Greetings Everyone,

  Thanks Amadu Njie for sending in this article.

  I don't see any reason why Saddam Hussein shouldn't face charges at an
International Criminal Court. The decision that saddam be tried under the
auspices of US occupation and therefore its jurisdiction. is another
violation  under International  human rights.

  Saddam Hussein should be made an example to all leaders who rule a state
of tyranny.
  Therefore an International Criminal Court should be set up in Iraq to
preside over the case, and the jury should consist of jurors which are
representative of the Iraq population.

  I can't see any reason,  if the US is,  as it claims to be the leading
light of democracy, will not accommodate Sadam Hussein to be tried by
international judges in Iraq. Bearing in mind that Iraq hasn't a system in
place of experienced judges.

  Whether or not the decision of Saddam Hussein's is a for gone conclusion.
It is important for the attonement of his victims that  he is tried under
the auspices of an international criminal court.

  For a kangaroo court is not  to meter out  justice but revenge. Which
brings those presiding on the moral high ground to the same level as the
perpetrator. The stance taken by the US is questionable. It raises more
questions than it answers. Saddam Hussein decided to be captured alive.
Therefore he should take responsibility for his crimes against humanity
whether it takes months or years to compile the evidence against him. A
quick execution  might quench blood lust.  But  does it really give justice
to the victims of his brutal regime, If Saddam Hussein  is quickly disposed
of without being made accountable for crimes against humanity. Even if this
causes a certain amount of embarrassment to his former allies.

  Saddam Husseins trail  needs to be transparent, so that it sends out a
clear message, that there is zero tolerance of  tyrranical leaders, and that
they have no amensty of being tried under the rule of law, whether it be
national or international.  In cases were the judical system has colapsed or
are corrupt then they automatically  should be judged by international
criminal court judges, as in the case of Serria Leone.

  After all Iraqi's need attonement for the crimes committed against their
famillies, and have the restoration of sovernignty. The best the US can do
in my opinion, is to facilitate the hand over of Saddam Hussein to an
International Criminal Court to be held in Iraq. And exit Iraq as soon as
strategically possible.

  The Iraqi's  are more than capable of reconstructing a new Iraq  without
the US or Britain monopolizing their natural resources.

  Peace

  Sophia Ba.





  - Original Message -----
  From: "Amadu Kabir Njie" <[log in to unmask]>
  To: <[log in to unmask]>
  Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:22 AM
  Subject: Fw: Bush calls for Hussein's execution: a portrait of sadism and
ignorance


  Bush calls for Hussein's execution: a portrait of sadism and ignorance

  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/bush-d18.shtml

  By Bill Vann

  18 December 2003

  Media reports on the nationally televised interview with George W. Bush
  broadcast by ABC News Tuesday night focused on the American president's
  call for the execution of Saddam Hussein. "Zap rat Saddam, sez Prez," was
  the way the New York Daily News summed up the contents of Bush's remarks.

  The general portrayal was one of a tough-talking leader moved by feelings
  of personal outrage to demand that the former Iraqi president pay
  the "ultimate penalty" for his crimes.

  Those who actually sat through the interview and who know Bush's record,
  however, may not be so impressed. When he was governor of Texas,
  the "ultimate penalty" was altogether routine. He presided over 152
  executions, more than any other governor in US history, and once allowed
  that he spent an average of just 15 minutes reviewing cases before giving
  the order to put human beings-including the mentally ill-to death.

  After becoming president, he has resumed the use of the federal death
  penalty for the first time in the US since 1963, ordering the execution of
  a Persian Gulf War veteran on the very eve of launching the invasion of
  Iraq last March.

  For Bush, imposing the death penalty is less a matter of moral outrage
  than vicarious thrill. His personal sadism and the "kick" he gets from
  exercising this ultimate power was revealed most noxiously in his public
  mimicking of the plea for clemency by a condemned Texas woman, Karla Faye
  Tucker, before ordering her state murder.

  "This is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice.
  But that will be decided not by the president of the United States but by
  the citizens of Iraq in one form or another," said Bush, who defensively
  added, "You don't want a kangaroo court."

  But that is precisely what Washington is preparing. The "citizens of Iraq"
  will decide nothing. They are subjects of a US military occupation,
  without an elected government and without even the prospect of a vote for
  years to come. The US will create the instrument that will render
  Hussein's verdict based on the time-honored American principle of "give
  him a fair trial and hang him."

