On the Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein

The Trial and Execution of Saddam: My Preliminary Reactions and Analysis By © Amechi Okolo, Ph.D.
The trial and execution of Saddam is a ruse. He was executed in Iraq in the predawn of Saturday, December 30, 2006; and to pass the execution as the judicial decision of a sovereign, independent, democratic country is the biggest joke of the century because Iraq is neither sovereign nor democratic nor independent. The trial was also nothing but the caucusing of a vindictive blood-hungry sectarian cult. Therefore, only Bush and his clones will believe that a country occupied by 140,000+ foreign troops is sovereign and can make sovereign, independent decisions or that elections held with such number of hostile foreign occupation boots on the ground are democratic or independent. Iraq is neither democratic nor sovereign nor independent – and will never be – unless and until Bush pulls out his occupation forces. Right now the only thing Iraq has is “limited sovereignty” or “shared sovereignty” and not sovereignty or independence. Iraq currently operates as one of our states except that it does not enjoy the peace and security that we do. The biggest lie we also tell ourselves is that Bush did not have any Iraq post-invasion plan. It is therefore not true that Bush did not have plans of what to do with Iraq after the successful invasion and removal of Saddam. In fairness to Bush, it must be noted that Bush was not the source of the massive circulating lies that the administration did not prepare for post-Saddam Iraq. These particular, mass-circulating lies were started by the talking heads, the academia, the intellectuals, liberals, the Democrats and a whole host of others who felt compelled to jump ship and criticize Bush after their chorus support for the war became unsustainable when the war went sour. The Bush crowd could not have started the false rumors because they actually planned for post-Saddam Iraq. They had detailed massive plans for the transformation of all aspects of Iraq’s social, political and military systems. The had planned to disband Iraqi military and the police and to rebuild them from the scratch. However, it was not just the security forces that Bush planned to dismantle and rebuild to their own image. Bush also planned to dismantle the economy starting with a new currency and new laws to privatize Iraqi economy and set conditions for foreign (American) companies. They also planned to destroy/dismantle the educational system and the medical system. There was no aspect of the economy that they planned to leave untouched.

Even before the war Bush forces had organized many economic conferences and workshops for the various industries and experts vied for the control and domination of different sectors of Iraqi economies. Actually, the enormous opportunities for profits and grafts that would be available to various American businesses in a destroyed and occupied Iraq were the main selling points that Bush used to garner the support of American business titans and titans for the war. This point is important because we have always said that Bush attacked Iraq because of oil. Yes, the oil sector was a cardinal sector in propelling Bush to attack Iraq. But, beyond oil, the other sectors of American economy were also actively involved in pushing for the war because they all saw some goodies for them in a devastated and occupied Iraq. So let us stop talking of oil as if oil was the only sector that stood to benefit from Bush’s bellicosity in Iraq.

No. The titans and experts of the American political economy saw the Iraqi war as the new economic frontier for their unbridled plunder, loot and exploitation. In fact the main worries of the American business/commercial establishment (the American bourgeoisie) then, was to ensure that European bourgeois class was not allowed to share the Iraqi loot, hence the constant warnings by the American media that Europeans who did not help us overthrow Saddam would not be allowed to do business in “our” Iraq. Tom Brokaw of NBC and Dan Rather of ABC said during the “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq that we did not want to bomb the television station because soon it would be “ours”. Actually, the American media -- CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, etc – acted as Bush’s megaphones and trumpets for the war. New York Times and other media outlets later apologized for their uncritical acceptance of Bush’s wartime talking points, which is useless because the deeds were already done.

Apart from oil, the other industry that benefited from the invasion, destruction and occupation of Iraq is the American industrial-military-complex. This is the industry that not only will refurbish and replenish the vast American equipments and munitions that were used by the American armed forces but would also supply and replenish the Iraqi security forces from the scratch. When we hear of these multiple billions of dollars spent on the wars, we must know that these are billions for American businesses and companies because Bush attacked Iraq. Has anyone wondered what it would take to equip Iraq security forces from the scratch, then you will know how grateful these companies are to Bush for starting the war – then you will know why Bush is the darling of American business and company owners. One would also appreciate why, during the 2000 election, Ralph Nader called Bush, “a corporation masquerading as a human being.” It was shocking and surprising to me why Nader should describe Bush as “a corporation,” given that Bush had not even assumed the presidency in 2000 and that the war had not started. However, it was an accurate definition of Bush and I have not seen a better one since then.

