Saddam Hussein and U.S. Politics of Assassination

Peoples Reject Lynching & Demand End to Occupation of Iraq

Voice of Revolution joins the peoples of the world in denouncing this U.S.-organized lynching, with its fake trial of Saddam Hussein and other co-defendants. The U.S. lynching of Saddam Hussein is a stark example of the failure of the U.S. state. In its refusal to go forward to a modern democracy, that empowers the people, the world is witnessing the U.S. state going back to the dark days of the complete impunity of “lynch law,” with its state-organized public lynching. Like then, the lynching of Saddam -Hussein — done on the dawn of Islam’s holy feast of Eid al-Adha, with video given to the media to broadcast in graphic detail worldwide — was designed to terrorize and humiliate Muslims, the Arab world, and all who reject U.S.-style democracy. Like the U.S.-organized trial, the lynching was also a show of force by the U.S. against the peoples, that U.S. impunity and brutality knows no bounds. And any who have seen the photographs of African Americans castrated, lynched and burned at the stake knows this well.

Humanity has long since rejected “lynch law” and the impunity of the state to summarily execute people as well as using kangaroo courts to hide the injustice of the lynching taking place. Its social relations and standards have advanced beyond the Dark Ages and refuses to go back to this level. The broad demonstrations and denunciation of the lynching by millions worldwide and the continued resistance in Iraq, in the U.S. and worldwide show that the peoples will not submit to this terrorism and degradation of humanity, will not permit the U.S. to drag the world down with it.

We stand on the shoulders of the broad resistance waged against the racism and lynchings of the government, present and past, and call on all to reject the failed U.S. state. The demand of the people is to go forward to a democracy that guarantees the rights of all and empowers them to govern and decide.

The lynching of Saddam Hussein in many ways makes clear that it is racism, brutality and impunity that have always been at the heart of U.S.-style democracy. The thousands of lynchings carried out against African Americans, alongside many hundreds against Mexicans, were commonly organized by the government’s paramilitary forces like the Ku Klux Klan. Sheriff’s and police agents were usually a direct part of the gang of lynchers, or turned prisoners over to the lynchers. The federal government guaranteed the lynching occurred and would continue — not only by having its agents backing and being part of the KKK and arming and protecting them, but also through its refusal to intervene, including refusing to pass a law making lynching a federal crime.

Lynchings on a broad scale were at their height in the 1880s and 1890s as part of the government’s efforts to crush the people’s fight for empowerment and rights in the Reconstruction period in the U.S. This was a period of broad democracy among the people following the end of the Civil War and slavery, when working people together were engaged in rewriting constitutions, themselves electing and being elected and united in fighting for rights and new arrangements. Lynching and lynch law was imposed to block this progress and push social relations back to the near-slave conditions of plantation sharecropping.

It is this state-organized, KKK-style terrorism and lynching that the U.S. is exporting to Iraq, directing it against the peoples and against governments. It is open terrorism and highly provocative, striving to drag the peoples down to these backward levels at a time when humanity is striving to push society forward.

In trying to impose its dictate and create an atmosphere of terror and powerlessness among the people, the U.S. is seeking to draw Americans in as spectators to the lynching — to create the notion that somehow we are to benefit from such crimes. The people say no! Today like then, the American working class and people are represented by all those standing to oppose U.S. impunity, to reject the chauvinism of the U.S. state and stand with the peoples of the world in fighting for a new world that guarantees the rights of all — not some, not a chosen few, but all.

Politics of Assassination

Lynching and the elimination of rule of law that characterize “lynch law” go side by side with the U.S. politics of assassination. The entire trial of Saddam Hussein by a kangaroo court under U.S. occupation was an exercise in the politics of assassination.

The politics of assassination is an instrument of criminalizing politics, perfected by the United States since the Second World War. Besides the CIA instigated coup d’etat in Iran, Greece and Guatemala in 1953-54, U.S. imperialism was also the driving force behind the assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the financing of the Contras in Nicaragua, the invasion of Grenada and Panama, the financing of cut-throats in El Salvador and more than 600 assassination attempts against President Fidel Castro. All these criminal activities were means perfected by the United States to make sure the peoples of the world and their governments could not solve a single problem in a peaceful manner on the basis of rule of law.

