tarek fatah is not viewed too favorably by the canadian muslim community but i thought this was a good article. ______________________________________ http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/167219 Why the rush to execute Saddam? by tarek fatah Four days after the ugly and degrading execution of Saddam Hussein, neither Prime Minister Stephen Harper nor any other Canadian politician has the courage to comment or say anything on the matter. The execution, which was more reminiscent of a public hanging in the 18th century than a considered act of 21st-century justice, has shocked even the harshest critics of Saddam, but has left our politicians in a state of paralyzed silence. If the Canadian Prime Minister chose to maintain silence, the American president did not lose much sleep and managed to express his now familiar musing about freedom and liberty. George Bush may consider the hanging of Saddam Hussein "as a milestone on the road to Iraqi democracy," but the reality is that no one outside his administration, not even Saddam's executioners, take the U.S. president's prognosis seriously. The fact is that far from fostering democracy in Iraq, the execution of the Iraqi dictator has turned a murdering monster into a martyr of mythical proportions for the Arab people. Saddam's stature will grow across the Arab world as each day passes and his crimes against his own people will be largely forgotten as new generations of Arab youth will see in him a rare Arab who stared death in the face and did not blink. The man responsible for the death, torture and imprisonment of tens of thousands, should have been remembered for those crimes. Instead, because of the great American folly in Iraq, future generations of people in the Middle East will embrace his memory as an epitome of courage and resistance. The fact that Saddam was sent to the gallows on the day a billion Muslims were commemorating the patriarch Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God – Eid al Azha – will add a religious texture to Saddam's legacy. Canada was not always a silent spectator on Iraq. In 1988 when Saddam was a U.S. client and had bombed the Kurds with chemical bombs, the United Nations Sub-Committee on Human Rights wanted to condemn Iraq for rights violations. However, so strong were the links between Saddam's Iraq and the U.S. that despite the massacre of the Kurds in Halabja, the vote was defeated 11 to 8. It was Canada and the Scandinavian countries that stood up to U.S. pressure and voted to censure Saddam's regime. The question that remains unanswered and is a mystery to many is, why was there such haste in executing Saddam? Even though he was judged guilty by a questionable court, Saddam had yet to face a second trial where the charges were of a far more serious nature and which had international implications. His hurried execution appeared to be revenge, not justice. At the second trial, which began in August 2006, Saddam and six co-defendants were charged with genocide during the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq. In March 1988, Iraqi air force jets allegedly dropped chemical bombs on the town of Halabja killing thousands. The trial could have shed much light on the massacre of the Kurds in Halabja. It could also have shed light on the links between Iraq and the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq War. At that time Saddam was a U.S. ally. The trial would certainly have delved into the discussions former U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had with Saddam during the three meetings the two had in Baghdad. In fact, the ties that bound the United States to Saddam go back to the 1960s when the CIA helped the Baath Party stage a coup against the pro-Communist government of Abdel-Karim Qassim. Hundreds of Iraqi leftists, identified by the CIA, were systematically murdered – killings in which Saddam himself is said to have participated. Additionally, the Halabja trial would also have shed light on the claim by Stephen C. Pelletiere, the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, that both Iran and Iraq "used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja." Pelletiere made the astonishing claim in The New York Times in January 2003 that the "condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent – that is, a cyanide-based gas – which Iran was known to use." With the death of Saddam, the secrets that could have emerged at the Halabja trial will probably never come to light. His death will be a relief to those in America who feared being exposed for having aided Saddam as he murdered so many of his countrymen. To the teeming millions in the Muslim world who saw Saddam being led to his death by slogan-chanting masked men, his hanging was an act of revenge, not justice, a lynching, not the carrying out of a death sentence.
It was a nasty decision. It was influenced by hatred, politics and vengeance. It was never different from Saddam's politics.
I saw this brought up somewhere else and thoroughly debunked, but alas I am not able to repeat what I heard well enough to do it justice. I would point out that this kind of conspiratorial thought process is repeated over and over by people who doubt the moon landings and claim Kennedy was killed by the CIA or the mob. Essentially the process involves finding the slightest place of doubt or concern where open ended, unanswerable insinuations (without real accusations) can be used to drive a wedge into the discussion, and then fill in the blanks with the most sinister conspiratorial answer available. No real claims supported with facts are provided, but if not paying attention you walk away thinking you have been given a real insight. If the people who pose such engage in such conspiratorial rumor insinuation are ever required to provide actual testable facts to prove their position they always fall down flat. Also, as a bit of an aside, the three discussions that Rumford had with Saddam are all part of the public record. You can get transcripts online with only minimal redaction.
All of this hand-wringing and talk about what the trial could have exposed is pie in the sky nonsense. Do you realize the Iraqis were in charge of the trial? Do you realize the Iraqi government is sorry and pathetic? The only way the trial could have been conducted efficiently the way people in western societies wanted was for it to be moved out of Iraq (which was not an option) and conducted by non-Iraqi lawyers and judges (also not an option) who were completely impartial and were not subject to harassment and intimidation. Under the circumstances, Saddam's trial went off as well as could be hoped for. Just be glad the courtroom wasn't blown up, Saddam wasn't assassinated and every lawyer & judge wasn't shot. Just the fact that so many witnesses testified and the trial went to a conclusion was a "victory".
I don’t think Saddam should have been executed because I don’t think anyone should be executed, and I think that the Prime Minister of a country that hasn’t had an execution in close to 40 years should probably have said something about the execution, but I think this piece goes too far in suggesting that Saddam will become some kind of martyr. The information age has hit most of the Middle East too and I don’t think there are that many people there who don’t know how bad a guy Saddam really was, and I don’t think they need him as a martyr as there are many other causes to rally around at the present. On Saddam’s collusion with the US in the past, I think that if he was going to say something he probably would have said it already, or his lawyer would have released something after his death. Why would he hold back and protect the US at this point? I’m not sure how many big secrets are left untold anyway. I think it’s pretty well known that the Reagan administration was in bed with Saddam and supplied him with military help in the Iran-Iraq war. (Ironically they were giving him support in war at the same time as they were giving support to Iran through the Iran-Contra affair. How’s that for moral relativism?)