George Bush was therefore, God-sent especially for the American auto industry because the war was a timely bonanza for the struggling industry that has been in doldrums and being smacked by Toyota of Japan. Once we understand the huge business and profit potentials the war posed for the captains of American businesses, and not just the oil industry, we will begin to appreciate why they have remained the war cheerleaders. Bush jokingly calls these his core supporters, “the haves and the have-mores” but he is serious and quite correct. Hence, General Smedley Butler called war, a racket. According to his book, War is a Racket:

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.[1]
He continued:
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?[2]
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.[3]
Major-General Smedley D. Butler, the leading American pugilist in the first half of the nineteenth century and the Two-Time Congressional Honor Medal Recipient changed and became a leading pacifist after his long meritorious military career. According to him:
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.[4]
General Butler’s book is very informative. We read it in my class. Especially this period of Bush warfare, I will most strongly, recommend this book for every American. General Butler’s conversion to pacifism is also noteworthy and laudable. I only hope the more Bush’s Iraqi soldiers and generals would read this very informative Butler’s book. At least, it would put the Iraqi war into better perspectives for them. Especially, officers must read wide because war is not just about shooting a gun but must understand the political economy of one’s home base and the enemy. This means that the officers must understand the political, economic and sociological conditions of both his home base and his theatre of operations. This is why Carl Von Clausewitz, the leading war theoretician, called, “war, the continuation of politics by other means.”[5] I thought “Strategic Studies” at University of Ife, Nigeria for ten years. Many of my students were mid-level military officers (Captains and Majors) who needed to pass my program for promotions to senior officer levels. I also had Foreign Ministry officials who needed the course for their career advancements. I also conducted yearly seminars for top Nigerian military, government and business leaders at the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos. Some of my students, both from the University and NIPSS, later moved on to occupy prominent positions in Nigeria’s military, government and society. The two major themes of my teachings in Strategic Studies were (a) that warfare is too important to be left to generals alone, and (b) that military officers must understand the essence of the Clausewitzian dictum that war is the continuation of politics by another means. These require that soldiers must understand the cultures of their operational theatres; otherwise, they would have a lot to regret. A lot of Clausewitzian dicta are applicable to our officers today in Iraq – a country they attacked and occupied without understanding its culture. For example, it was reported that Bush did not know that there were Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, yet he ordered the attack, which is a major source of their bumbling incompetence in Iraq. The military should have known about the various cultural divisions and fault lines in Iraq by sending human intelligence and reconnaissance forces long before the invasion especially since it was a war of choice when Bush chose the time and place of attack.

On the losses and profits of warfare, Butler stated that the benefits of war go only to very few while the majority suffers various mishaps. He wrote:

fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends. (Mine emphasis). [6]
He continued:
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit the nation? (Mine emphasis).[7]



Even though, Butler was writing about the war drums of the 1930s, his facts and questions are apt and relevant for us today about Bush’s Iraq war. What is in it for us as Americans? Nothing except deaths, sufferings, etc. What does America gain as a nation from the war? Nothing, except diminished world respect and increased world anger at us. Who gains from the war? Only Bush, Cheney, their business friends, associates and acquaintances.

The case of Cheney, the Vice-President is particularly nauseating and insidious. His company, Halliburton is the major profiteer from no-bid Iraqi contracts. For a Vice-President to push for a choice war from which his company and its subsidiaries would benefit the most is the height of duplicity, corruption and criminality. In any other country, he would have been arrested and tried for murder and high treason. In America he is the super patriot because he insists that we must continue to fight, even though, this same man never touched a riffle in his life to fight for America. During the Vietnam war years, when it was his time to fight for his nation, he raised and used all the available deferments to avoid the draft including having children.

There is something cynically ironical and insidious for a nation dragged to a war through lies by the President and Vice-President who deliberately, actively and artfully avoided active duties during their own times. Now they parade themselves as super patriots as they goad and entice our young men and women to kill and be killed in Iraq. I honestly want to know what patriotic thing Bush or Cheney ever did for this country. What is patriotic in flying around in Air Force Ones and Twos with coterie of security guards and forces to guard them and their children including Bush’s drunkard twins who should be in Iraq to support their father’s war machines. Even Prince Williams of Great Britain is being shipped to Iraq as part of his national service. What do we have in Americas are two irresponsible presidential twins junketing the world on our tax bills and with our security details and embarrassing us as a nation.

