30 December 2006 - a day of infamy

30 December 2006 - a day of infamy
By Gabriele Zamparini

30 December 2006 will be remembered as a day of infamy. In violation of international law and human decency, the quisling government of occupied Iraq, a puppet, sectarian regime installed by the American occupation and supported by Iran, assassinated the legitimate President of the Republic of Iraq, Saddam Hussein.

It’s been reported that after his execution the assassins shouted: “Long live Muqtada, Long live Muqtada” [Moqtada Al-Sadr]

It’s also been reported that Saddam Hussein was tortured before his execution and his body was mutilated afterwards. Another source tells us: “The video shows no blood on Saddam’s face and body, TV aired video of the body showed blood, cuts and bruises on the face.”

About the Iraqi apocalypse, Riverbend recently wrote: “Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head aches just posing the questions.”

Professor As'ad Abdul Rahman, Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopedia, observed, “Today, three and a half years after the Iraqi misadventure, the American military is not the decisive power there. In southern Iraq, it is practically Iran that is in control, and the various Shiite militias simply receive directions from Tehran.”

After writing eleven little notes on the lynching of Saddam Hussein [see appendix], on 29 December 2006, the day before the assassination, I wrote, “I want to dedicate the piece below written by Layla Anwar, an Iraqi woman, to the grotesque Western antiwar movement and its influential intellectuals, whose shameful silence on the lynching of Saddam Hussein will be remembered as one of the most disgraceful pages of infamy's history.”

Understanding the silence of those in the West who should have been the first to denounce the outrageous lynching requires deconstructing the climate of propaganda and deception we are immersed in. Obviously the reason of this shameful silence can’t be found in the history of Saddam Hussein’s regime and his alleged crimes. Nobody asked or expected from the anti-war movement and its intellectuals to side with Saddam Hussein and his regime. This wasn’t requested to denounce the outrageous lynching that could take place, we must remember, only because of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and its allies. So, why this deafening silence?

Is it because some quarters of the Western left and its war movement apparatus established a special relation with the reactionary regime of Teheran and the quisling government of Baghdad or some part of it, like the Motqada al-Sadr movement and its militia, the Mahdi Army, responsible for massive crimes against humanity in Iraq? Is this disgraceful silence one more sign of the legitimization of the puppet Iraqi government? Does it mean that the supreme international crime, the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and its effects have now been accepted? And why the Iraqi Resistance to this illegal invasion and occupation has never been recognized as such, even less supported, by a Western antiwar movement that fills its mouth with words such as “peace” and “justice”?

After the initial silence on the real scale of the horror in Iraq, when the Iraq Body Count figures were used even by the antiwar movement in spite the apocalypse was already known and after the ongoing silence on the responsibility of the sectarian militias in mass murdering and ethnic cleansing, this other silence on the lynching of Saddam Hussein raises once again fundamental questions on the role of the Western left and the anti-war movement and forces each of us to an unpleasant but honest and necessary reflection. If a better world is possible, it starts at home.


Appendix: Lynching Saddam

Lynching Saddam – Part 11: Juan Cole and the Vulture’s Song

Lynching Saddam - Part 10: Virtue, Terror and the Western public opinion’ s bloodthirsty schizophrenia

Lynching Saddam - Part 9: "arbitrary detention"

Lynching Saddam – Part 8: “just after the court ruling”

Lynching Saddam – Part 7: the Myth of Human Rights

Lynching Saddam – Part 6: The More You Watch the Less You Know

Lynchng Saddam – Part 5: United Nations and Saddam’s Lawyers’ call

Lynching Saddam – Part 4: the NYT enjoys that bloody show!

Lynching Saddam – Part 3: Stop that "trial" now!

Lynching Saddam – Part 2: Juan Cole’s informed comment

Lynching Saddam

To Saddam Hussein by Layla Anwar

Dear friends,

I want to dedicate the piece below written by Layla Anwar, an Iraqi woman, to the grotesque Western antiwar movement and its influential intellectuals, whose shameful silence on the lynching of Saddam Hussein will be remembered as one of the most disgraceful pages of infamy's history.

Gabriele Zamparini

To Saddam Hussein by Layla Anwar

Lynching Saddam – Part 11: Juan Cole and the Vulture’s Song

Lynching Saddam – Part 11: Juan Cole and the Vulture’s Song

Christmas is over and the carols have now been replaced by the vulture’s song.

