Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Why killing Hussein would have been smarter

Appeasing the EU, the UN and the legal process do-gooders is a waste of time. Simply kill him.

by Ferdinand III

A potential Iraqi Prime Minister said it best. Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi who is a Shi’ite, said Hussein’s many crimes, from atrocities against his own people to the war with Iran, were evidence that “he deserves to be put to death without trial…This is no ordinary trial; it’s a trial that will judge Saddam and the members of his regime’s vicious crimes against humanity, even though he is being given a chance that he denied others during his rule.” Yet the Americans and their Iraqi counterparts have made the colossal error of putting this former fascist mass murderer and deranged despot on trial replete with million dollar lawyers, silk suits, good food and accommodation and all the trappings of royalty being interviewed by Hollywood. Is Hussein a condemned evil doer or a celebrity? Given the laughable nature of his ‘due process’ and the current trial, I would say he looks more like a celebrity not a homicidal fascist killer. It is only a matter of time before Hollywood starlets and high school dropouts posing as actors rush to his moral defense.

As Charles Krauthammer wrote, “War crimes trials are, above all and always, for educational purposes. This one was for the world to see and experience and recoil from the catalog of Hussein's crimes, and thus demonstrate the justice of a war that stripped this man and his gang of their monstrous and murderous power.” Yet the trial is going quite wrong for the US. As many predicted the Hussein soap box is now being turned against the US. Hussein has succeeded in putting the new regime on trial and is now criticizing the legitimacy of the war and occupation. The lead story of every court session has been his demeanor, his defiance, his imperiousness, his insults and his bravado that only he is the legitimate ruler of Iraq. No doubt many deformed people in the EU and Canada agree with him.

As Iraqi Vice President Yawar bitterly cried: "This has become a platform for Hussein to show himself as a caged lion when really he was a mouse in a hole." I don't know who is the genius who is producing this farce. It's a political process. It's a comedy show."

I don’t get it either. When asked about a possible capture and trial of Hitler Churchill was very direct and transparent stating that Hitler would be executed as a mass murdering criminal should be and that no trial would be countenanced for the madman from Linz Austria. Yet 60 years later apparently common sense has left the Americans. Some wits state that we must try Hussein to show that the justice system works and that all citizens have rights under a Western styled judicial system. After all we had the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War. But this is incorrect. The Nuremberg trials were showcases of Nazi guilt and atrocity. There were no million dollar lawyers; Al Jazeera [or pro Nazi] media cameras; nor any elongated discourse by Nazi leaders on their innocence and their divine right to rule. The data was collected, analyzed and presented and the Nazi leadership condemned and dispensed with. If Hitler had survived he would certainly have been shot out of hand.

But such commonsense is not to be found in today’s ‘sensitive’ world of due process. Now we have a diseased despot and a vast wickedness laughing at the US and the Iraqi government. Hussein appears and jeers at his prosecutors wearing $5.000 suits and expensive ties, well-groomed and fed, surrounded by high paid legal talent. He plays the benign father of his country, calling the judge "son," then threatens the judge's life. Hussein shouts, defies, and brandishes a Koran while screaming that the trial is illegitimate. The judge keeps telling him he's out of order. He disobeys with impunity, tells the judge to shut-up whilst the guards stand at attention and do nothing.

So what message does this ‘due process’ give? Not killing this tyrant and wicked man out of hand has only served to tell Iraqi’s and the Middle East that we are weak. Not killing Hussein emboldens the terrorist attacks on Iraqi civil society. It is obvious that a large part of this insurgency problem is funded by Hussein and his ill gotten billions collected during the UN’s corrupt Oil for Food scam. As long as he lives he can order through his minions the dispensation of monies and supplies. His former colleagues are no doubt knee deep in leading the terrorist attacks against innocents. Seeing their leader mocking the US must no doubt give them great comfort to keep on fighting. Until now, these fascists and baathists who constitute the bulk of this Sunni terrorist insurgency had no symbolic presence, no political platform, no visible leadership. We have now given that to them in the person of a strutting, shouting and sneering Hussein. It is high time to end the nonsense and execute Hussein for high crimes against the Iraqi people and against humanity. Suffering the insolence of this fascist pest only encourages our enemies.

Bush went to war for 23 good reasons cited in the act signed by Congress. Killing Hussein is part of establishing a civil society in Iraq and one of many good reasons the US is occupying Iraq. Personally I would prefer to see Hussein tortured and then crucified and then left outside in central Baghdad on a cross. But that probably would not play too well to the media elite and the crying compassionates that now form Western society and its foreign policy. Certainly the International Court in the Hague would indict the US for a crime or two if such were to occur. Such is the sad twisted world we live in when the advice of Churchill regarding killing Hitler instead of allowing him to mock due process, is ignored and we give Hussein a forum to spit out his venom and opprobrium.

But then again ignoring history and common sense and appeasing Islam is standard policy. Perhaps by not crucifying Hussein and letting him scream and yell insults at the Iraqi legal prosecution while wearing nice suits will make the Arabs and Islamacists like us. I doubt it however. More probably the Arab and Islamic fascists will understand that we are in some ways weak, indecisive, feminine and resolute to be confused and their jihad against the West will only intensify.