Hospitals have been smashed and destroyed and will have to be rebuilt, which means billions of dollars for various industries – pharmaceutical industries, equipment manufacturers and various hospital suppliers. The school system has been destroyed which means that billions of dollars will be used to build schools, supply books and equipments, train teachers, etc. The food industry is not left behind. Food production is seriously impaired so that Iraqis are now highly dependent on imported American food to the gloating of American farmers who are always looking for export markets.

So the war has been very good for American businesses, which was why they went in to begin with and are now very reluctant to leave. This is why we must stop blaming oil alone because the entire American business benefits from the war. The only people that lose from the war are the common Americans who are being “drafted” into the war because of the vanishing opportunities in other areas. The poor Americans (whites, blacks, Hispanics, etc.) are the only losers of this Bush war. Poor Americans are the only ones suffering and getting killed and maimed in this Bush-Cheney war. Never the Bush daughters, nor the Cheney children, nor the children of Congressional lawmakers, with the exception of Senator Jim Webb[8] and one or two others are ever in any danger because of the war. Ironically, it is not only that the Bush daughters are not fighting the “patriotic war” that their father loves so much but their father made sure that he avoided the warfront when it was his time to fight for America. Thus, Bush’s professor at Harvard business school explained how Bush dodged going to Vietnam war as reported by to Corky Siemaszko of Daily News:

President Bush’s former Harvard Business School prof. says his ex-student supported the Vietnam war but wanted somebody else to fight it. Yoshi Tsurumi said yesterday that Bush told him his father’s connections got him into the Texas Air National Guard. But what really disturbed me was that he said that he was for the Vietnam War…. “I said, ‘George, that’s hypocritical. You won’t fight a war that you support but you expect other people to fight it for you.’ He just smirked.”[9]

According to Tsurumi:

“Bush had no sense of guilt” about getting into the guard while others wound up fighting in Vietnam. “He was very casual about it,” the professor said, “I said , ‘Lucky you, how did you manage it?’ He said, ‘My father had a good friend who put me ahead of the waiting list.’ ”[10]

