[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [UFPJ] Execution of Hussein - Talking Points
and Commentary
Morton K. Brussel
brussel4 at insightbb.com
Sat Dec 30 21:28:02 CST 2006
Cogent reflections on the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein.
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Hany Khalil" <hanykhalil at igc.org>
> Date: December 30, 2006 1:00:51 PM CST
> To: <ufpj at lists.mayfirst.org>
> Subject: [UFPJ] Execution of Hussein - Talking Points and Commentary
> Reply-To: hanykhalil at igc.org
>
> Folks,
>
> Phyllis Bennis drafted the talking points below for use by the peace
> movement.
>
> Additional analysis and commentary can be found at:
>
> - Robert Fisk,
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2112555.ece
> - Raed Jarrar,
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raed-jarrar/there-is-no-victory-in-
> sa_b_37402.
> html
> - Electronic Iraq, http://electroniciraq.net/news/2771.shtml
> - Patrick Cockburn,
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2112573.ece
> - Juan Cole, http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/
> - Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/
> - Amnesty International, http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE144302006
>
> - D. Parvaz,
> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/297822_parvaz30.html?
> source=mypi
> - John Nichols, http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=152494
>
> Feel free to share your own perspectives on UFPJ's discussion
> listserv,
> ufpj-disc at lists.mayfirst.org.
>
> Best,
>
> Hany Khalil
> UFPJ Organizing Coordinator
>
> TALKING POINTS ON THE EXECUTION OF SADDAM HUSSEIN
> By Phyllis Bennis
>
> 1) The execution of Saddam Hussein was not Nuremberg. Despite
> their
> flaws, the Nuremberg tribunals for the first time recognized that
> the crime
> of waging aggressive war lies at the root of all other war crimes.
> Nuremberg
> empowered international law in entirely new ways. Justice Jackson,
> one of
> the Nuremberg prosecutors, wrote that the individual accountability
> determined there must apply to the victors as well as the
> vanquished. And
> while Jackson's goal has yet to be implemented, the Nuremberg
> precedent set
> the terms for using international law as a weapon against leaders of
> powerful as well as defeated governments. The flawed U.S.-
> controlled trial
> of Saddam Hussein did not even abide by, let alone chart new ground in
> international law. This was victor's justice of the worst sort -
> just the
> opposite of what Justice Jackson called for. Despite the Iraqi
> faces in the
> judge's chair and at the prosecutors' table, there is no question
> that U.S.
> occupation authorities were determining how and under what kinds of
> laws
> Saddam Hussein would be brought to trial. Dozens of U.S.
> government-hired
> American and expatriate Iraqi lawyers had worked for the U.S.
> occupation
> authorities from the earliest days of the U.S. invasion and
> occupation in
> spring 2003. With U.S. officials still running the legal show in
> Baghdad,
> the U.S. military occupation still in control of the country, and the
> escalating war engulfing Iraq, no trial held under these conditions
> can be
> considered legitimate.
>
> 2) Some ask "if the trial had been fair, would the results have
> been
> different?" The conviction of Saddam Hussein for huge crimes
> against the
> Iraqi people would almost certainly be the same. The key
> difference would
> have been that a fair trial would have allowed -- insisted on --
> including
> evidence implicating those who enabled those crimes: the U.S. for
> providing
> military, financial and diplomatic support for the regime, as well as
> providing the seed stock for biological weapons; the Brits for
> providing
> growth medium for biological weapons; the Germans for providing
> chemical
> weapons; the French for providing missile technology... etc....
> Also, in a
> "new Iraq" the convictions after a fair trial would have led to life
> imprisonment -- not the death penalty.
>
> 3) Shouldn't Saddam Hussein have been executed though? The
> people of
> Iraq have suffered enormously for more than a quarter of a century of
> repression, war, sanctions, invasion and occupation. There is
> plenty of
> accountability to go around, and certainly Saddam Hussein is
> responsible for
> a great deal of suffering. But he did not act alone. For U.S.
> officials to
> orchestrate a trial so profoundly flawed, that was designed to keep
> all
> evidence of U.S. (as well as European and other international)
> complicity
> from emerging, simply shows once again that real democracy and real
> justice
> were never part of the U.S. agenda in Iraq. Hanging Saddam Hussein
> has done
> nothing to improve the lives of the suffering people of Iraq. What
> the Iraqi
> people want, and so desperately need, is an end to the occupation
> so they
> can end the war. Many also want an end to the state-inflicted
> violence that
> Iraqi governments, both before and since the U.S. invasion, have
> practiced -
> that means an end to the death penalty.
>
> 4) The fact that the first confirmation, for almost an hour, came
> only from
> the U.S.-backed propaganda station al-Hurra, indicates again that
> the U.S.,
> not the Iraqi government, is still calling the shots around the
> trial and
> execution. (U.S. and some British outlets were running headlines
> saying
> "Arabic language media reporting SH's execution..." as if al-Hurra
> was a
> legitimate independent news outlet.)
>
> 5) Most Iraqis are facing such dire circumstances in their day-to-day
> lives, with escalating violence and other consequences of the U.S.
> occupation, that after years of his imprisonment the execution of
> Saddam
> Hussein is unlikely to have much impact on them. Many Iraqis will
> no doubt
> be pleased, some will be angry; the violence is so intense that any
> violent
> attack specifically tied to the execution is unlikely to have much
> additional impact.
>
> 6) George Bush is likely to claim the execution heralds "a new
> Iraq" much
> as the "mission accomplished," the capture of Saddam Hussein, the
> election,
> the constitution, etc. were all supposed to mean a "new Iraq." No
> one in
> Iraq is seeing a new Iraq today.
>
> 7) There are reports of Iraqi government officials and perhaps
> others,
> witnesses to the execution, who danced around the body "shouting Shi'a
> chants" (according to CNN). Whether true or not, such reports are
> clearly
> designed to further inflame sectarian hostilities.
>
> Phyllis Bennis
> Director, New Internationalism Project
> Institute for Policy Studies
> 1112 16th Street NW #600
> Washington DC 20036
> tel: (202) 234-9382 ex 206
> fax: (202) 387-7915
> www.ips-dc.org <http://www.ips-dc.org/>
> ------
> Check out Phyllis Bennis' latest book:
> Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power
> www.interlinkbooks.com <http://www.interlinkbooks.com/>
>
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