During the 1980s and 90s, the politics of assassination engineered by the secret agencies of the reactionary Indian state became their preferred instrument to destabilize the people’s political movement in Punjab and other parts of India. Since then, the use of assassination to instigate civil wars and wreck any political movements of the peoples has become the norm of the Israeli Zionists in the Palestinian territories and it has been introduced in Lebanon and on a widescale in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.

Bush’s so-called war on terror is state terrorism with a license to kill. The staged trial of Saddam Hussein and death sentences can only be considered in this light. There is no clearer indictment of the U.S. imperialist economic and political system in deep crisis which, to save itself, turns against the peaceful solution of problems.

No amount of justification about fighting terrorism can justify state terrorism, aggression and occupations. The trial and lynching of Saddam Hussein points to the desperation of the U.S., British and other supporters of the occupation of Iraq to find an exit strategy to the quagmire they have created for themselves. Far from sorting anything out and achieving the so-called reconciliation they talk about, the imposition of a kangaroo court and assassinations after a deeply flawed trial and bogus legal process will never cover up the death and destruction the imperialists have rained on Iraq and all the U.S. crimes against humanity.

Voice of Revolution calls on all democratic and justice-loving forces to condemn the fraudulent “lynch law” imposed in Iraq and continue to dissociate themselves from state terrorism, all individual acts of terrorism and violence and the criminalization of politics using assassination as a preferred weapon. We join the world’s people in demanding that President George W. Bush and all the top officials, civilian and military, responsible for these criminal acts must be held to account.

No to “Lynch Law” and Politics of -Assassination! End War and Occupation!

[TOP]

Letter to Iraqi People from Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein said his execution would be a “sacrifice for Iraq” and called on Iraqis to unite and fight U.S. forces, in a letter written shortly after the initial verdict on November 5. The letter was published on the website of the Baath Party on December 27. Associated Press reports that its authenticity was verified by a member of his legal team, lawyer Issam Ghazzawi. In the letter he states that he was writing because his lawyers had told him the court would give him an opportunity to make a final statement.

“But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence — dictated by the invaders — without presenting the evidence,” it said.

“Here I offer myself in sacrifice. If God almighty wishes, it (my soul) will take me where he orders to be with the martyrs,” Saddam said in the handwritten letter obtained from his defense lawyers in Jordan.

“If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity.”

“You have known your brother and leader as you have known your own family. He has not bowed down to the tyrants and remained a sword against them,” the letter reads.

“Oh great people, I call on you to preserve the values that enabled you to be worthy of carrying out shouldering the faith and to be the light of civilization,” the letter said.

“Your unity stands against falling into servitude.” Saddam added: “Oh brave, pious Iraqis in the heroic resistance. Oh sons of the one nation, direct your enmity toward the invaders. Do not let them divide you ... Long live jihad (holy war) and the mujahdeen against the invaders.”

He also called on the Iraqi people “not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking. I also call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us.

“You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defense of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein,” referring to former U.S. attorney Ramsay Clark, a member of Saddam’s defense team. “Others revealed the scandals of the aggressors and condemned them,” the letter said.

(Sources: Sabah, Associated Press)

[TOP]

Trial Condemned as Illegal and Unfair

Saddam Hussein was sentenced on -November 5 to death by hanging after being found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Dujail case. In this case Saddam Hussein and his seven co-accused were charged for the killing of 148 Shiite villagers after a failed assassination attempt against the president in the town of Dujail in July, 1982.

The U.S. military had custody of -Hussein from the time he was captured until the very last moments of his life. They also organized the trial, trained the prosecuting lawyers and judges and ensured it was not conducted under international auspices. It was a trial organized and conducted by an occupying power, using a government and laws it put in place. The U.S. used helicopters to fly in the chosen spectators to the lynching, which included the U.S. military. They rejected all appeals to stop the lynching, ensured it was broadcast worldwide, while now claiming they “would have done things differently.”

The Dujail trial of Hussein commenced before the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (also known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal) in Baghdad on October 19, 2005, and ended on July 27, 2006, with a verdict announced on November 5, 2006. Besides delivering a death sentence for Saddam Hussein, also sentenced to death were Barzan Hassan, Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and former head of the Iraqi intelligence agency, and Awad Bandar, the former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court. Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice president of Iraq, was sentenced to life in prison. Three other defendants each received sentences from three to 15 years in jail, and one was acquitted.