In fact, they had plans for total transformation of the entire political economy of Iraq and not just for the removal or Saddam or regime change as usually dubbed. No society or regime had ever planned or undertaken such a massive, comprehensive and total transformation of another society as the Bush crowd planned and began effecting in Iraq. Thus the high crimes against humanity committed by the Bush crowd due to their Iraq adventure is not just the horrendous crimes, deaths, carnage, tortures they caused and are spreading there, but because Bush planned for colonialism in Iraq – something that was specifically outlawed by the United Nations Charter and something no other nation has tried in modern times. If Bush wants Iraq to be free, he should get out of Iraq completely now and hand over every thing to the UN just as we did in Kosovo. Only the "Kosovo Model" where we did not try to occupy the area will end our present quagmire in Iraq. The rushed killing or murder of Saddam will not help. The UN will appoint a Coordinator who will organize peace keepers to go and pacify the area. The costs will be paid by the US because we caused the whole mess. Insurgency and sectarian killings will end once America is seen to be genuinely out or on its way out. The current killings are protests against America's occupation and not because Iraqis like insurgency. It must also be noted and emphasized that Saddam was an American child. He was groomed and nurtured by America. Most of the crimes he committed were with direct support and complicities of America, so legally America is as much the criminal as Saddam. For us to forget our historical relationship with Saddam and behave as if history does not exist beats my imagination. I can understand the Bush gang pretending and orchestrating such absurdity but for the media and most academia to also be singing the Bush chorus is shameful. You see the Bush gang has a vested interest in presenting Saddam in the worst possible light because they overthrew him and are now committing lots havocs and mayhem in Iraq so they must keep up their stories and lies to keep justifying their action. So, I can understand the above human tendencies and proclivities, but why should I also join the Bush bandwagon? What is in it for me? Why should I, as an academician, not investigate the totality of Saddam-American relations to understand what really happened? Also why should the media and some other academicians not do the same critical investigation and analysis the crucial historical partnerships between Saddam and America? Such a critical approach is important and absolutely necessary for the American people because I am not working for the Bush administration. If I were a Bush official, it would be my job to try to come up with many “elegant” ways to slam Saddam so as to continue to justify Bush’s actions. But I am not a Bush official and I am not paid by the Bush government. As an academician, I am paid by the society to represent their interests. Governments come and go but the society is permanent. This major difference between my job and Bush’s current job is that he is a politician. As a politician, he is partisan, transient and transitory. Partisan means being biased and taking sides; and transient means that sooner or later his time will be over whether he likes it or not. His job is temporal, fleeting and ephemeral. For example, whatever happens, Bush term will end on January 20, 2009. He would vacate the White House on that day and will no longer be our president but America will continue because America is permanent. So why are some people behaving as if Bush owns this country and as if whatever he says represents the permanent, best interests of the US. Again, they are wrong. The hanging of Saddam is simply rushed and rash execution by Bush. He cannot deny it no matter how hard he tries. A death sentence in US requires many years of appeal before execution. In Iraq, Bush made them do it immediately and he is telling us that it is justice. A rushed justice is “justice denied.” Bush should tell us why the hurry? Now that Saddam has been executed at Bush's orders, they should send his head to him to keep him happy and to add to Saddam's pistol that he already has. When Saddam was captured in the “hole”, Bush took his pistol and was proud to show it off as one of his loots, exhibits and collections. Now that Saddam has been hanged, on one of Muslim’s holiest days and contrary to Muslim tradition, his head should be send to Bush to cap his satisfaction just as head of John the Baptist was sent to Herold. I only wish, Mr. Bush, Good luck in his continued acquisitions and accomplishments. He may however find out that Saddam's death does not solve his problems in Iraq. The violence in Iraq will continue as Iraq continues its proclivity towards anarchy, disintegration and chaos. More importantly, for Mr. Bush, the American people will continue to be mad at him for his Iraq folly. The American people already trumped, smashed and clipped his wings on November 7, 2006 in the midterm election. And if he thinks that the “trumpin” was too heavy for him, wait till November 2008 to see what the American people will do to the GOP unless he changes and change fast as they demanded in November 2006. Polls show that some eighty percent of Americans are now opposed to bush’s Iraq policy. This is enough to knock sense into any leader especially a leader in a democracy. But that is not Bush because he has never believed in democracy. He is adamant, arrogant, dictatorial, non-caring and nonchalant. He once told us that he will continue his Iraq policy even “if only Laura and Bonny” are the only ones supporting him. No leader should ever make such a threat to his people on an issue that is so gravely important to them as the Iraqi war is. But he did it because he does not care about us. He does not care about our countless deaths, sufferings and feelings and; in any case, we did not put him in office – we did not