  The Bush administration has no intention of allowing any court that is not
  under its unrestricted control to bring Hussein to trial. Having revoked a
  previous treaty committing US support for the International Criminal
  Court, it is determined not to legitimize any such body. It justifiably
  fears that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks and others could some day
  be brought before such a tribunal on war crimes charges stemming from the
  war of aggression against Iraq and the deaths of tens of thousands of
  Iraqi citizens.

  While international courts have ruled out the death penalty as a barbaric
  punishment, with an Iraqi puppet court, the US can put Saddam Hussein
  speedily to death while claiming that it is merely doing the will of the
  Iraqi people.

  The other advantage of such a procedure is that dead men tell no tales.
  Hussein can be denied the one defense he would inevitably make before an
  international court: that the greatest crimes of which he stands accused-
  the Iran-Iraq war, the gassing of the Kurds and suppression of the
Shiites-
  were carried out with either the direct support or tacit approval of US
  administrations in Washington.

  Whether Bush himself even grasps these political issues behind the US
  handling of Hussein is unclear. The image that came across in what was an
  exceedingly rare extended interview was that of a politically ignorant and
  vindictive individual.

  His interviewer was Diane Sawyer, a virtual state institution,
  whose "journalistic" credentials are rooted in her having served as a
  flack in the Nixon White House and then having followed the disgraced
  president to San Clemente to help him write his memoirs. But even the
  gentle probing of such a trusted ally seemed to be an ordeal for Bush.

  His peculiar facial expressions and nervous body language suggested an
  inner fear that each and every question would press against the outer
  limits of his scant knowledge, driving him to seek refuge in the few stock
  phrases that he has picked up from his speechwriters and political
  handlers.

  Thus, when Sawyer opened up a line of inquiry concerning the failure of
  the US military to turn up any trace of weapons of mass destruction in
  Iraq, the pretext for launching the administration's predatory war, Bush
  became badly flustered.

  Sawyer asked about his administration's claims that the Iraqi regime was
  close to producing nuclear arms and had hundreds of tons of chemical and
  biological weapons. Bush responded, "Look, there is no doubt that Saddam
  Hussein was a dangerous person, and there's no doubt we had a body of
  evidence proving that, and there is no doubt that the president must act,
  after 9/11, to make America a more secure country."

  When Sawyer tried to pursue the question, Bush replied childishly, "Well,
  you can keep asking the question and my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam
  was a danger and the world is better off cause we got rid of him." The
  former White House aide moved accommodatingly to a different subject.

  In one extraordinary exchange, Sawyer asked Bush about his statement that
  his sole source of news is briefings prepared by his staff. "I get my news
  from people who don't editorialize," he said. "They give me the actual
  news, and it makes it easier to digest on a daily basis, the facts."

  Asked by Sawyer whether he did this because he found it "harder to read
  constant criticism," Bush responded: "Why even put up with it when you can
  get the facts elsewhere? I'm a lucky man, I've got ... all kinds of people
  in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and
  they come in and say this is what's happening, this isn't what's
  happening."

  Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the US president's political
  backwardness and personal indifference to the world outside the White
  House. His disdain for reading newspapers reflects a lack of any ability
  or even interest in developing a political orientation based upon a study
  of competing interests and conflicting policies as they are reflected
  through the press. Making such analyses is a key task of any serious
  politician, but Bush is not such a figure.

  His subjectivism and limited intellectual capacity make him easy to
  manipulate. His subordinates and advisers feed him the "facts" that favor
  the policies they seek, and Bush, with his unconcern about political
  debate in the wider world, is not even in a position to grasp the aims of
  antagonistic forces within his own administration and staff.

  Given such an individual as the titular chief executive, it is not hard to
  understand the colossal blunders the administration has made in its war in
  Iraq, policies that continue to cost the lives of both Iraqi civilians and
  young American soldiers on a daily basis.

  Within US ruling circles, the fact that Bush is grossly unqualified for
  the position that he holds is well known. For the gang of corporate
  criminals that dominate his cabinet and serve as his principal political
  base, his lack of any knowledge or intelligence make him a malleable
  instrument for the pursuit of their profit interests.

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