Juan Cole, Middle East “expert” and one of the great heroes of the Imperial anti-war movement, wrote on his Informed Comment:

Saddam Hussein, condemned to death and with all appeals exhausted, is trying to turn his death into a "sacrifice" for the Iraqi nation. In April 2003 Saddam was universally reviled but the country is now in such a horrible state that some Sunni Arabs do see Saddam as a symbol of the united Iraqi nation. Saddam, however, spoke in his typical racist way of the need to fight the “raiders and the Persians”, according to al-Hayat in Arabic (i.e. the Americans and the Shiites). Sadr Movement spokesmen demanded that he be executed on the eve of the Day of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha)--i.e. this weekend. [emphasis added]

After indoctrinating his readers [“Saddam, however, spoke in his typical racist way…”] Juan Cole “translates” Saddam Hussein’s words’ “raiders and the Persians” with “the Americans and the Shiites”.

According to Juan Cole, Saddam Hussein would have made “racist” remarks against the Iraq’s Shiites and - since the situation on the ground in Iraq - called for sectarian violence.

In spite of his propagandistic tool [“Saddam, however, spoke in his typical racist way…”] Juan Cole of course knows perfectly well that Saddam Hussein has always called all Iraqis to unity and against sectarian violence. [Just to mention some of the most recent: read here and here ] This is how the British newspaper the Guardian reported the same Saddam Hussein’s letter:

"The enemies of your country, the invaders and the Persians, have found your unity a barrier between you and those who are now ruling you. Therefore, they drove their hated wedge among you (…) You have known your brother and leader as you have known your own family. He has not bowed down to the tyrants and remained a sword against them (…) Oh great people, I call on you preserve the values that enabled you to be worthy of carrying out shouldering the faith and to be the light of civilisation. Your unity stands against falling into servitude. (…) Oh brave, pious Iraqis in the heroic resistance. Oh sons of the one nation, direct your enmity towards the invaders. Do not let them divide you ... Long live jihad [holy war] and the mujahideen against the invaders."

There are no doubts on the meaning of Saddam Hussein’s words, so much so that the Guardian titled its piece: Saddam's 'final message' urges Iraqis to unite against US.

The “Persians” in Saddam Hussein’s letter is obviously not referred to the Shiites, but to the Iranians who have helped from the beginning the US in their destruction of Iraq.

Once again Juan Cole twists and manipulates facts and words to support his own political agenda. And the Imperial anti-war movement keeps applauding…

Lynching Saddam - Part 10: Virtue, Terror and the Western public opinion’ s bloodthirsty schizophrenia

Lynching Saddam - Part 10: Virtue, Terror and the Western public opinion’ s bloodthirsty schizophrenia

The notorious Kafka trial is over; the Baghdad’s bordello turned its red lights off. Iraq President Saddam Hussein will be murder within 30 days, with the usurper Nuri al-Maliki calling for the assassination before year-end.

According to a recent study carried out by Institut Novatris/Harris for France 24 Western public opinion favors the death penalty against Saddam Hussein as following:

US 82%
UK 69%
France 58%
Germany 53%
Spain 51%
Italy 46%

While most of the Homeland’s folks wouldn’t be able to locate Iraq on a world map, it’s not a secret that they have been taught to love barbecuing (poor and ethnic minorities’) people on the electric chair or poisoning them; better if something “goes wrong” making the show longer and more enjoyable for an audience considering lynching still the law of the land. In the European colonies we are learning fast; give us a few more years and Uncle Sam will be proud!

Probably too busy with the holy shopping before Christmas and brainwashed by those disciplined propaganda workers controlling Wonderland’s thoughts, We, the people should reflect on the following:

a) the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has violated international law and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called it “an illegal act that contravened the UN charter”, the “supreme international crime” according to Nuremberg’ trials;
b) since March 2003 Iraq is an occupied country and the so-called political process has been imposed by the occupation forces against international law;
c) the so-called Iraqi government is a quisling government, installed by the occupation forces and doing its masters’ bidding;
d) the invasion of Iraq, that “illegal act that contravened the UN charter” has caused the death of about one million human beings in less than four years and the complete destruction of a sovereign country;
e) just a few weeks ago the United Nations Human Rights Council said that "The non-observance of the relevant international standards during Mr. Hussein's trial was of such gravity as to confer Mr. Hussein's deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character"

According to the same Institut Novatris/Harris study, Western public opinion favors the withdrawal of the US-led coalition troops from Iraq as following:

France 90%
Spain 84%
UK 83%
Germany 82%
Italy 73%
US 66%

One wonders why so many people want the withdrawal of the US-led coalition troops from Iraq when at the same time they favor the assassination of the legitimate president of Iraq. This contradiction can also be found in much part of the Western anti-war movement, where groups, think-tanks and influential intellectuals have strongly opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq but have always been silent on the first political consequence of that invasion, when not advocating for it and applauding the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. One doesn’t have to be a supporter of the Iraqi Baath party or the Saddam Hussein’s regime to uphold international law and the UN Charter.

