americans have succeeded in doing something which even I thought was beyond them. They have turned Saddam into a symbolic, almost heroic, figure for the oppressed people in the Arab world.

He will now not be remembered for all the crimes he committed, but as a person who remained dignified while been murdered by Western powers.

The broadcasting of the whole thing will prove to be a massive blunder.

[Yusuf Smith]

F4P: the videoing of the execution was done by someone who smuggled his mobile phone into the room. There is no evidence that the state intended to have his actual death filmed, otherwise they would have done it themselves (or if they actually did, released the footage). There is an investigation into who did the mobile phone job.

As for whether it is ethical to execute him, do we regret the execution of the Nazis after the Nuremberg trials? His crimes were not committed in Europe, but in Iraq and Kuwait.

[joe90]

Saddam's one and only crime,
was disobedience of the Great White Father in his House in Washington.

Saddam was the usual local dictator who got a little too big for his boots.

Starting off with when he invaded a local US Puppet totalitarian dictatorship, the British-made statelet of Kuwait - which has yet to introduce democracy to the people of Kuwait, well over 15 years since the Kuwaiti dictator was liberated from the Iraqi dictator by the 'Allies'.

Here is Scottish Solidarity
http://www.solidarityscotland.org/content/view/144/2/>Saddam's Execution
Sat 30 Dec 2006

Nuremberg was an international court arranged under the auspices of the Allies, and was convened before the UN, or even the 4th Geneva Convention came into being, or the rest of the international apparatus of justice, which should have been used to try Saddam.

If Saddam's Stalinist Show Trial was to have been done legally, there would be many of his western accomplices in the dock with him - just as at Nurmeberg, it wouldn't only have been the head of the regime that would have been put on trial, it would have been those who supported him up until the point he had outgrown his usefulness to the west.

Which all goes to show, that Saddam was still, legally the President of Iraq when the US had him lynched after his kangaroo court.

[johnmellor77]

"Saddam's one and only crime,
was disobedience of the Great White Father in his House in Washington."

Mmmm, no. Not his only crime.

[joe90]

Of course it was,
or are you going to tell us in true brainwashed murdoch-fanatical fashion
1 - that it was because of all the Iraqi WMD
2 - or it was because Iraq had no democracy

Or try explaining the farcical stalinist kangaroo show trial given a 'Shia' twist, by the illegal American occupiers and mass-murderers, in order to promote an Iraqi civil war.

Who knows, maybe you are capable of doing more than just making empty meaningless comments about other people's comments.

ps
try this,
this is much more your empty murdoch style -
http://www.thesun.co.uk/discussions/posts/list/2376.page>The Scum - Is Our Media Honest?
- you don't have to make any statements as to what it is you believe to be the truth - and if you do, who is ever going to notice or care anyway

[johnmellor77]

Wow.

Regardless of how wrong the invasion of Iraq was or the affront to human deceny his execution was, I don't think anyone can argue that saddam's only crime was to upset Washington.

[ainelivia]

response to John Mellor.

Perhaps not his "only crime", however, it is now clear and transparent, that his greatest "crime", was that he eventually, began to play games with his paymasters, and as I believe Osama has wondered in his post, is there the possibility of a memoir somewhere.

SH's death is a about cover-up, and to some extent revenge. Watch out for DC's next move. And where was TB while all this was happennning, no voices of our government raised. Bah, sack the lot.

[Abu Sinan]

I think the point trying to be made here, and very well I think, is that if Saddam had continued to do what the people in Washington DC asked of him, he would still be in power.

[johnmellor77]

Agreed, but that's not exactly what Joe90 said. And he's usually such a stickler for that sort of thing!

[John Palubiski]

Perhaps not his "only crime", however, it is now clear and transparent, that his greatest "crime", was that he eventually, began to play games with his paymasters, and as I believe Osama has wondered in his post, is there the possibility of a memoir somewhere.

All true, but my response is just one big "so what"..

