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A Convenient Execution
Capital Punishment Execution Links Judicial Homicide
Senior Bush administration officials in Washington said that Mr. Khalilzad’s principal contact in Washington was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and that she gave the green light for Mr. Hussein to be turned over, despite the reservations of the military commanders in Baghdad. One official said that Ms. Rice was supported in that view by Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/world/middleeast/07ticktock.html?pagewanted=5&th&emc=th
The execution of Saddam by a lynch mob
provides solid evidence that Bush has failed in Iraq.
"Why was there
little talk of delivering Saddam Hussein or, say, Manuel Noriega to The
Hague? Why was the only trial against Mr. Noriega for drug trafficking,
rather than for his murderous abuses as a dictator? Was it because he would
have disclosed his past ties with the C.I.A.?
In a similar way, Saddam
Hussein’s regime was an abominable authoritarian state, guilty of many
crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange
but key fact that, when the United States representatives and the Iraqi
prosecutors were enumerating his evil deeds, they systematically omitted
what was undoubtedly his greatest crime in terms of human suffering and of
violating international justice: his invasion of Iran. Why? Because the
United States and the majority of foreign states were actively helping Iraq
in this aggression.
And now the United States is
continuing, through other means, this greatest crime of Saddam Hussein: his
never-ending attempt to topple the Iranian government. This is the price you
have to pay when the struggle against the enemies is the struggle against
the evil ghosts in your own closet..."
Denying the Facts, Finding the Truth
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
The United States is continuing the greatest crime of Saddam Hussein: his
attempt to topple the Iranian government.
The U.S. did much to create Saddam Hussein and others like him. It is impossible to avoid concluding that the trial of Saddam Hussein was little more than a case of selective justice, meant to provide post-justification for an invasion that was itself a grave violation of international law. Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times - Selective ...
I feel saddened by the death of Saddam, not because he deserved to
live but because it is taking place under US occupation of Iraq
Nafeesa Zafar, Pakistan
The law states that "no verdict should implemented during the official holidays or religious festivals," said Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd.
HE TAKES HIS SECRETS TO THE GRAVE. OUR COMPLICITY DIES WITH HIM
How the West armed Saddam, fed him intelligence on his 'enemies',
equipped him for atrocities - and then made sure he wouldn't squeal
The Independent (London) 31 December 2006
Click here to comment
Bush
calls for Saddam execution (2003)President George W Bush has said that the captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should pay the "ultimate penalty" for his crimes.
"This is a disgusting tyrant who deserves... the ultimate justice," he said in a US television interview. His comments put the US sharply at odds with the United Nations and European allies who oppose the death penalty. Earlier, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the CIA would take charge of interrogating Saddam Hussein. (Kinda like the fox tending the chicken coop/ tmf)
Originally published January 1, 2007, 5:59 PM EST
BAGHDAD, Iraq //
Enraged crowds protested the hanging of Saddam Hussein across Iraq's
Sunni heartland Monday, as a mob in Samara broke the locks off a
bomb-damaged Shiite shrine and marched through carrying a mock coffin and
photo of the dictator.
In an editorial, The Guardian newspaper in London took an even more unequivocal position, saying, “The death penalty is an unacceptably cruel and unusual punishment, even in Iraq.”
The Vatican went so far as to call the execution “tragic” — echoing expressions of revulsion by Muslim leaders, both in the West and in the broader Islamic world.
“A capital punishment is always tragic news, a reason for sadness, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. “The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence.”
Muslim leaders in Britain offered a similar prognosis. Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a statement, “No one can deny that Saddam should have faced justice for his crimes against the people of Iraq and also his invasion of Iran and Kuwait.”
“However,” he added, “the fact that his trial took place while Iraq is
still under occupation by foreign forces may mean that his execution, on the
blessed day of Id al-Adha, will be regarded as an insensitive and
provocative act by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government and that far from
contributing to a so-called healing process, it may serve to further
intensify the sectarian divisions in Iraq.”
In Russia, the Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the execution,
expressing regret that Iraqi officials disregarded international appeals not
to carry it out. A spokesman, Mikhail L. Kamynin, expressed concern that Mr.
Hussein’s execution would worsen already deathly tensions consuming Iraq.
“The situation in Iraq is developing negatively,” Mr. Kamynin said in a statement. “The country is sinking into violence and is effectively on the brink of a wide-scale civil conflict.”
Mr. Hussein’s execution, he went on, “may further aggravate the military-political situation and increase ethnic and religious tensions.”
President Vladimir V. Putin made no statement, but other political leaders reacted even more harshly than the Foreign Ministry did. A small group of protesters from the Liberal Democratic Party picketed outside the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow, while the party’s leader, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, a vocal supporter of Mr. Hussein and his rule, called the execution “the crime of the 21st century.”
Mr. Zhirinovsky’s party was accused of profiting from the sale of Iraqi oil during the United Nations sanctions program. His remarks were shown on state television.
Gennadi A. Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader, suggested in remarks to Ekho Moskvy, a Moscow radio station, that the United States would be associated with the execution, even if Iraqis oversaw his trial and death sentence. “Unfortunately, Texan law prevailed,” he said, “the rule of the strong, the evil and the unprincipled.”
Other nations, like India, voiced regret. The Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said: “We had already expressed the hope that the execution would not be carried out. We are disappointed that it has been. We hope that this unfortunate event will not affect the process of reconciliation, restoration of peace and normalcy in Iraq.”
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