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10/21/2005:

"Why only Saddam? Try them all!"

10/21/05 "The Island" -- -- 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!
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