The Arabo/Muslim world builds nothing, generates nothing, produces nothing and invents nothing.....as a matter of fact they don't even grow enough food to feed thmselves even though their culture is centered in both the Nile Valley and Fertile Crescent; areas that for thousdands of years were the earth's bread-basket....

In other words S.H. was damned lucky he even had paymasters who'd buy the oil. When, after the first gulf war, Iraq became frozen out of world markets, the west had to institute an oil-for-food-and-medicine programme otherwise Iraqis would've starved. That programme wasn't set up to make Saddam buckle under, as many mistakenly believe, rather it was established merely to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Most of the medicines, for example, were given to children to alleviate the various symptoms arising from inbreeding.

That's the brutal truth.

Was Saddam a product of America or the result of America's sins?

Not on your life.

Saddam was a pure, undistilled product of Islam and Islamic "male-think"; in other words, a useless, arrogant, self-centered gasbag. In fact, his mother and father were first cousins as were his grandparents. The very template for a "loser".

When push came to shove he was exposed for the mediocre coward he really was.

Like those Jihadis who just got their butts kicked out of Somalia.

[ainelivia]

John, It seems that you've already made up your mind that an entire area and culture are in your view "not pulling their weight".

I think your analysis is harsh in the extreme.

What disgusts me, is that a supposedly forward thinking and progressive sector of the world, stood back and allowed much to happen because it suited the "purpose". That in our supposedly progressive Western Europe television channels showed repeatedly a man about to die, and served it up as though it was quite normal.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "... and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population that permits it".

The question then is, if we are progressive and humane, why did we permit this? It served no purpose. Although it may serve purposes we are not being made aware of.

[joe90]

I wouldn't bother with these three Abu Sinan.

Typical mellor,
ask him what it is he himself thinks, ask him for a positive statement as to his own views, and he is struck with terror at the prospect and has to hide behind such circumlocutions as
I don't think anyone can argue..
- I didn't ask him what other people are arguing about, I asked him what he thought.

Obviously, asking this intellectual coward for his own view fills him with horror.

I said Saddam's crime was 'disobedience' and this metamorphosises, in the hands of this fan of Racist Murdoch fiction, into
upset

Apart from the fact disobeying the Mafia Dons in Washington isn't a real crime anyway.

And also
Regardless of how wrong the invasion of Iraq was or the affront to human deceny his execution was...
- well, were they or weren't they wrong and an affront, only mellor can tell us his own views but he isn't about to?

You ask mellor for his own personal undiluted views and he can't help himself turning into a scholastic logic splitter, hair splitter and hardline logical positivist - replete with little sound effects.

[joe90]

Like those Jihadis who just got their butts kicked out of Somalia.
- that's the only true statement in that pile of nonsense above, although I fail to see what Mussolini's fascist forces getting kicked out of Somalia during WWII has to do with anything.

By the way,
Saddam Hussein was a commie.
Though I suppose, in the cardboard cut-out world of you followers of Rupert Madman and his western Jihad, they're all the same. After all, another of Saddam's big sins was he was in cahoots with Ally Cheeda and Osama bin Forgotten.

Commie, Wahhabi, Palestinian Christian, Lebanese Socialist, Egyptian nationalist, Scottish Nationalist, American blue-eyed Patriot and Muslim (Abu Sinan) - what does it matter, they're all the same!

ps
In fact, his mother and father were first cousins as were his grandparents. The very template for a "loser".
- that's no way top talk about the glorious pedigree of Her Britannic Majesty and her family collection escapees from the island of Dr Moreau -
- you've failed the British citizenship test right away - probably due to congenital and genetic abnormalities, if you ask me, idiocy usually is

[ainelivia]

John P, there I was having sarnie, and watching C4News. And speaking of not enough sustainable food produce being grown locally; yes, you mean the food miles my Tesco's cabbage does?

I'm not sure that the term something in glass houses doesn't apply as much to how we obtain our food as anyone else.