Following the verdict, Mr. Hussein had one month to appeal the verdict, itself considered far too short a period by legal experts to properly prepare. The Iraqi High Tribunal Appeals Court rejected the appeal and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani accepted the death sentence. The nine-judge appellate court also upheld the death sentences against Barzan Hassan and Awad al-Bander and recommended the execution of former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, originally sentenced to life in prison.

While thirty days are given to actually carry out the execution, it was done within days of the Appeals Court ruling. By carrying it out on a Muslim holy day and broadcasting it to the world, it was also done to try and impose maximum humiliation and drag the whole world into being spectators to this U.S. crime.

Prior to the lynching, Mr. Hussein’s defense lawyers issued a statement from Amman, Jordan, calling on Arab governments and the United Nations to intervene to stop the execution. “Otherwise, all may be participating in what is going on, either actually or due to their silence in face of these crimes, which are being committed in Iraq in the name of democracy,” the lawyers said in an email statement to the Associated Press. The statement, signed by the Defense Committee for President Saddam Hussein, said the court’s rejection of Mr. Hussein’s appeal was part of the “continued shedding of pure Iraqi blood by the current regime in Iraq, which (is) directly connected with the American occupation.”

Amnesty International repeated its opposition to the death penalty as a matter of principle “but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also condemned the trial. She said that under international treaties Iraq had signed, Hussein had the right to appeal to the appropriate authorities for consideration of commutation or pardon. “There were a number of concerns as to the fairness of the original trial, and there needs to be assurance that these issues have been comprehensively addressed,” she said.

“I call therefore on the Iraqi authorities not to act precipitately in seeking to execute the sentence in these cases,” Arbour said Friday, less than 48 hours before Hussein was executed. She pointed out that international law proscribes the imposition of the death sentence after an unfair trial.

Arbour has now again made a public appeal to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani asking him to spare the lives of two co-defendants of Saddam Hussein who are due to be executed in the coming days. “The concerns I expressed just days ago with respect to the fairness and impartiality of Saddam Hussein’s trial apply also to these two defendants,” Arbour said. She also pointed out that international law, as it currently stands, only allows the imposition of the death penalty as an exceptional measure within rigorous legal constraints.

[TOP]

On the Trial of Saddam Hussein

War Crimes and the Trial of Saddam Hussein: To the Victor Belongs the Judge’s Gavel

Siddharth Varadarajan, The Hindu, November 6, 2006

The show trial of Saddam Hussein was not just a violation of international legal norms by a court operating under the reality of foreign occupation but also an insult to the victims in whose name this political farce was enacted.

Throughout history, law and war have been uncomfortable companions, each acknowledging the importance of the other but unwilling to compromise on the integrity of its domain. And yet, when the scales of justice meet musket and bomb, it is usually the logic and exigencies of war that prevail over the norms of law — with the task of explication and synthesis left for future generations of generals and jurists to work out.

So it was that the horrors of World War I eventually gave rise to prohibitions on the use of chemical and poisonous weapons, and the deliberate bombing of civilians during World War II to the Geneva Conventions. International trials were conducted at Nuremberg and Tokyo and the top leadership of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan condemned for a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity. With the atomic devastation of Japan weighing heavily on his mind, the lone Indian judge, Radha Binod Pal, gave a dissenting opinion on the Tokyo tribunal, questioning the right of victors — who were perhaps as guilty of crimes of their own — to pass judgment on the vanquished. His disquiet was unfashionable but prescient, with the evolution of international legal thinking finally validating his key concern. Sixty years after Little Boy massacred the people of Hiroshima, there is little dispute that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal and would constitute a crime against humanity.

Despite the arguable taint of victor’s justice, however, there was at least one vital sense in which Nuremberg represented a significant advance in humanity’s quest to subordinate war to law. The tribunal concluded that aggression was the supreme international crime, the fount of “accumulated evil” from which flowed every other violation that the world found so reprehensible about Hitler and Tojo. Though international attempts to control and punish aggression have so far proved highly elusive, the experience of the past 60 years has confirmed many times over the correctness of that important legal pronouncement.