elect you. He imposed himself on us with the help of his family friends – James Baker and Supreme Court judges[1] – so our views are not important to him. Even Saddam Hussein could not have blurred such offending trash to his people even though he was supposed to be the maximal dictator. By hanging Saddam, Bush has only created a martyr for the Sunnis to rally around -- and do not be surprised when the legend of Saddam spreads beyond Iraq Sunnis to all Arab Sunnis -- even to Arabs which might include some Shiites. A recent poll showed that Saddam was the most popular Arab leader. This is very significant because while Bush has been busy saturating the media with massive negative half-truths about Saddam, the Arabs were busy reconstructing their own image of him and recasting him as their most preferred hero and leader. The Arab logic is simple and must be clearly understood by us for our own good. In addition to the destruction of Iraq, Arabs see America’s hands in most of their problems in the region and Saddam as the symbol of their resistance to America. This means that Bush has lost his pitched battle with Saddam in Iraq and the Arab world. The physical elimination of Saddam only elevated him [Saddam] to the status of heavenly and permanent martyrdom where he would continue to serve as the rallying call for opposition to America’s injustice. The botched, chaotic hanging by the Shiite lynch-mobs al-Maliki, the Vichy Iraqi Prime Minister and Bush; and the wrangling between Bush, “Iraqi government” and American military in Iraq compared to the dignified, ‘presidential’ and assertive behavior of Saddam from his “trials” to his death assures and consolidates him favorable and blissful immortality to his fellow Sunnis and Arabs. For ever, Bush will have the ghost of Saddam to haunt him. He will continue to explain to the world, why he rushed Saddam’s death, why he would not even let him stand for the real trial Ironically, Bush was therefore, the best thing that ever happened to Saddam. From the circus display which Bush called trial and justice to the chaotic Shiite lynch-mob lynching, Bush has cleaned and absorbed Saddam’s impurities and left him flying to high heavens in white glowing robes. More importantly, as more Iraqis are killed and maimed, as their beautiful infrastructure is destroyed, as their country is progressively laid to waste, as their lives are increasingly turned upside down, as their schools, hospitals and medical system, which were free and the best in the Middle East are shattered, as the assured lives, many of them had built up are ruined, as Iraqi women are progressively being forced back to Muslim fundamentalism; and as insurgency, counter-insurgency and sectarian violence mounts, Iraqis are reliving the nostalgic years of Saddam when the country was peaceful and secure and people were happy and thriving. Saddam did not provide a perfect country for the Iraqis. No one ever does and no country is perfect. Perfection belongs to the realm of the ideal and is what every country is striving to. The United States is a very fundamentally unfair and unjust system. It is structurally racist, the widening rich-poor gap is alarming, its electoral system that produced the ‘selected” Bush regime is shameful and appears intractable, the Savage Inequalities in the educational system, according to Jonathan Kozol is notorious, and the inequities of our criminal justice system cry to high heavens for correction, yet no one will suggest inviting the Martians to straighten us up. Yes, Saddam did not build a flawless Iraq, he built a better one than we can ever build in Iraq. More important, Saddam built a better system in Iraq than we have in America for Americans. To judge how the Iraqis faired under Saddam, we must go back to the 1980s before he invaded Iran which he did with substantial prodding, logistic and material supports from America and partly to help America out of its quagmire with the Iranian Ayatollahs. Comparative study of the American and the Iraqi regimes then show that Iraqis had better educational and health services (both of which were free then) than American can ever provide to its own citizens. The facts are there and people should go look them over instead of listening to Bush’s relentless lies, distortions and propaganda to justify his invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. In the 1980s, I was a professor in a Nigerian university. Nigeria is a resource-rich but chronically mismanaged country. In fact, Nigeria has always ranked among the second or third most corrupt country. This has been our unfortunate fate due to our historical bad and corrupt administrations. The few good administrations Mohammed and Idiagbon were both quickly overthrown in military coups with the help of American CIA only to throw Nigeria back to the dogs. One thing that Nigerians do very well, though is debate and argue about our fate and government. We even had a contentious fratricidal civil war to resolve our intractable crisis in late 1960s. Nigerians were first informed about Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the 1980s, by Dr. Tai Solarin, the noted distinguished social critic. Dr. Solarin had singled out Saddam Hussein and used him as a typical example of a state that was under good governance for the good and betterment of his people during one of our contentious debates about Nigeria’s fate and good governance. Dr. Solarin was no push over. I grew up reading his scratching critiques of various Nigerian governments. He was known and respected by Nigerians and revered as the “conscience of the nation.” For him to have endorsed Saddam and called on Nigerians and our leaders to look up to Iraq to see how to govern a country wisely should not be taken lightly because Tai, as he was fondly called, was not easy to please. Any member of my generation, who was interested in social justice and good governance read and followed Tai Solarin’s life, examples and works. I remember making a personal pilgrimage to his hometown and base, Ikenne, in Western Nigeria in the 1980s from my perch at Ife University to visit and commensurate with him. He is remembered today as a great educationist, farmer, teacher, social critic, philosopher, philanthropist, administrator, writer, columnist, motivator, moralist, mentor, mystic, atheist and above all the quintessential conscience of Nigerian nation.