Did anyone hear a JoeSqueak??? The usual personal insults and abuse. I know you don't want to win friends Jninety, but you are unlikely to be heard if you continue in this way.

And anyway, this is all way off core subject.

[johnmellor77]

Poor Joe90.

[MonkeyZerg]

John P, I respond to you only because I fear that someone ignorant of the Middle East might read your drivel and have a seed of untruth planted in them without seeing an alternative to your 'brutal truth'.

You say: "The Arabo/Muslim world builds nothing, generates nothing, produces nothing and invents nothing..."

Yes, the Arab world may be in the pits currently, but surely you're not serious to claim something so absolute about a fifth of the world. This statement is racist to the core.

You say: "they don't even grow enough food to feed thmselves even though their culture is centered in both the Nile Valley and Fertile Crescent; areas that for thousdands of years were the earth's bread-basket...."

Are you saying no other countries import any food? Up until the 60s, Egypt was exporting grain and food, and it's food producing capacity only got decimated when it submitted to IMF conditions after getting itself into debt. If the Empirialists leave these people alone, maybe they'll start producing as much as they used to.

You say: "In other words S.H. was damned lucky he even had paymasters who'd buy the oil."

Damned lucky? Saddam's Iraq became one of the Arab world's most advanced industrial nations, and was becoming too independent, so they destroyed its infrastructure and put sanctions on him, killing millions because of lack of food/medicine, and then used the desperation to extort oil wealth out for meager crumbs in return. You say the Arabs don't produce anything, yet when they do the Imperial armies you support crush them. Did you know that in Kuwait and Saudi there are restrictions on private businesses on making car parts or other such tech, to force them to buy this from America, etc? This stagnation of the Arab world is only recent, because most of the Arab world is ruled by puppet dictators loyal to Imperialist Western interests. Of coarse, it is convenient for the exploiters to scapegoat the condition of the exploited on some defect within the exploited, rather than to admit to their role in oppressing them.

You say: "Most of the medicines, for example, were given to children to alleviate the various symptoms arising from inbreeding."

Yes, the benevolent folk who placed the sanctions also gave them crumbs as a gesture of goodwill. Why not talk about the millions of deaths caused by the sanctions, instead of focusing on the crumbs given for PR purposes, and for taking oil cheaply.
Inbreeding? The closest that happens is first cousins marrying, but I've never read anywhere that it was widespread or causing any genetic problems. Is this part of your racist anti-Arab slander? Calling them inbred?

You say: "That's the brutal truth."
No, it isn't. They are your racist lies and fantasies.

You say: "Saddam was a pure, undistilled product of Islam and Islamic "male-think"; in other words, a useless, arrogant, self-centered gasbag."

Pure, undistilled? This must be the biggest junk I've ever read, and only shows your unfounded hatred toward Islam at all levels. How can Saddam be a pure product of Islam when he was a secular nationalist, a Baathist, socialist, etc etc. He implemented many anti-Islamic things during his life, how can he be a pure product of it? Islam teaches humility, its greatest historical figures were humble, simple. Caliphs used to live in simple houses, on straw matts. There's nothing arrogant about Islam. Useless? Was Saddam useless to America when he was fighting Iran? Was he useless when he advanced his country and made it a regional power before it was smashed to bring him down? When he raised literacy rates to record highs, educated his people, started industries, and became independent from Western capital? Just because he was a criminal dictator shouldn't blind us to some of the good he's done. Gas-bag? Prove to me that Islam produces gas-bags. The only gas leaking out of a bag is coming from you, John.

You say: "In fact, his mother and father were first cousins as were his grandparents. The very template for a "loser"."

Oi, don't bring his parents into this. That's low. Loser? Why not decide if someone's a loser based on what they do, not who their parents are. But oh, I forget, for you John, any body born of an Arab is a loser.

You say: "When push came to shove he was exposed for the mediocre coward he really was."

