Iraq: Saddam will not be able to reveal US accomplices
theherald: Letters
BBC Radio Scotland asked me, on Wednesday, to take part in a discussion on Saddam's trial: would it be fair and should he be executed were the questions. Almost an oxymoron.
Given that the US has picked the judges and determined the terms of reference of the proceedings, it will fall somewhat short of fairness, at least in the sense of allowing the accused to reveal who his accomplices were (the CIA), who brought him to power (the CIA) and who supplied his weaponry (yes, you got it). The Human Rights Watch report on US army torture in Iraq has recently stated that "in a way it was sport". The trial is designed along the same Wayne Rooneyesque lines. Keep the world's attention away from Halabja (and the period 1975-90) by focusing on Dubjail. A bit like charging Al Capone with tax evasion. Meanwhile, justify the illegal war by telling us that Saddam was a bad man.
Ironically, when I lived under Saddam's gentle tutelage for several years in the 1980s I worked closely with two American lawyers, Harvard graduates both - they were developing Iraqi planning laws while I focused on demographics and water resources. Saddam was our friend then, a bulwark against Shia fundamentalism. Millions of Iraqi dead later, Shia fundamentalism is on the cusp of realisation in Iraq amid a civil war. Bring on balkanisation. Funny old thing, war.
As one of the few westerners there at the time I recall clearly the day that Rumsfeld blew into Baghdad to stroke Saddam's inflated ego. I also recall Mitlah Ridge (1991) where tens of thousands of Iraqis (Shia conscripts) were buried while still alive. I remember Amiriyah (1991) where hundreds of women and children were encrusted on to the walls of their shelter trying to avoid a "clean" missile. I often think of the million Iraqi children murdered by sanctions, their flesh minced by British cluster bombs while they frolicked among the depleted uranium.
Then it was Operation Desert Fox (1998), when our Tony got in on the act to take the pressure off Clinton and Monica's stained dress. Ten thousand Iraqis perished then in the release of the highest level of ordnance since the Second World War. And so on through Shock and Awe as 100,000 Iraqis cowered in their homes before they shuffled off, or, rather, had their mortal coils blown away. "Git Saddam" has been used to justify the murder of millions. It continues as a casus belli.
When they have dispatched the madman before he can finger his erstwhile pals in the US and here, I really do hope that our young war criminal and his friend in the Oval Office can be held in Abu Ghraib - it's just outside the Green Zone and can be accessed in half an hour - with the jailers picked by Rumsfeld, and before facing a new set of judges with a Sunni on the panel. I'd be quite happy to have my two Harvard friends from all these years ago, Sam Shearer and Dave Peterson, people who actually understand Iraq, perform that function.
Chris Walker, 21/23 Main Street, West Kilbride Link
db: If all else fails you may have noticed the twenty minute delay to ensure there is no mention - or broadcast - of the 'C' word
BBC Radio Scotland asked me, on Wednesday, to take part in a discussion on Saddam's trial: would it be fair and should he be executed were the questions. Almost an oxymoron.
Given that the US has picked the judges and determined the terms of reference of the proceedings, it will fall somewhat short of fairness, at least in the sense of allowing the accused to reveal who his accomplices were (the CIA), who brought him to power (the CIA) and who supplied his weaponry (yes, you got it). The Human Rights Watch report on US army torture in Iraq has recently stated that "in a way it was sport". The trial is designed along the same Wayne Rooneyesque lines. Keep the world's attention away from Halabja (and the period 1975-90) by focusing on Dubjail. A bit like charging Al Capone with tax evasion. Meanwhile, justify the illegal war by telling us that Saddam was a bad man.
Ironically, when I lived under Saddam's gentle tutelage for several years in the 1980s I worked closely with two American lawyers, Harvard graduates both - they were developing Iraqi planning laws while I focused on demographics and water resources. Saddam was our friend then, a bulwark against Shia fundamentalism. Millions of Iraqi dead later, Shia fundamentalism is on the cusp of realisation in Iraq amid a civil war. Bring on balkanisation. Funny old thing, war.
As one of the few westerners there at the time I recall clearly the day that Rumsfeld blew into Baghdad to stroke Saddam's inflated ego. I also recall Mitlah Ridge (1991) where tens of thousands of Iraqis (Shia conscripts) were buried while still alive. I remember Amiriyah (1991) where hundreds of women and children were encrusted on to the walls of their shelter trying to avoid a "clean" missile. I often think of the million Iraqi children murdered by sanctions, their flesh minced by British cluster bombs while they frolicked among the depleted uranium.
Then it was Operation Desert Fox (1998), when our Tony got in on the act to take the pressure off Clinton and Monica's stained dress. Ten thousand Iraqis perished then in the release of the highest level of ordnance since the Second World War. And so on through Shock and Awe as 100,000 Iraqis cowered in their homes before they shuffled off, or, rather, had their mortal coils blown away. "Git Saddam" has been used to justify the murder of millions. It continues as a casus belli.
When they have dispatched the madman before he can finger his erstwhile pals in the US and here, I really do hope that our young war criminal and his friend in the Oval Office can be held in Abu Ghraib - it's just outside the Green Zone and can be accessed in half an hour - with the jailers picked by Rumsfeld, and before facing a new set of judges with a Sunni on the panel. I'd be quite happy to have my two Harvard friends from all these years ago, Sam Shearer and Dave Peterson, people who actually understand Iraq, perform that function.Chris Walker, 21/23 Main Street, West Kilbride Link
db: If all else fails you may have noticed the twenty minute delay to ensure there is no mention - or broadcast - of the 'C' word
posted by exoplanet at 10:33 AM
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