[2] (Mine Emphasis.) The Americans and the world are now certain that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and pre-war intelligence (we hope to know more under the Democratic Congress), but few are bothered or care to know about Bush’s relentless lies, mendacity and mass propaganda to obfuscate and distort Saddam’s records to justify the illegal invasion and criminal occupation of Iraq. Bush’s logic is simple and understandable. Even when he reluctantly concedes that there were no weapons of mass destruction, Bush always affirms that the removal of Saddam is worth it because he was “an evil and brutal dictator; and that the world is better without him”. Bush affirms this position always as a matter of truism that needs no proof. We are supposed to believe him and seek no proof or evidence because God, the president said so. Fortunately for Bush, his ardent followers and even some opposition believe Bush that Saddam was a thorough evil and that the world is better without him. The last regime that had such opprobrium attached to was Hitler’s Nazism, yet the survivors of Nazi regime were accorded international trials at The Hague. Bush, on the other hand, organized a Kangaroo court through his Vichy government to try and hastily lynch and exterminate Saddam because they were scared of what he might reveal in a proper trial. Thus according to Slavoj Zizek: closer to the standard list of the bad guys, why was there little talk of delivering Saddam Hussein or, say, Manuel Noriega to The Hague? Why was the only trial against Mr. Noriega for drug trafficking, rather than for his murderous abuses as a dictator? Was it because he would have disclosed his past ties with the CIA?[3] Mr. Zizek Continued: In a similar way, Saddam Hussein’s regime was an abominable authoritarian state, guilty of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the United States representatives and the Iraqi prosecutors were enumerating his evil deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime in terms of human suffering and of violating international justice: his invasion of Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states were actively helping Iraq in this aggression. (Emphasis mine.)[4] The above information from Mr. Zizek is far more revealing than it initially appeared. Mr. Zizek was saying that from the conceptual phase of Saddam’s trial, that the Bush representatives and the Iraqi prosecutors did not include his greatest crimes, that they – “systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime in terms of human suffering and of violating international justice: his invasion of Iran.” Yet, gassing of the Shiites and the Kurds, was the centerpiece of Saddam’s brutality, “against his own people” that Bush touted to confirm Saddam’s brutality and that he has WMD. To know that Bush never intended to try Saddam for the crime he had shouted and harped so much on is truly unbelievable and shocking. It confirms that Bush is a far bigger hoax than anyone can imagine. More importantly, it confirms that the accelerated, impromptu and hasty execution of Saddam Hussein was a done deal and long planned. Bush never intended to try Saddam for the crimes of “using WMD on his own people” because he was scared that Saddam might talk about the Reagan and Rumsfeld’s visit and deals with him during the Iraq-Iran war. Rumsfeld, as Special Envoy of President Reagan, visited and shook hands publicly with President Saddam Hussein on December 20, 1983.[5] This also means that the purported disappointment of White House and the US military in Iraq over the hasty execution of Saddam by “al-Maliki” is a ruse and fraud because they all had agreed earlier that Saddam would never be alive to face his gasification trials because of the ugly revelations that might occur. The other sinister aspect of the trial was the fact that they started with trying Saddam for the execution of the 182 members who had tried to assassinate him. Theoretically, that was the weakest of the charges against Saddam. I could never understand why Bush wanted to start with that charge because those charges were very puny. But it was the best that the Bush gang could muster since they could not charge him for the real thing. The charge from the assassination attempt is weak because Saddam was the President of Iraq. Punishment for assassinations or assassination attempts is death in any system that I know of including the US. The people were tried by the operating legal system at the time, found guilty and put to deaths according to their law. I am still to understand what Saddam Hussein had to do with that the President and Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi Armed Forces. Under the premise of their trials, conviction and execution of Saddam Hussein, why should Bush and his Cabinet not be arrested, tried, convicted and executed like Saddam and his Cabinet? I do not see any difference except that Bush has a more powerful army that was able to defeat and arrest Saddam. I hope I am wrong and I stand to be corrected. However, if I happen to be right, which I strongly suspect that I am, then we are not talking about right or wrong. We are simply talking about ‘might is right’ which is a throwback to primitive pre-1815 Concert of Europe that recognized the sovereignty of states – a principle that was reinforced by the United Nations Charter of 1945. Hence, Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations repeatedly declared Bush’s invasion of Iraq illegal. I will therefore, truly like to know and many others will also like to know the difference