Actually, he showed courage, something very uncharacteristic of all the other Arab puppet proWestern dictators. He was brave and dignified right before he died, as well as before his country was invaded in 2003. Where did he show cowardice? Is there any reason based on fact you have for hating this man? I know many, but you don't seem to.

You say: "Like those Jihadis who just got their butts kicked out of Somalia."

We're talkig about Saddam, and you wanna defame all Arab/Muslims in the process, again betraying your motives for posting here.

Those 'jihadis' were 10,000 ragtag militia against 150,000 well armed army. How about talk about those 'jihadis' that are kicking America's butt in Iraq, or those 'jihadis' that kicked Russia out of Afghanistan, and are doing so now to the US.

[John Palubiski]

John, It seems that you've already made up your mind that an entire area and culture are in your view "not pulling their weight".

I think your analysis is harsh in the extreme.

Ainelivia, yeah harsh observations, but only because the situation is so desperate.

In a few years time this whole area of the world may well become a total disaster zone, a humanitarian crisis beyond anything mankind has ever witnessed.

Wer're talking about an area of the world ( M.E.) that is largely desert and which relies upon the waters of only three rivers for its sustenance.

How many millions can one fit along the banks of the Nile......a river, while though very long, has only a very, VERY MODEST volume of water?

What about Turkey and Kurdistan and Syria and Iraq itself? Just how many more people can the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates support? The birthrate is through the roof, no one cares to think about the implications, and to boot many ( though NOT all) of the women inhabiting this region still feel that their best long-term interests are met by having as many kids as possible.

Water wars are looming for the whole region, and it's a subject that few Arabs even care to discuss.

Ethiopia, for instance, is now claiming...and with no small amount of justification...that ALL the waters of the Blue Nile are hers and hers alone. The country is preparing to act on that assertion. What will that mean for Egypt, a country with an extremely high birthrate that shows no signs of comming down? Add to this the fact that The Sudan is getting "water-testy", as well, and you start to realise that the whole Nile basin is becomming one big flashpoint

Turkey, another country with more birth-babies than brains and more desert than greenery,, is now claiming the entire headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates ( both having only modest water-volume) and is joyfully building dams and resevoirs with nary a thought for the tens of millions of Arabs living just downstream.

That's a flashpoint, as well.

Are these hundreds of millions of people merely going to passively sit there and watch as these rivers dry to a trickle?

What's tragic about this is that no one in the Arabo/Muslim world is willing to address this looming crisis. No external agent can be cited. No crusaders or Mossad operatives are behind this probleme. It is entirely domestic in origin, yet no one wants to take responsability.....let alone propose solutions.

Nope, nope, the priority for many ( though not all) "reformist" elements in the Arabo/Muslim world is the creation of a mythical, utopian *emerald city*, a Caliphate.

Finally, if Islam's 1,400 year trackrecord is any indication, when the shit hits the fan, the familiar Muslim fatalism will kick in and all the blame for water shortages placed on the "other", the external other.

Islam reigns supreme, you see; it is perfect and immutable and needs, thus, no defense......

Yep, just click yer heels three times and say; "there's no place like home".

[DrM]

Yawn, I see the racist reject from Harrys place has been smoking the funny cigarettes again.

[joe90]

Oh now come on DrM,
you are such a cynic!

John has got some important points - lashings of them in fact - he is awash in a sea stuffed to the gunnels with points - there is no danger of john's never ending stream drying up - if only the islamo-arabo-fascismos would listen to him

What do you suggest john - how about a hosepipe ban for the region?

Maybe they should just do what Israel does and steal water from everybody else around them -
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/061230/2006123020.html>Israel controls water resources in Gaza, West Bank
Arabic News
30 Dec 2006

After all, that was one of the objectives of the recent Israeli attack on all of Lebanon, was to establish an illegal occupation zone up to the River Litani in order to steal Lebanese water.

[johnmellor77]

Ahem.

The word is gunwale, pronounced gunnel. And a gunwale is something a boat has, not the sea.

[Osama]

John, you're quite a stickler for someone that regularly spells his own name wrong