THE CAPTURE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN (December 14, 2003)
(Comments: Tony.Papard@btinternet.com)
Now that Saddam Hussein has been captured by the Americans, what should be done with him? Already there have been calls from the USA for him to be brought before an American military court and then executed. So much for American ‘justice’; he has been found guilty and sentenced to death even before being brought to trial.
Of course it is good news that a former brutal dictator has been captured, even though the war which led to his capture was totally illegal and based on a false premise: that he possessed weapons of mass destruction. But it should be remembered that Saddam Hussein is but one of many brutal dictators in the world who were once supported and armed by the USA among others, and furthermore he had nothing, repeat, absolutely NOTHING to do with the tragic events of September 11th 2001 and no connexions with Al Quaida. It is the Americans, the British and their coalition allies who have made Iraq a magnet for Al Quaida terrorists, not Saddam Hussein.
What should happen now is that Saddam Hussein be handed over to an International Tribunal (the International Criminal Court cannot try crimes committed before it's inception) in The Hague to face a fair trial for his alleged crimes, along with the war criminals George W. Bush, Tony Blair and all their henchmen.
The ICC and special International Tribunals like that on Rwanda were set up to try war criminals and dictators such as these men. They all have innocent blood on their hands, and it is up to the International Criminal Court/International Tribunal to hand out appropriate sentences according to their crimes if found guilty. However, the death sentence should be ruled out from the start. Capital punishment, i.e. killing criminals in cold blood, must be abolished world wide. In this case it would make a martyr out of Saddam Hussein, and greatly increase the terrorist threat.
Already he has been humiliated by the pictures passed around the world by the Americans of an intrusive medical examination. These pictures flout the Geneva Convention.
Saddam Hussein has committed many crimes against his own people, against the Kurds, Iranians and Kuwaitis among others, often with weapons bought from the Americans and British. Bush and Blair have also committed crimes against the Iraqi and Afghani people, killing thousands of innnocent civilians. Moreover they threaten millions more with their illegal nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
All three should be hauled before the I.C.C. or an International Tribunal, along with other dictators and war criminals when captured, and given jail sentences as handed down by the court if found guilty. This of course won’t happen; the USA doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court or international justice because it knows too well many of its own soldiers and political leaders could be found guilty of war crimes. So they won’t hand over Saddam Hussein to an international court.
They'd probably like to try him in some sham U.S. military kangaroo court where the guilty verdict and probable death sentence have been decided beforehand by U.S. politicians and military leaders, not independent judges. However it now looks as if Saddam will be tried in an Iraqi court. This is fair enough if the court is conducted under standards consistent with an international court, but it could well turn out to be a kangaroo court entirely conducted by Saddam's opponents and American puppets, with the guilty verdict and death sentence decided by the judge before the trial begins. For this reason international observers, if not judges, should be present to make sure the trial is fair. If the death sentence is re-introduced into Iraq and passed on Saddam after a fair trial, there is little anyone can do. No doubt he deserves it, but, like the Ceaucescus' Christmas Day execution in Romania, it would bode ill for democracy in that country, and by making a martyr out of Saddam could inflame terrorism and start a civil war in Iraq.
There is also no chance Blair or Bush will ever be brought to justice for the war crimes they have committed. They declared war on Iraq and bombed its civilians knowing full well from their spy satellites, U2 spy planes, the UN weapons inspections and other intelligence information that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no threat to the West.
They may have captured Saddam Hussein because it currently suited their purpose; they have no intention of helping to bring to justice equally brutal dictators and war criminals in other places around the world which are currently supported by the USA. Remember one of the most brutal dictators of recent times, General Pinochet of Chile, was brought to power by an American backed coup which murdered the democratically elected President Allende. So dictators and war criminals in places backed by America like Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. will not be captured and brought to justice for their crimes by a coalition of U.S. and British so-called ‘liberators’.
Moreover, Iraq and Afghanistan may no longer have brutal, repressive dictatorships, but they are hardly ‘liberated’. Iraq remains under occupation, its assets having been taken over by American corporations, and Afghanistan is descending into a state of civil war and anarchy. This fate probably also awaits Iraq, which is already a hotbed of terrorism and is extremely unstable.