between Saddam’s position and Bush’s; and I hope that lawyers and other experts will help us our here. With the logic of Saddam’s brutal dictatorship as Bush’s only remaining rationale for Bush’s travesty and criminality in Iraq, why should anyone not expect Bush to also continue to lie, hype and fabricate facts about Saddam. I am amazed at the reaction of most Americans and others. What we have done is akin to asking and believing a bully’s reason for trouncing his victim. In regular life we would also insist on hearing the victim’s side of the story. But here, the only voice we hear and are contented with is the bully’s voice who understandably so thoroughly paints the victim as an evil that he has no case worth hearing. I submit that it is unnatural, unethical and uncivilized for human beings to be so completely partisan, biased and clouded to concede the bully the unfettered and unchallenged right to crush and rout his victim and to also totally accept the bully’s rationale for trouncing him. George W. Bush is the bully. At least, he is the bigger bully of the two – thanks to America’s massive military power. Therefore, in this climactic struggle between the Bushes and Saddam[6], Bush easily, thoroughly and physically trounced and eliminated Saddam; and then saturated the media with his version, which was largely false, fabricated and/or hyped. But the truth cannot be hidden permanently, No matter how hard Bush and his Vichy Iraqi government clamp down on comparative truths, glimmers of prewar situation will still show up. Thus, according to Michael Luo: Along with its many other desperate problems, Iraq is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day. It began right after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when many landlords took advantage of the removal of his economic controls and raised rents substantially, forcing out thousands of families who took shelter in abandoned government buildings and military bases. As the chaos in Iraq grew and the ranks of the jobless swelled, even more Iraqis migrated to squalid squatter encampments. Still others constructed crude shantytowns on empty plots where conditions were even worse. Now, after more than 10 months of brutal sectarian reprisals, many more Iraqis have fled their neighborhoods, only to wind up often in places that are just as wretched in other ways. While 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.[7] He continued: Shelter is their most pressing need, aid organizations say. Some have been able to occupy homes left by members of the opposing sect or group; others have not been so fortunate. The longer the violence persists, the more Iraqis are running out of money and options. Shatha Talib, 30, her husband and five children, are among about a thousand struggling Iraqi families that have taken up residence in the bombed-out remains of the former Iraqi Air Defense headquarters and air force club in the center of Baghdad. “Nobody should live in such a place,” she said. “But we don’t have any other option.”[8] Not only in housing, but in the provision of other qualities of life, the conditions of Iraqis have plummeted since Bush’s invasion. But he provided them security, massive modern infrastructure for the system. Under Saddam, Iraqis were well fed. The Iraqis had the best educational system in the region. It was also free even to medical and law schools. Fuel and rations were cheap and highly subsidized by the government. The Saddam Hussein Iraq was secular because of the Baath Party so Iraqi women under Saddam were free to pursue any profession. In fact Iraqi women under Saddam were less encumbered than American women. All the material freedom and facilities that Iraqis enjoyed under Saddam are now gone and have become faint memories and fairy tales under the insurgent-sectarian chaotic realities of the Bush-Maliki regime. My heart goes out to the Iraqis because no country should ever be subjected to the kind of brutality, destruction, ruin and shame that Bush and the American forces have wrought on them for absolutely no cause at all except that we have a bunch of ego-driven, power-hungry maniacs who illegally ceased our White House and then used our enormous military power to terrorize, destroy and try to dominate the world. This is why I think that our first and most urgent task now is to throw away the illegal occupiers and “pretenders to the throne” at the White House and bring our troops home; and then talk about our enormous compensation to the Iraqis. [1] Read these three books to understand the depth of the illegalities involved in hoisting Bush on us: Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (London: Pluto Press, 2002); Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined Our Constitution and Chose Our President (New York: Nation Books, 2001); Alan M. Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) [2] Ray Ekpu, Newswatch, August 8, 1994 p. 28 [3] Slavoj Zizek, “Denying the Facts, Finding the Truth.” New York Times. January 5, 2007. [4] Ibid. [5] Joyce Battle, “Iraq: Declassified Document of U.S Support for Hussein.” Washington Post. February 27, 2003. [6] Peter Baker, “Conflicts Shaped Two Presidencies: U.S., Iraq Continue to Experience After effects of Their Confrontations,” , Washington Post, Sunday, December 31, 2006; A21 [7] Michael Luo, “Crisis in Housing Adds to Miseries of Iraq Mayhem,” New York Times December 29, 2006 [8] Ibid.

[1] General Smedley Butler, War is a Racket (New York: Round Table Press, 1935),
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Carl von Clausewitz, On War (London: Penguin Books, 1982)
[6] Butler, Op. Cit.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Senator Jim Webb (Democrat, Virginia), his son is an officer in Iraq. He made news when he told Bush that all he wanted was to bring his son and his friends back from Iraq.
[9] Read, Corky Siemaszko, “W for War but Eager to Avoid it, Prof .Recalls.” Daily News. Friday, September 10, 2004
[10] Ibid.