Hanging Hussein for the wrong crime kept America's dirty laundry hidden

[NNN0LHI]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20070107gd.html

LONDON -- It was not the Iraqi government but its American masters that chose to execute Saddam Hussein in a great rush as soon as the first sentence was confirmed, thus canceling all the other trials on far graver charges that awaited him. The current Iraqi government had nothing to hide if those trials went ahead; the U.S. government did.

With all of Hussein's other crimes to choose from, why on earth would you hang him for executing the people suspected of involvement in the Dujail plot?

Because the United States was not involved in that one. It was involved in the massacre of the Iraqi Communists (the CIA gave Hussein its membership lists). It was implicated up to its ears in Hussein's war against Iran -- to the point of arranging for Iraq to be supplied with the chemicals to make poison gas, providing Baghdad with satellite and AWACS intelligence data on Iranian targets, and seconding U.S. Air Force photo interpreters to Baghdad to draw Hussein the detailed maps of Iranian trenches that let him drench them in poison gas.

The Reagan administration stopped Congress from condemning Hussein's use of poison gas, and the U.S. State Department tried to protect Hussein when he gassed his own Kurdish citizens in Halabja in 1988, spreading stories (which it knew to be false) that Iranian planes had dropped the gas.

It was the U.S. that finally saved Hussein's regime by providing naval escorts for tankers carrying oil from Arab Gulf states while Iraqi planes were left free to attack tankers coming from Iranian ports. Even when one of Hussein's planes mistakenly attacked an American destroyer in 1987, killing 37 crew members, Washington forgave him. snip

The U.S. was deeply involved in all of Hussein's major crimes, one way or another, so no trial that delved into the details of those crimes could be allowed.

[truth2power]

1. Thanks for keeping this out there...

This is the tragedy of Saadam's death. The filthy complicity of the US Government in the deaths of innocent people has been covered up once again. How long will it be before these monsters have to pay for their crimes?

[jpak]

2. Major Kick (&R)

"Dead men tell no tales" - the ye olde Bush Crime Family motto...

[Benhurst]

3. Recommended #4

[yellerpup]

4. Truth matters.

Just keep telling it. K&R!

[Broadslidin]

5. Fortunately, Many Living Outside of the Predatory Imperial U.S. are Aware

[leftofthedial]

6. it wasn't the US

it was the repukes


they lie, steal, murder, steal, commit treason, steal, then lie some more about their crimes

they always try to hide the truth, because (paraphrasing Stephen Colbert) the truth has an anti-repuke bias.

[rman]

8. It wasn't the repukes,

it was the oligarchs, the plutocrats, who happen to pretty own both political parties (perhaps the Repubs a bit more so than the Dems), and the MSM, and the economy.

[blm]

21. The GOP had help covering up ALL these matters - Bill Clinton chose to close the books

on all the outstanding matters of IranContra, Iraqgate, BCCI and CIA drugrunning - all of which are part of everything happening today.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

[spanone]

7. Hussein was SILENCED.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. I have one problem with all of this.

I do not really believe that somebody as deeply egotistical as Saddam Hussein would have ever portrayed himself as a puppet of anybody, for any reason, period.

[NNN0LHI]

10. We could have sent him to the Hague and tested that theory easy enough

I think that would have been the best.

Don

[jpak]

13. Yup - and he would have aired all the GOP's dirty laundry there

and he would not have been "martyred" either...

[Bjornsdotter]

14. Exactly

Let him testify and get it all out....and then go after SH's enablers.

Cheers

[formercia]

15. If we did that

it would mean an official recognition of the Court. The US doesn't want to do that for fear its own citizens might be subject to prosecution.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. What does that test?

Saddam has, to my knowledge, never said much about America's support of him during the Iran/Iraq war. He and his surrogates have had ample opportunity to air these charges and they haven't.

[provis99]

17. during the trial?

when was Hussein given the opportunity to speak up and defend himself? I must have missed it.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. Saddam refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court.

What makes you think he'd have a different reaction to being dragged to the Hague?

And I do seem to recall Saddam being extremely vociferious during the trial on the subject of the judge being a corrupt asshole.

[ronnie624]

20. Your "problem" doesn't mean shit.

Your continued claims to the ability to read minds, are unconvincing.

How Saddam portrays himself is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, He could never have committed his worst crimes without proactive aid, and lots of it, from the U.S. government. Diversions and excuses will not change the facts.

The biggest portion of responsibility for the massacres and misery in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, belongs to the United States. Accept it. Deal with it.

[dwahzon]

11. There is a post

on the johnkerry.com blog with some supporting info on this. Check out the articles linked to on this post: The Passing of a Dictator. The Dujail incident was very carefully chosen as the first crime for which Saddam would be prosecuted. The most obvious one would have been the gassing of the Kurdish villagers but that would have uncovered all the US and Cheney/Rumsfeldian involvement in supplying Iraq with chemical and biological weapons.

The Juan Cole post that is referenced has a lot of specifics on just how embedded the US was in Saddam's and Iraq's history.

[Canuckistanian]

12. Ah, Gwynne Dyer, my favorite Canadian military historian

I find his point of view to be very perceptive.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. First Rule Of Assassination

Kill the assassin. The Romans knew it. The mafia knew it. The KGB knew it. We know it.
The Professor