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Saddam Hussein on trial
Should US support of the Iraqi leader be considered?
by Khalid Adad

http://www.dailyvanguard.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/04/436b3904232c9

There's a professor who claims that if all leaders were
held to the same standards as the Nazis at Nuremberg,
every US president of the past half century would have
been sentenced to death. This is not a terribly popular
idea in the United States and it's not one that, as far as
I know, has ever been expressed in the corporate, capitalist
U.S. media. But as Saddam Hussein, who has frequently
been referred to as a "modern-day Hitler," undergoes his
trial it would be a lark, at the least, to test this theory.

If US leaders have committed similar types of international
crimes but are not on trial, then the theory is correct. If they
have not, the theory remains unproven, and we can watch
and enjoy the trial knowing that our government is not as
bad as that of Saddam Hussein’s. The first charge, which
may lead to death by hanging, is for the torture and murder
of 148 Shiites following a failed assassination attempt. If
necessary, the next charges would be for the gassing of
the Kurds and the suppression of the Shiite uprising in Iraq
following the Gulf War.

Clinton and Bush know something about murdering civilians
in retaliation for failed assassination attempts. President
Clinton committed the same crime 11 years later. In 1993 a
car bomb exploded intended to assassinate former President
George H.W. Bush while on a trip to Kuwait. The coffee shop
owner and whiskey smugglers who carried out the attempt
went to trial in Kuwait, but two months later President Clinton,
having assigned the blame to Saddam Hussein, fired 23 $1.1
million Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraq, killing eight civilians.
The Clinton administration rejoiced, with Secretary of Defense
Les Aspin telling the Los Angeles Times, "There is no question
that the strike was a success."

U.S. presidents also know something about torture. According to a Human Rights Watch
report last week, while the U.S. is not the only country to torture prisoners, it is
" the only country in the world to claim a legal justification" for the practice,
something not even Saddam ever did.

1982, the year of Saddam's terrorist massacre, was also the year the Reagan
administration removed Iraq from its list of terrorist states. The Reagan
administration provided Saddam with various kinds of support useful in committing his
atrocities, including intelligence and military support in his war with Iran, as well
U.S. taxpayer guaranteed loans for the purchase of U.S. grain exports.

In 1983 the U.S. had intelligence describing " almost daily" chemical weapon attacks
against Iranian forces and "Kurdish insurgents." To maintain the credibility of the
official U.S. position on chemical warfare and "to avoid unpleasantly surprising
Iraq," as it did not wish "to play into Iran's hands in fueling its propaganda
against Iraq," the U.S. tried to dissuade Saddam from further chemical weapons use,
according to internal memos.

After a brief pause Saddam resumed using them, but rather than condemn him the U.S.
restored diplomatic relations, which had ceased in 1967, and continued and increased
support.

According to a 1994 Senate report, between 1985 and 1989, one year after the gassing
of the Kurds, "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with 'dual use'
licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological,
and missile-system programs," including chemical warfare agent precursors, chemical
weapons production facility plans, biological warfare related materials and the
missiles to launch them.

According to the Air Force Times, after the Gulf War a group of Shiites in southern
Iraq "listened to appeals by the first President Bush and rose up against the Baghdad
government in the mistaken belief the United States would help out. Instead, the U.S.
military stood by as Saddam's military cracked down on [them]."

The U.S. not only stood by and watched, but Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf actually
authorized Saddam to use the weapons to carry out the suppression. He later claimed
that he had been “suckered” and that he had no idea that Saddam would actually use
those weapons to suppress the insurrections he was fighting.

Not only are U.S. leaders guilty of torture and murder, just like Saddam, but they
also participated directly in the crimes for which he is on trial. If there were
justice the law would apply to all evenly, and Presidents Clinton, Bush and his
father, as well as the senior officials in their administrations (and Reagan's, too)
would be on trial with him. But the law, like Saddam's trial, is a tool the powerful
use to punish the weak when it serves their interests, just as they support torturers
and murderers when that serves their interests

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I intend to last long enough to put out of business all *****-suckers
and other beneficiaries of the institutionalized slavery and genocide.

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"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive
Humvees, or calls in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or
high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism
does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It
undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts
sweatshops and special interests.Where people feel powerless, it
helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it
reminds them of their responsibility." ~~~~ Author Unknown ~~~~
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