While the political position of those Iraqis who opposed Saddam Hussein’s regime and left their country for political reasons must be respected and their voice heard and taken in the most serious consideration, the international anti-war movement needs to remember that Saddam Hussein’s government has not been overthrown by a popular uprising or a political coup. On 20 March 2003, the day of the “illegal act that contravened the UN charter” by the US-led “coalition of the willing”, Saddam Hussein was the legitimate president of Iraq and his government the legitimate government of Iraq. This is not an opinion or a political position but a fact of life, a simple observation of the status quo ante bellum. Opposing the “supreme international crime” that cost the lives of about one million human beings means upholding international law and calling for its restoration. The diverse, respectable and legitimate political opinions motivated by the political judgment of Saddam Hussein’s regime must not take the place of international law because such a position would legitimate that “supreme international crime”, that “illegal act that contravened the UN charter” we want to oppose. Recognizing the so-called Iraqi quisling government and the so-called political process means legitimizing the invasion and occupation of Iraq and open the door to more “supreme international crimes” in the future.

The sacrosanct US-led coalition troops withdrawal must be the consequence of the restoration of international law to the status quo ante bellum, while the future of Iraq must be left to its own People. Anything else would be a betrayal of those principles of peace, justice and self-determination we claim to uphold.

Killing Saddam Hussein, the legitimate president of Iraq, will be the real turning point; after there won’t be anymore a country called Iraq. How can the anti-war movement be so tragically blind?

***

To Read LYNCHING SADDAM Parts 1 to 9 click here

Anathema

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom sent a special message to the troops:

"Members of my own family have had the opportunity this year to visit you. They have been hugely impressed by the spirit in which you go about your business in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances," she said. "Your courage and loyalty are not lightly taken. It is a pledge which calls for sacrifice and devotion to duty. And I know that yours is a job which often calls for great personal risk." She said that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were making "an enormous contribution in helping to rebuild those countries".

Emperor Bush II addressed the Homeland:

At this special time of year, we give thanks for Christ's message of love and hope. Christmas reminds us that we have a duty to others, and we see that sense of duty fulfilled in the men and women who wear our Nation's uniform. America is blessed to have fine citizens who volunteer to defend us in distant lands. For many of them, this Christmas will be spent far from home, and on Christmas our Nation honors their sacrifice, and thanks them for all they do to defend our freedom.

With the BLOOD of ONE MILLION of OUR BROTHERS and SISTERS on HIS HANDS, Bush concluded his Christmas message:

At this special time of year, we reflect on the miraculous life that began in a humble manger 2,000 years ago. That single life changed the world, and continues to change hearts today. To everyone celebrating Christmas, Laura and I wish you a day of glad tidings. Thank you for listening, and Merry Christmas.

In Bush’s mouth these words have the gravity of blasphemy and every Christian has the moral responsibility to reject them, to condemn those responsible for this genocide and to stop it. If we want to celebrate Christmas we must say NO! to these fanatical mass murderers who reject Christ’s message of love and compassion, peace and justice. To Bush, Blair and their partners in crime, we shall denounce: Anathema!

Ten years later the price is still worth it

2006

"There have been plenty of markers that show that this [Iraq] is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilising factor, you will have a very different kind of Middle East." - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

FACTS: A study published a few months ago in the British medical journal the Lancet estimated the war of aggression against Iraq had slaughtered about 655,000 human beings. In these last few months the carnage got even worse

1996

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? "

US Ambassador at the United Nations (soon to become Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." CBS - "60 Minutes", May 12, 1996

FACTS: The UN embargo against Iraq wanted by the regimes of Washington and London slaughtered well over 1 million human beings.

Ten years later the price is still worth it

email to Stars and Stripes' editors RE: A letter to an American G.I.

This is what Stars and Stripes website reads: "Stars and Stripes is a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military, DoD civilians, contractors, and their families. Unique among the many military publications, Stars and Stripes operates as a First Amendment newspaper, free of control and censorship."

Below is my email to Stars and Stripes' editors

Best wishes,
Gabriele

***

Dear Editors of Stars and Stripes,

A young US soldier’s mother recently wrote:

“Two weeks ago he called by satellite phone, awakening Amy and me in the dead of the night. Machine gun fire was all around him, the sound of war filling our ears and hearts with grief and fear of loss. (…) He says that this war cannot be won! He has no faith in the politicians who sent him there.”