That is why, of all the historical analogies invoked to justify the trial and sentencing to death of Saddam Hussein, perhaps none is more inappropriate than Nuremberg. For the arrest and trial of the former president of Iraq, not to speak of the death of 654,965 Iraqis who would otherwise have been alive, all flow from the U.S. government’s illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. By any legal, political or moral yardstick, what President George W. Bush and his administration did in attacking Iraq constitutes the supreme international crime of aggression.

But if not Nuremberg, is there another reference point? During his presidency, Mr. Hussein committed numerous crimes against his own people and his neighbours. While the architecture for international criminal accountability is still evolving, the Iraqi people, as an expression of their sovereignty, certainly have the right and duty to hold him accountable in a domestic court of law. As the culture of impunity makes way for justice, this is precisely what sovereign people are trying to do in Chile and other countries in Latin America. Though the temptation to resort to summary trial is enormous, these societies have realised the restitutive, cathartic value of respecting the rule of law, including the requirements of due process. Verdicts produced the hard way have far more value, especially in divided societies, than the easy exertions of a kangaroo court.

Unfortunately for Iraq, the Iraqi people are today not sovereign in their own land. The tribunal established by the U.S. occupation and its Iraqi surrogates is intended to serve the political purpose of legitimising a war that ought never to have happened. So outrageous has been the conduct of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), so biased have been its procedures and norms, that the verdict pronounced on Sunday — coincidentally timed for just before crucial mid-term polls in the U.S. — was a foregone conclusion. As pointed out by jurists at the time, the SICT’s rules of procedure were rigged by U.S. advisers from the start to favour the prosecution side. Just to be on the safe side, most of the SICT judges were sent to Britain, one of the invading and occupying powers, for legal ‘training.’

The trial for the massacre of 148 people at al-Dujail village in 1982 began in October 2005 and ended in June this year when the presiding judge, Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman, abruptly terminated the defence side’s arguments and presentation of witnesses. Mr. Abdel-Rahman had been carefully handpicked to run the court. An earlier presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, was forced to resign after pressure from the puppet Iraqi authorities that he was too lenient on the former President.

UN Working Group’s Opinion

Mr. Hussein may appeal to the special Cassation Panel but the rules of the SICT state there is no further possibility for appeal or pardon and that the death warrant must be executed within 30 days of his appeal’s disposition.

On September 1, 2006, concerned at the accumulating evidence of bias in the SICT’s proceedings, the United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) called for the trial to be replaced by an international tribunal. Established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1991, the Working Group’s mandate is defined both by the UN General Assembly and the new UN Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration itself rooted for. In its final opinion on September 1, the Working Group concluded: “The deprivation of liberty of Mr. Saddam Hussein is arbitrary, being in contravention of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iraq and the U.S. are parties.”

The UN Working Group described Mr. Hussein’s detention and trial as a “Category III” case under its mandate, defined as a situation where “the complete or partial non-observance of the relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments accepted by the States concerned relating to the right to a fair trial is of such gravity as to confer on the deprivation of liberty, of whatever kind, an arbitrary character.”

Among the issues highlighted in the Working Group’s opinion was the serious and repeated violation of Article 14 of the ICCPR, which concerns a detainee’s right to a defence and a fair trial. More specifically, the WGAD found that Mr. Hussein did not enjoy the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal as required by Article 14(1) of the ICCPR. “The presiding judge of the chamber trying Saddam Hussein changed twice, as the result of political pressure. The current presiding judge is reported to have made statements incompatible with impartiality and the presumption of innocence enshrined in Article 14(2) of the ICCPR. The known circumstances surrounding the changes of the presiding judge of the trial chamber render the fact that the identities of the other judges composing the chamber are not known all the more preoccupying... Neither the defendants nor the public are in a position to verify whether these judges meet the requirements for judicial office, whether they are affiliated with political forces, whether their impartiality and independence is otherwise undermined.”

The UN Working Group also concluded that Mr. Hussein “did not get adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence,” as mandated by Article 14(3) of the ICCPR. “The severe restriction on access to top lawyers of his own choosing and the presence of U.S. officials at such meetings violated his right to communicate with counsel. The assassination of two of his counsel during the course of his trial, Mr. Sadoun al-Janabi on 20 October 2005 and Mr. Khamis el-Obeidi on 21 June 2006 seriously undermined his right to defend himself through counsel of his own choosing.”

