 Return to LNP
This News Site:
Lanka Newspapers is the largest Sri Lanka News forum online. Thousands of Sri Lankans from around the world gather here daily to discuss current news events of Sri Lanka. Join Today!
|
|
|
Why only Saddam? Try them all!
Friday, 21 October 2005 - 2:48 AM SL Time
|
|
|
The US and its allies had a bull in a court room on Wednesday. They may have expected Saddam Hussein to stomach all the humble pie they were going to dish out in what could be described as a show trial. They were mistaken. His reaction was a display of resilience, hubris and contempt. He defied the presiding judge`s order to identify himself. Being an Iraqi, said he, the judge knew him well. He disputed the term the judge used to describe him'`former President of Iraq`. He insisted that he was still the President of Iraq and challenged the legality of the court which was trying him. According to his lawyers, the offences he is said to have committed were within the bounds of the then Iraqi law and, as such, he cannot be tried under a set of new laws given retrospective effect.
Before Wednesday`s trial, Saddam had been subjected to a media trial. The western media had not only tried him but already handed down their verdict: He must be hanged! Sadly, those media gurus who pontificate to their counterparts in the so-called developing world about neutrality, impartiality, justice and fair play, have thrown those principles to the four winds and taken up the bludgeon of partiality to make a pulp of the Iraqi despot. Some of them have lent themselves to their governments as shock troops.
Nay, it is not being argued that Saddam is an angel. He and his men belong to the same matrix as monsters like Ivan the Terrible and his black clad and black horse mounted oprichniki who dealt death and devastation to the innocent. But his crimes could have been avoided and tens of thousands of innocent lives saved, hadn`t the West sponsored his oppressive regime and aided and abetted his crimes.
The reason given for the second invasion of Iraq, was that Saddam had in his possession Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and this charge later turned out to be false. And the show trial appears to be the fig leaf with which the US-led allies are trying to cover their nudity.
The most serious charge against Saddam is the massacre of about 140 Shite villagers over an alleged assassination attempt in 1982. In the same year, the US, it should be recalled, removed Iraq from the list of states sponsoring terrorism! And within two years of the massacre the US restored diplomatic relations with Iraq.
Saddam used chemical weapons on both Iraqis and Iranians. The US and its allies could have nipped those attacks in the bud. Sadly, their hypocrisy wouldn`t allow them to do so. The US was the only country that voted against a UN Security Council statement in 1986 condemning the mustard gas attacks by Iraq on the Iranian forces! The US also allowed its companies to export chemicals to Iraq, which used them on humans. All chemical attacks by Saddam on the Kurds under the Anfal campaign, which left over 150,000 Kurds dead, over 1,000 Kurdish villages destroyed and about 300,000 Kurds displaced had the blessings of the West. The crop spraying helicopters used in these attacks came from the US! These massacres had no impact on the trade that Iraq had with the West. Instead, it increased! Today, we hear the West condemning those crimes against the Kurds!
The West gave the world a scare by proclaiming that Saddam was about to acquire nukes. But who helped him with his projects' He got uranium from Portugal, France and Italy and assistance for centrifuge enrichment came from Germany. The US Senate during one of its inquiries in 1995 stumbled on a startling fact: The United States had during the Iran-Iraq war, provided Saddam with samples of all the strains of germs used for making biological weapons!
How the US supported Saddam in his war with Iran is too well known to merit elaboration. Saddam became a monster to the West only after he invaded Kuwait, which had ruffled his feathers by slant drilling of Iraqi oil fields and stepping up oil production together with Saudi Arabia thus bringing oil prices down and dealing a paralysing blow to the war torn Iraqi economy. Saddam was a worried man by that time as he was without the means of rearming after a protracted war. Invading Kuwait was, he thought, the way forward. He was mistaken! The rest is history.
Saddam`s rise from the position of an ordinary leader to the dizzy heights of tyranny wouldn`t have been possible without help from the West, especially the US. They cannot just hand him over to his enemies to try and wash their hands of the crimes he committed with their connivance. All the leaders who are out for Saddam`s blood, having supported him to the hilt during his killing spree must be put in the same dock as he and tried by the same tribunal, if what is going to be meted out to him is to be called justice.
|
|
|
ajan
Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 1820
Member Profile
|
21 Oct 2005 09:11:12 GMT Report for Abuse
|
If sadam tobe hanged , it is fair to hang bush and give life sentance to tony blair.
alquida killed 3000 civilion but in return america killd over 30,000 some figures even say 100,000. it is unjustifiable.
it was bad decision tony blair made. America(CIA) and binladen had business deals, and CIA cheated binladen in return binladen send his style reply to CIA.
somehow tony blair dragd into it with other countries. if tony blair not backed bush many other countries would not have backed US.
now that they have killed 30,000 or 100,000 they have created another 10,000 binladens we have to wait and see what those binladens going to do. |
rayray
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 101
Member Profile
|
21 Oct 2005 13:00:01 GMT Report for Abuse
|
However odious Saddam might be - he has the right to be tried in a legal court (not one set up by occupying forces) and deemed innocent until proven guilty (rather than the media verdict handed down already)
In my personal opinion he should suffer for the crimes he has committed but lets not forget who put him there and propped him up in the first place.
The editor is right that Western powers see themselves as the righteous protectors of all that is good in this world. After the Abu Gharib prison fiasco and Guantanamo, how can America dare to point the finger at China or North Korea and yell 'human rights abuse'
The same things happen in Saudi but because they are such great friends of the US they can get away with it
This is what you get from a President who says God speaks to him. |
|