A very important debate is going on in Washington D.C. in these very hours on what to do about the situation that the US has created with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Please, take a few seconds to read what an Iraqi woman has to tell to American soldiers

A letter to an American G.I.
Layla Anwar

I believe this letter to an American G.I. written by an Iraqi woman should be part of that debate and I am sure many US service-people and their families would appreciate the opportunity to read it.

Please, give them this opportunity.

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards and best wishes for a peaceful 2007
Gabriele Zamparini

Cannon fodder in Christmas’ times

Cannon fodder in Christmas’ times
By Gabriele Zamparini

Santa Claus Bush is preparing to deliver his special Christmas’ gift: “We do need to increase our troops”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon unanimously disagreed but hey, do you want to question the Clown in Chief who hid into the Texas National Guard (and even there he was an AWOL) to avoid to fight in the Vietnam war? [That’s probably the only good thing this scam has done in all his life, at least he didn’t kill anybody, THEN!]

Even war criminal Powell – the clown of the UN show just before the invasion – “said the U.S. Army is ‘about broken’ from the Iraq conflict and cast doubt on whether the military could or should boost the number of troops in the country. ‘There really are no additional troops'’ to send, Powell said on CBS's ‘Face the Nation’ program. ‘The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they are being asked to perform’."

But the propaganda machine is working full time.

On Thursday he [Defense Secretary Robert Gates] had breakfast with ordinary soldiers to sound out their views on troop levels, a timeline for training Iraqis, sectarian leanings in the Iraqi security forces and the "caliber and discipline" of Iraqi soldiers and their military leaders.

"Sir, I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing," Specialist Jason Glenn told Gates. "I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them (the insurgents) off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi army trained up."

No soldier present said U.S. forces should be brought home, and none said current troop levels were adequate, as some commanders have argued.

A young US soldier’s mother recently wrote: “Two weeks ago he called by satellite phone, awakening Amy and me in the dead of the night. Machine gun fire was all around him, the sound of war filling our ears and hearts with grief and fear of loss. (…) He says that this war cannot be won! He has no faith in the politicians who sent him there.”

In Basra, the greatest liar since the times of Pinocchio met the young British troops he has sent to kill and torture people nothing had done to them and their country. Once again the butcher of London brainwashed the youth “Our country and countries like it are having to rediscover what it means to fight for what we believe in. All over the world the same struggle is going on and if we don't stand up and fight for the people of tolerance and moderation who want to live together, whatever their fate, then the people of hatred and sectarianism will triumph."

We must take much more care of our youth and not allow this gang of pedophiles to abuse and send them to foreign countries as cannon fodder. Those who have their sons and daughters in Iraq and Afghanistan should read A letter to an American G.I. written by an Iraqi woman. This letter would be the most important Christmas gift for your children. Send it to them!

Beyond Orwell and Kafka

Beyond Orwell and Kafka
By Gabriele Zamparini

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died this week. He won’t be missed.

Now imagine Augusto Pinochet visiting the United States while he was carrying out torture and mass murdering in Chile. Imagine the “largest coalition of peace and justice organizations in the U.S.” welcoming the ruthless murderer, “it is our pleasure to welcome you in the United States”.

This is what indeed happened this past summer when United for Peace and Justice’s National Coordinator Leslie Cagan wrote an open letter to puppet Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki.

Dear Prime Minister Al-Maliki,

On behalf of United for Peace and Justice, the largest coalition of peace and justice organizations in the U.S., which includes more than 1,400 national and local groups united in opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, it is our pleasure to welcome you in the United States.

Of course it would be wrong and ungenerous the comparison; next to Al-Maliki and his sectarian death squads government, Pinochet would seem a boy scout.

Intellectuals and activists of the Imperial anti-war movement started immediately after the invasion to legitimize the “supreme international crime” by supporting the so-called “political process”, a Trojan horse studied to destroy Iraq and force its people into a civil war. Those notorious sectarian Iraqi elections, based on religion and ethnicity, far from being forced on the US by the non-violent resistance of some clerics, were part of the plan to install a quisling government, getting the approval of the vultures and hyenas of the international community and preparing the bases for the eventual partition of the country.

Finally democracy has landed on Iraq; too bad for those 655,000 deaths who didn’t wait to enjoy the apocalypse. The slaughtering is going on with hundreds of people killed every day, ethnic cleansing, tortures, collective punishment, millions of Iraqis displaced and a country waiting to be wiped off the map. God bless America.