Finally, Mr. Hussein, according to WGAD, did not enjoy the possibility to “obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same condition as witnesses against him,” as required by Article 14(3)(e) of the ICCPR. “This guarantee was undermined by the failure to adequately disclose prosecution evidence to the defendants, the reading into the record of affidavits without an adequate possibility for the defence to challenge them and the sudden decision of the presiding judge to cut short the defence case on 13 June 2006.”

So pitiable has been the legal procedure that the defence was not even afforded the chance of making its final written submissions to the court, as specified by the SICT’s own rules. In their final plea, on the eve of the pronouncement of Sunday’s verdict, Mr. Hussein’s defence team argued that at the very least the court should comply with this legal requirement. But their plea fell on deaf ears because justice and law is not what the trial and tribunal are all about. Whatever his own sins, Mr. Hussein is being hanged to expiate for the transgressions of those who defied international law, world opinion, and common sense to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003. For them, sadly, there is no court where they could be arraigned. At least not today.

[TOP]

Victor’s Justice

- Paul Wolf, Lawyer on Defense Team -

The Iraqi high tribunal has just announced the death sentence of Saddam Hussein. This should surprise no one. In fact, no other outcome was ever possible. From the moment he was captured in his underground hideout, Saddam’s fate was sealed.

Saddam and the others were convicted for crimes that happened almost 25 years ago. One hundred forty-eight members of the pro-Iranian Da’wa Party were executed for attempting to assassinate Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The executions followed a two-year investigation, involving the torture and imprisonment of entire families, and judicial findings that 148 people were guilty of sedition for supporting Iran in the war and plotting to kill their own president.

While none of us would condone the mass execution of 148 people, we know little about what actually happened. Anonymous witnesses were brought forth, and in some cases the witnesses did not even appear, but submitted affidavits instead. These people testified to the terrible experiences they and their loved ones had in prison.

But whether they received fair trials, or were summarily executed, no one really knows. The transcripts of the 1982 proceedings, and the evidence used to convict the defendants, were excluded from the trial. It’s ironic that Saddam will be executed, in essence, for the unfair way in which these people were dealt with, yet his own trial was so unfair that the earlier proceedings and evidence were inadmissible.

Many have commented on the unfairness of Saddam’s trial. Some have remarked that the trial was a political circus, searching for reasons to justify the Iraq war and the ongoing occupation by U.S.-led forces. Yet few see the larger issue, which is that the court itself is illegal under international law, setting a terrible precedent that overshadows the need to avenge crimes of the Iran-Iraq War.

Let’s recall what happened. First, there was a lot of hysteria about Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction and support of al-Qaeda. Of course, none of it was true. By 2003, Iraq had been blockaded for 13 years and couldn’t threaten the United States or anyone else.

Nevertheless, the United Nations was maneuvered into putting more and more pressure on Iraq, with weapons inspectors crawling all over the country, frustrated and blamed for their failure to find anything. This culminated in the passage of Security Council Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with “serious consequences” if it did not fully cooperate with the inspections. The equivocal Hans Blix could never give Iraq a clean bill of health, and his reports were read to insinuate that Iraq did indeed have something to hide.

Yet Resolution 1441 contained no enforcement provision. It had been understood that the Security Council would have to pass further resolutions on sanctions if Iraq remained in non-compliance. Even John Negroponte, then the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said that Resolution 1441 contained no “hidden triggers” and no “automaticity.”

Washington’s threats to attack Iraq unilaterally were not well received internationally. Russia, China and France, three of the permanent members of the Security Council, were opposed to a preemptive U.S. attack. On March 5, 2003, France, Germany and Russia issued a joint statement vowing to block any resolution authorizing the use of force. Just two weeks later, the U.S. began the invasion.

Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, only the Security Council can authorize military attacks to enforce resolutions. Otherwise, the use of military force is only permitted in self-defense. The Security Council did not authorize the U.S. war in Iraq. The International Court of Justice has held that preemptive attacks violate customary international law as well as the UN Charter.

