Between the two extremes--from America’s amorous embrace to the
macabre dance at the gallows--Saddam traveled a fateful path. Why did
the murderers kill one of their own…is then the question that needs
answering. His rush to the scaffolds, therefore, is worth a study.
Here is why.
Saddam Hussein's execution on Dec. 30 not only prevents him from being
put on trial for his most serious crimes–genocide against the Kurds and
the use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq war, but more importantly,
silences him forever. His accomplices in crime can now breathe easy.
Had the trial been held under international auspices, the world would
have known who supplied Saddam Hussein with materials of mass
destruction; where from his military regime, notorious for atrocities
against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, acquired weapons, germs and lethal
chemicals.
The world would have known that on March 21st, 1986, when the UN wanted
to show its concern of Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons with
the words that the Council members were:
"profoundly concerned by the
unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many
occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops...[and]
the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of
chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925
which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons", the only country
to vote AGAINST the issuance of this statement was the United States of
America.
The world would have known that from arranging for Iraq to be supplied
with the chemicals to make poison gas with which to kill his countrymen
to providing Baghdad with satellite and AWACS intelligence data on
Iranian targets and sending USAF photo interpreters to Baghdad to draw
Saddam the maps of Iranian trenches that let him douse them in poison
gas, America was implicated up to its gills in Saddam’s genocide of
Kurds and its war against Iran.
The world would have known the long list of Western and U.S. companies
that supplied Saddam with deadly and dual-use material. Union Carbide,
Honeywell, Dupont, SpectraPhysics, Bechtel are just some of the ones
mentioned on the list.
The world would have known that in total violation of the Geneva
Protocol of 1925, that outlaws chemical warfare, the Reagan-Bush
administration had sanctioned the sale of poisonous chemicals and
deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout
the '80s. Not only that, in 1982, while Saddam Hussein built up his war
machinery, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department list
of terrorist states.
The world would have known that Iraq was already using chemical weapons
on an "almost daily basis" when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein
in 1983 signaling a bonding of the U.S.-Iraq military alliance and that
consequent to that visit, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military
support, U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits, and the
C.I.A., using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster
bombs.
The world would have known that only six months after the heinous
massacre of the Kurds in March 1988, U.S. companies sent eleven strains
of germs, four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a microbe strain,
called 11966, developed for germ warfare at Fort Detrick in the '50s.
Judith Miller provides a brief account of this disgusting traffic in
U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, “Germs: Biological Weapons And
America’s Secret War”.
The world would have known that as late as 1989 and 1990, according to
a report from U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio),
U.S. companies, under permits from the first Bush administration, sent
mustard gas materials, live cultures for bacteriological research, to
Iraq. U.S. companies not only helped Iraq build a chemical weapons
factory, they also shipped Saddam a West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide
precursors and parts for a new nuclear plant.
The world would have known that Dow Chemical of the Vietnam War Napalm
fame sold large amounts of pesticides and toxins that cause death by
asphyxiation, that twenty-four U.S. firms exported arms and materials
to Baghdad and that France also sent Saddam 200 AMX medium tanks,
Mirage bombers, and Gazelle helicopter gunships.
The world would have known the executives of Alcoliac International of
Maryland, that transported mustard gas precursors to Saddam; the
Tennessee manufacturers that provided sarin-based chemicals; the heads
of Dow chemical who sold toxins that cause death by asphyxiation; the
heads of Bechtel that produced chemicals for Saddam in their Iraqi
plant; the CIA agents that made covert arms deals and transported
heinous cluster bombs to a proven tyrant. The world would have known
the names of a whole lot of other international accessories of Saddam
Hussein.
The world would have known that it is not just the buyers but the
suppliers of death too who are answerable under the Nuremberg
Conventions that says:
"Complicity in the commission of a crime against
peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, is a crime under
international law."
Above all, the world would have known that Saddam Hussein was blamed by
his severest opponents of killing 300,000 Iraqis during his 35-year
rule. In less than four years George W. Bush has more than doubled
that, with the ‘surge’ yet to come.
President George W. Bush broke his silence on the unprovoked killing of
24 unarmed Iraqi civilians by US Marines in the town of Haditha more
than six months after the event, some two months after he was briefed
on the atrocity by his national security adviser, and two months after
a detailed account appeared in Time magazine, by muttering he was
“troubled by the initial news stories.”
The murderer-in-chief, US President George Bush, promptly called
Saddam's execution:
''the kind of justice he denied the victims of his
brutal regime.''
How about calling out the hangman again for the justice denied to Haditha victims?
No honor among murderers... eh?
Same devilry, some hypocrisy, some sense of justice, some double bloody standards.
© - Anwaar Hussain 2007
Sources:
1. The NYT report:
http://tinyurl.com/ygebvr
2.
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/time.html
3.
http://www.trinicenter.com/oops/30122003.html
4.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061229_saddam_hussein_executed/
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