The Imperial Democrats got back the Imperial Congress. On Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 Michael Moore published on his website LANDSLIDE! ...a big thanks from Michael Moore

Friends,

You did it! We did it! The impossible has happened: A majority of Americans have soundly and forcefully removed Bush's party from control of the House of Representatives and the Republicans have also, miraculously, been tossed out of running our United States Senate. This was done because the American people wanted to make two things crystal clear: End this war, and stop Mr. Bush from doing any more damage to this country we love. That is what this election was about. Nothing else. Just that. And it's a message that has sent shock waves throughout Washington -- and a note of hope around this troubled world. (…)

The Washington Post clearly illustrated the “note of hope” a few days later. Democratic Senator Harry M. Reid, who was just elected Senate majority leader, “said, one of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress will be a $75 billion boost to the military budget to try to get the Army's diminished units back into combat shape.”

Michael Moore goes on:

“But let's take a day to rejoice and revel in a rare victory for our side -- the side that doesn't believe in unprovoked invasions of other countries. This is your day, my friends. You have worked hard for it. I can't tell you how proud I am to count all of you as part of the greater American mainstream we now occupy.”

The “side that doesn't believe in unprovoked invasions of other countries” would be the Democratic Party? History, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia and Iraq, really didn’t teach anything to the United States of Amnesia. “A woman, for the first time in our history, will be Speaker of the House”, the hero of the Imperial anti-war movement continues. One wonders if that should be read as good news. The woman is Nancy Pelosi, a liberal Democrat from the liberal San Francisco. Back in 2005 Joshua Frank gave a fair portrait of the “Granite Lady”, as her website describes Pelosi

"There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," Pelosi said as she rallied AIPAC loyalists. "This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist." (…) "One thing, however is unchanged," Pelosi added. "America's commitment to the safety and security of the state of Israel is unwavering. America and Israel share an unbreakable bond: in peace and war; and in prosperity and in hardship."

In spite of an Imperial anti-war movement in denial (at best, when not actively cooperating or even part of the Jewish Lobby) on the reasons that brought the American troops to invade and occupy Iraq, the winners of this shameful scandal have always been before our eyes, only could we look at the Middle East geopolitical panorama with an honest open mind. Remember what happened on 7 June 1981?

On November 20, 2006, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported:

On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister [Israeli PM Ehud Olmert] "calmed" the reporters - and perhaps even himself - by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians.

“No blood for oil” doesn’t tell the whole story; how much more blood for the old Zionist project of Greater Israel?

While its two neighbors have been invaded and occupied by the Empire, Iran’s regime is holding an international conference questioning the Holocaust of Jews during WWII.

Using an unspeakable tragedy like the genocide of Jews (when will we also remember the others? Roma People, homosexuals, etc?) by the Nazi and their collaborators for political ends is always abominable, both when it comes from Israel and the Jewish lobby around the world and when it comes - like in this case - from Iran, a country that claims to fight the Israeli influence in the Middle East.

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been using inflammatory language against Israel and the United States to win over the Arab public opinion and the international left. In reality, Iran – a non-Arab country – has been spreading its influence in the Middle East for years. But both the Arab public opinion and the international left should take a closer look at Iran’s regime, both at home and its role in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

While its propaganda has given ammunitions to Israel and the United States, Iran has been having a central role in the apocalypse inflicted to Iraq, supporting the American installed sectarian, quisling Iraqi government and its militias responsible for mass murdering and ethnic cleansing. And don’t let fool yourself on the “support” of the Palestinian cause by the Iranian regime. The Iranian supported sectarian militias operating in Iraq have been persecuting and killing many members of the Palestinian community in Iraq since the occupation started in 2003.

As I wrote somewhere else, four hyenas, the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Iran have destroyed a country that could have been a power in the region and a model for the Arab world. The vultures of the international community have been cooperating and watching the bloodbath waiting to share the rich carcass. The control of the energy resources is just part of the whole picture; Iraq had to be destroyed to allow the so-called reshaping of the Middle East. The notorious “political process” has been a formidable Trojan horse that forced the Iraqi People into a civil war. Far from being a failure, the main mission of this bloody project has been accomplished. Iraq as we knew it has gone, probably forever.

The supreme international crime, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a defenseless country that had never attacked the United States, that did not have any weapons of mass destruction, that did not have any ties to al-Qaida, that had no connection to the September 11 attacks, is the major scandal of our times, a scandal that would need an epic poet to be told. But since we live beyond Orwell and Kafka’s times, let’s read what Philip Martin, a 21-year-old US marine who spent 7 months in the al-Anbar province of Iraq has to tell us:

Saddam was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to assassinate him. (I know all you "patriotic" Americans would be calling for the heads of anyone who conspired to assassinate supreme leader Bush). And yet we spend upwards of 1 trillion dollars and nearing 3,000 lives to help these Iraqis when they don't even want us there. Not to mention we don't have the legal justification to be there. I guess we should wait around for the omnipotent W Bush to decide who we should use our superpowerdom to help next. It's about time to throw him and the rest of the fascists out. Moreover it's about time to start educating Americans about their past and history, and letting them know that imperialistic leaders are not what the founders of this great country wanted.