To make matters worse, at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the United States and Iraq had agreed to a ceasefire, the terms of which were set forth in UN Resolution 687. That ceasefire was still in force when the U.S. attacked Iraq. By any measure, the U.S. attack on Iraq was illegal.

Then the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, set up a new government and put the old government on trial. Not for weapons of mass destruction. Not for violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not for violating any Security Council resolution. In fact, the president of Iraq was held for two and a half years before he was even charged with a crime.

To charge him, the occupying power had to set up a special court and create special new laws. The process violated so many principles of international law that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked jurists around the world not to participate in it.

Unlike the ad hoc tribunals on Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, the trial of Saddam Hussein has been the justice of a military victor in war. If we look back in history, the last example of that was at Nuremberg. That’s how far the clock has been rolled back.

The Americans argue, of course, that the U.S. did not put Saddam Hussein on trial — the Iraqi people did so themselves. They did so, however, under the thumb of the U.S. military, which controls every aspect of the trial, including what is broadcast on television.

Michael Sharf, a law professor at Case Western University involved in training the Iraqi judges, last month referred to a “300-or-so-page judgment” of the court that is supposed to sort out all the legal problems when it’s released. There’s little doubt that the judgment is still being translated into Arabic.

In fact, the legitimacy of the government of Iraq is itself questionable, because the elections were rigged by the U.S. The United States determined which candidates were permitted on the ballot, and funded the campaigns of its favorites. Saddam Hussein, of course, was disqualified from running. Nuri al-Maliki, an old member of the Da’wa Party of Iran, won the election and is now prime minister of Iraq. Victor’s justice, all around.

Paul Wolf worked on the defense of Saddam Hussein. Documents from the case can be found at www.international-lawyers.org and at www.law.case.edu/saddamtrial.

[TOP]

Proceedings and Death Verdict Against Saddam Hussein by a Puppet Court Are Illegal, Unfair, and Invalid

- Prof. Jose Maria Sison, International League of Peoples’ Struggle, November 7, 2006 -

The proceedings and death verdict against Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, by a court of the puppet government under the U.S. Occupation in Iraq are illegal, unfair and invalid.

The court is a product and instrument of U.S. aggression. As the 1945 Nuremberg Charter states, “To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was made on the basis of lies and in violation of the UN Charter. Contrary to the claims of Bush, the Hussein government of Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction, did not have any connection with al Qaida and did not pose any threat to the U.S.

Under the Nuremberg and UN Charters, everything that has followed the U.S. aggression is illegal, from Mr. Bremer’s laws under the so-called coalition authority to the so-called new constitution of the puppet government.

Saddam Hussein is supposed to be a prisoner of war of the U.S. under the Geneva Conventions and is in fact under the custody of the U.S. military. In this connection, he cannot be tried under the U.S. Occupation for any alleged crime committed before the war of aggression unleashed in 2003.

The unfairness of the trial of Saddam Hussein has been underscored among others by the series of murders of his lawyers (as well as the lawyers of his co-defendants) and by the politically motivated substitution of judges. Even the timing of the death sentence on Hussein on Sunday, November 5 is meant to influence the impending November 7 midterm elections in favor of the Republican Party of Bush.

The charge against Hussein and his co-defendants for having allegedly murdered 143 people in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1982 pales in comparison to the far more colossal crime of aggression perpetrated by the U.S. against the Iraqi people.

The U.S. has already killed more than 650,000 Iraqi people since 2003, not to mention the death of more than 1.5 million Iraqis, including more than 500,000 children, during the 12-year period of bombings and economic sanctions from 1991 onwards. The killing rampage of the U.S. is unabated. The U.S. has also incurred nearly 3000 U.S. death casualties and nearly 40,000 wounded casualties.

U.S. imperialism is the plundering and murdering monster in the eyes of the Iraqi people and the people of the world. As the imperialist chieftain, Bush should be brought to court for having committed the worst possible crime, which is aggression. His crimes against humanity are incomparable to the charges being leveled against Saddam Hussein who has emerged as a patriot and martyr in the eyes of so many Iraqis and Arabs.

The brutal occupation of Iraq by the U.S. and its accomplices is inciting the people of Iraq to wage armed resistance to attain national liberation and democracy.

Prof. Jose Maria Sison is Chairperson, International Coordinating -Committee International League of Peoples’ Struggle.

[TOP]