Lynching Saddam - Part 9: "arbitrary detention"

I can still hear the echo of Human Rights Watch executive director’s Kenneth Roth’s words:

“One can only rejoice at the capture of Saddam Hussein. Few people are more deserving of trial and punishment. U.S. forces deserve credit for arresting the deposed dictator so that his crimes can be presented and condemned in a court of law, rather than arranging to kill him in combat.”

This past summer, as a note to a piece on the role of the so-called international community in this scandal, I wrote that Saddam Hussein is

“a head of state KIDNAPPED by a foreign power while committing the “crime against the peace”, the “war of aggression” against Iraq. He’s now held HOSTAGE by that foreign power together with the illegitimate so-called “government” of Iraq”.

The AFP reported just a few days ago:

Saddam Hussein's trial fell so far short of international standards that his detention was "arbitrary", and as such the death sentence should not be carried out, a working party of the United Nations Human Rights Council has said. "The non-observance of the relevant international standards during Mr. Hussein's trial was of such gravity as to confer Mr. Hussein's deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character," the Council's working group on arbitrary detention said Tuesday. (…)

But since the Insane Society keeps paralyzing our brains, the AFP goes on:

However the working group on arbitrary detention stressed it was not calling for Saddam Hussein to be released.

To Read LYNCHING SADDAM Parts 1 to 8 click here

Much worse

Much worse
by Gabriele Zamparini

Asked by the BBC whether the situation in Iraq could now be classified as a civil war, the outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan replied: "A few years ago, when we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war. This is much worse.”

A few days ago, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released an update on the Iraq situation. It starts: “Iraq is haemorrhaging”. Then it gives the picture of an apocalypse.

Aljazeerah.info’s editor has just published a summary translation of three articles appeared on the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi:

The first article is about a study conducted by the Iraqi Southern Research Center for Strategic Planning. It mentions that about 400 Iraqis are killed daily in Baghdad alone. The killing is sectarian aiming at cleansing East Baghdad from Sunnis and West Baghdad from Shi'is.

Perpetrators commit their crimes using car bombs, mortars, motorbikes, bicycles, and guns. They kill in day times with protection from security forces.

In another article, there are stories about Shi'i families forced to quit their homes in Sunni areas, and Sunni families forced to quit their homes in Shi'i areas by militiamen. Despite their plight, they are better off than the ones who are killed daily to complete this ethnic cleansing campaign.

About fifty families are forced daily to leave their homes from one area to another. About fifty more families are forced to leave Baghdad as a result of this campaign of ethnic cleansing.

In addition, extended families and neighbors exert pressure on men to divorce their wives from another sect. Thus, many Sunni women have been divorced by their Shi'i husbands, who usually take the children in their custody. Many Shi'i women are also being divorced by their Sunni husbands, who keep children in their custody, too.

The article tells some of these stories, with names of people and their locations.

A third article is about the opportunist Iraqi exiles, who were used by the Bush-Blair administrations to convince the public in the US-UK to accept the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

After completing their role, they and their families are now back in the wealthy London neighborhoods. The article mentions names and locations of residence of these Iraqis who helped destroy their country. These include Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim Al-Ja'afari, Ahmed Chalabi, Adnan Pajahji, Laith Kubba, and Ali Bin Al-Hussain.

Sectarian violence tears Baghdad into two parts, is the title of a report from the Integrated Regional Information Networks, which is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The reports reads:

For decades, Iraq's six million-strong capital was a city where people mixed freely and did not care whether their neighbour was a Sunni or a Shi’ite Muslim.

But now, the years-old peaceful coexistence between members of different religions and sects in Baghdad is threatened with a battle underway between the two major Muslim sects to have their own territory in this war-torn city.

"A new Baghdad is now emerging, a Sunni west and a Shi’ite east with the broad Tigris River in the middle as a sectarian boundary," said Dr Jamal al-Uraibi, a Baghdad-based analyst who lectures in political science at the University of Baghdad.

"This will have adverse effects on Iraqi society for the coming generations as each sect has legitimate claims to territory on both sides of the river which they won't emotionally abandon," al-Uraibi added.

What independent journalists and analysts are saying?

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily:

Shia death squads composed of members of the Mehdi Army and the Badr Army, the armed wing of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are responsible for much of the recent bloodshed in the country. Sunni insurgents too have been hitting back. It is widely believed that Shia militia groups are backed by senior Shia leaders in the government and parliament.

Nir Rosen interviewed by Amy Goodman:

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let's talk about Muqtada al-Sadr. You've been in Iraq a long time. And now the newspapers of the weekend saying Muqtada al-Sadr replaces Osama Bin Laden as the world’s great enemy. Tell us who he is, and your experience of him over the years.

NIR ROSEN: Well, he arose from seemingly nowhere, although he comes from a very important clerical family. It's believed that his father, Muhammad Sadeq Sadr was killed by Baathists in 1999.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s who Sadr city is named for?

NIR ROSEN: Yes. And, Muqtada very quickly became the voice of the disenfranchised, poor, Shia majority, especially young men. Virtually every single young Shia male in Iraq supports Muqtada Sadr today. And certainly his men dominate the police, they dominate the army. When you hear about people dressed as police officers, or dressed as security forces, kidnapping somebody, you’re just hearing about supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr's, who are members of the police, kidnapping somebody. He’s been very anti-American from the beginning, very nationalistic, unlike perhaps, Abdul Aziz Hakim, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who was perceived as coming on the back of American tanks, and being sort of sponsored by Iranians. Muqtada can claim he's always been there and suffered with the Iraqi people. He can disparage Ayatollah al-Sistani for being the quietest, for being Iranian-born. He has a national’s credentials. And for quite a while, he was actually fighting alongside Sunni resistance members.

In 2004, you had Muqtada’s people supporting the Sunni resistance in Fallujah, you had Sunni resistance helping Muqtada’s people in Najaf, in Sadr City, and there was a brief moment where you thought that there could be Sunni/Shia unity against the Americans at least. And if there was anything good that the American’s had done it was to unite the Sunni’s and Shia’s against them. But that all fell apart by 2005, or by the end of 2004. And since then, Muqtada al-Sadr, his militia, have taken the lead is sectarian attacks.

(…)

AMY GOODMAN: And the discussion of possible direct negotiations of Iran and Syria and the possibility that that’s what the Iraq Study Group is going to recommend?

NIR ROSEN: I think it’s clear that they will, and that I think it’s great that the US talks to Iran and Syria, its long over do. However, there is this belief that Iran and Syria have and have had this huge role in the violence in Iraq. And I just don't think that's true. If anything, Iran and Syria have always been concerned about the instability in Iraq. They are the neighbors of Iraq and if anybody can be threatened by the instability, it's them.

In Syria right now you have about 3 or 4 thousand Iraqi refugees crossing the border everyday, that’s going to destabilize Syria. You already have nearly a million Iraqi refugees in Syria today. Iran certainly wants a strong Shia Iraq as a close ally and a friend, much more than they want Saddam Hussein in charge. But, Iran isn't sponsoring the violence, neither is Syria. And so the belief that foreign countries can make things better I think is naïve, because the violence in Iraq has its own internal logic. It's civil war. All the arms are there, the hatred is there. And, it's not being fought by two large sides. It’s being fought in neighborhoods between different mosques, between different blocks, between different gangs. Power isn't in the green zone, power isn’t in Iran, in Syria, in Jordan. It’s not in the White House. It's very localized. Just different neighborhood clashes--

AMY GOODMAN: And what would happen if the US just withdrew troops?

NIR ROSEN: The same thing happening now, the civil war would continue. At some point Shias will make a move, a large move against the Sunnis in Baghdad. You’ll find a day when there are no Sunnis left in Baghdad. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are of course panicking about this, and they are hoping that the US will in some way arm or support Sunni militias. It’s hard for me to imagine that Sunni nations in the region will stand by and watch Sunnis pushed out of Baghdad. And Baghdad becoming really a Shia city. Because there is this Sunni terror of the Shia threat. So you'll see greater support from Saudi Arabia, from Jordan, perhaps from Yemin, from Egypt, for Sunni militias. Funding, things like that. And the civil war will spread and become a regional one. And I think Jordan will cease to exist as it does now. Eventually, because you'll have the Anbar Province of Iraq joining somehow--you already have one million Iraqi’s in Jordan at least. You walk down the streets of Jordan, you hear Iraqi Arabic as much as any other kind.

Loretta Napoleoni:

As it did during the bloody war in the Balkans, in Iraq the West is constantly entering into alliances, including with terrorist organizations, as if a clear divide existed between the good and the evil, and the West knew which was which. In Iraq, as in the Balkans, this "divide" shifts daily. In 1998, in Kosovo, following the attacks by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against Serbian police and civilians, the U.S. accused the KLA of being a terrorist organization. The British followed suit. Then, in March 1999, foreign policy in the U.S. and the UK underwent a radical shift and both governments condemned the Serbs. Suddenly, members of the KLA were no longer terrorists but freedom fighters, and the KLA was summarily removed from the U.S. State Department's terror list. American politicians even praised the organization. The new status was then reversed when, a few months later, the KLA supported an Islamist insurgency against the government of Macedonia – a U.S. ally – and it was once again listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. One wonders how many times since George Bush declared 'Mission Accomplished" in Iraq should the Mahdi Army have been entered and erased from this list.

The Balkanization of Iraq goes well beyond homegrown ethnic cleansing and civil war. It springs from the willingness of countries such as America and the United Kingdom to police the Middle East. It is proof that Western intervention can destabilize entire regions now that the world is no longer trapped in the Cold War Manichean straitjacket. (…) Today, Iran and Syria's involvement in the Iraqi civil war will continue to drag the country further into sectarian warfare and may even give al-Qaeda the longed-for opportunity to carve out their own state. This is the terrifying legacy of this unjust and illegal war, a legacy that should not be hidden by political propaganda. Nevertheless, the sooner the West pulls out of Iraq, the better the chances Iraqis will find their own way out of the present morass. The danger, of course, is that peace in Iraq will come only when nothing is left standing but the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia.

Mike Whitney:

There are no good options. If Bush ignores al-Sadr, then the ethnic-cleansing of Sunnis in Baghdad will continue and the number of civilian casualties will steeply rise. As author Nir Rosen stated in our opening quote, "You’ll find a day when there are no Sunnis left in Baghdad". Rosen’s prediction is becoming more likely by the day.

The Ba’athist leaders, who left the country with enormous wealth (and now live in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) will not sit idly-by while their fellow Sunnis are butchered in Baghdad. They will continue to fund the armed resistance and do whatever they can to destabilize the new Iraqi government. Additionally, they will support guerilla activities which target American facilities in the region to repay the people who created this holocaust. Already, Sunni cleric, Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, the head of the Muslim Scholars Association, is traveling through the Middle East enlisting support from other Sunni leaders. He will probably establish a funding-stream for providing material support for the resistance. This illustrates how the war is gradually expanding beyond the confines of Iraq.

In an article which appeared on Monday in the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US, Turki al-Faisal said, "Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave uninvited’. If it does, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis."

It is likely that Sunnis in the other Middle East capitals share al-Faisal’s sentiments and will be equally willing to contribute generously to their "brothers-in-arms" in Iraq.

The invasion has opened Pandora’s Box and disrupted the regional balance of power. Now there’s no telling how far the war will spread. The ferocity of the sectarian fighting suggests that a much larger conflagration is on the way. Foreign leaders are already preparing for the worst. Bush’s misguided fantasies of "Victory" in Iraq have lit a powderkeg and it's probably just a matter of time before the entire Middle East is consumed by war.

Robert Dreyfuss:

It is, however, too late to stop the bleeding in Iraq. Six hundred thousand dead Iraqis later, the United States will depart from Iraq leaving behind a nation whose citizens will be struggling to rebuild their society for decades. The U.S. invasion of Iraq is a war crime of the first magnitude, an illegal war that destroyed a nation that had never attacked the United States, that did not have any weapons of mass destruction, that did not have any ties to al-Qaida, that had no connection to the September 11 attacks, and which—at the start of the war—was a small, impoverished country with a decimated army. The civil war in Iraq may indeed get worse, and it may last for years. Each and every one of those deaths will be on George W. Bush’s conscience—if, in fact, the Bible-thumping hypocrite has any conscience left.

This is the democracy the United States and their vassals brought to Iraq. The political process – that Trojan horse welcomed in many quarters of the Imperial left – was set 1) to divide the Iraqis between collaborators and anti-occupation and 2) (and even worse!) on ethnic and religious affiliations. Iraqis were forced to vote on religious and ethnic divides not for political parties and ideas. Incompetence on the US side or a plan to complete the destruction of Iraq and wipe it off the map?

The only solution for Iraq has to be found in the restoration of international law by bringing the clock back to March 20, 2003 and judging the perpetrators of the supreme international crime. Operation Iraqi Freedom has already exported enough freedom and democracy; nobody feels the need for more imperial adventures. What now appears impossible may be the only way out if we don’t want to assist to a bloodbath that could last years and millions of human lives. Of course bringing the clock back to March 20, 2003 is a dream. But the alternative is a never-ending nightmare millions of people have already been living on their own skin. Much worse indeed!