From Baghdad Burning

It’s official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It’s outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we’d at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We’ve spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior– After nearly four years and Bush’s biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He’s like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It’s almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We’re in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Read More Lynching

From The Independent UK
By Rupert Cornwell

When they hanged him, he was America’s vanquished foe, likened to Hitler and Stalin for the murderous evil of his ways. What is forgotten is that once, for more than a decade, Saddam Hussein was staunchly supported by the US.

Indeed, it was Washington that supplied him with many of the weapons of mass destruction the dictator used against his foes - weapons that one day would serve as a pretext for the US-led invasion that toppled him.

The dealings between the US and Saddam’s Iraq over the quarter of a century before 2003 are a story of deceit, miscalculation and strategic blunders by both sides. And they began, as they would end, in the shadow of a common enemy: Iran.

Saddam seized complete power in 1978. Two years later he attacked Iran, in what he called an “Arab war against the Persians”, to overthrow the Islamic revolutionary regime.

Washington was under no illusions about the brutality of Saddam’s regime. But as Tehran gained the upper hand in the fighting, he came to be seen as the lesser of two evils - a vital bulwark against domination by a radical, anti-Western Iran of the strategically vital Gulf region, with its colossal oil reserves.

Read More Monster

From Newsweek
By Fareed Zakaria

The saga of Saddam’s end–his capture, trial and execution–is a sad metaphor for America’s occupation of Iraq. What might have gone right went so wrong. It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein was not your run-of-the-mill dictator. He created one of the most brutal, corrupt and violent regimes in modern history, something akin to Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China or Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. Whatever the strategic wisdom for the United States, deposing him began as something unquestionably good for Iraq.

But soon the Bush administration dismissed the idea of trying Saddam under international law, or in a court with any broader legitimacy. This is the administration, after all, that could see little advantage to a United Nations mandate for its own invasion and occupation. It put Saddam’s fate in the hands of the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians who had been victims of his reign. As a result, Saddam’s trial, which should have been the judgment of civilized society against a tyrant, is now seen by Iraq’s Sunnis and much of the Arab world as a farce, reflecting only the victors’ vengeance.

This was not inevitable. Most Iraqis were happy to see Saddam out of power. In the months after the American invasion, support for the Coalition Provisional Authority topped 70 percent. This was so even among Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. In the first months of the insurgency, only 14 percent of them approved of attacks on U.S. troops. (That number today is 70 percent.) The rebellious area in those early months was not (Sunni) Fallujah but (Shiite) Najaf.

Read more Vengeance

From Information Clearinghouse
By Wm. Terry Leichner

Once again the barbarians have succeeded in professing human dignity while ignoring human life’s sanctity. My thoughts are filled with disgust as the so called civilized world revels in the hanging of Saddam Hussein yesterday.

Don’t mistake my total distaste of the execution of Hussein for any alliance or sympathy for the tyrant killer. I just tire of the “morally superior” position of this nation (U.S.) when it comes to the administration’s posturing around the capture, trial and execution of the man our government installed in the first place.

We did the same thing with Noriega in Panama and Diem in Vietnam. This names only a couple of many tyrants our nation has been responsible for bringing to power and maintaining in power at the expense of their own citizens.

Let’s not forget the now infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld warmly greeting Saddam back in the 1980’s when it was ever so convenient to have a dictator in charge of a country with the second largest oil reserve in the world.

Let’s not forget how we encouraged an uprising against Saddam after Gulf War I and then abandoned the rebels to be killed and tortured by his ruthless police.

Let’s not forget when sanctions were in place, blocking even humanitarian aid such as medical supplies and water purification, Dick Cheney went around the rules that made it a crime to provide any supplies. By using the European branch of Halliburton (he was CEO at the time) Cheney helped supply Saddam with pipe for the oil fields. No doubt the costs were marked up and Halliburton made a tidy profit.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of children who died as result of sanctions. The deaths could have been easily prevented had medical supplies and water treatment supplies been allowed.

Obviously the American government put more value on oil than the lives of a million Iraqi children. When people in groups like Voices in the Wilderness requested permission to enter Iraq to bring supplies they were denied. When Madeline Albright was informed of the dying children she dismissed it as the cost that had to be paid.

When Kathy Kelly of Voices went to Iraq independently the American government made threats of imprisoning her and handing out large monetary fines. Dick Cheney as Vice President of the United States is exempt from prosecution for his ventures into Iraq with Halliburton-Europe.

Read More Cover Up

From Newsweek
By Howard Fineman

Evil was on the loose in the world, President George W. Bush had told the country, and on his first Thanksgiving in office–November 2001–he was on his way to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to dine with newly trained troops heading out to fight the (evil) Taliban in Afghanistan. In the conference room aboard Air Force One, we talked about evil. “Is Saddam evil?” I asked. Glancing across the table at his aides, he demurred. I asked again; again, a demurral. We went on to other topics. Several exchanges later, Bush interrupted an answer to blurt out a declaration: “By the way, Saddam is evil!”

When the history is written, the saga of the Bushes and the Butcher of Baghdad will be a central thread of the family’s story–and of America’s at the millennium.

Read More Drama

From The Sydney Morning Herald

The US military death toll in Iraq has reached 3,000, an unwelcome milestone for President George W Bush who is searching for a way to turn around the unpopular war even if it means sending more troops.

The Web site, http://www.icasualties.org, listed the death of Specialist Dustin R. Donica, 22, on December 28 as previously unreported and said his death, together with that of an unidentified soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday, brought the toll to 3,000.

The mark was reached as Bush weighs options, including a short-term increase in forces of up to 30,000, to help control the deteriorating situation in Iraq where daily violence plagues Baghdad and much of the country.

“Every loss is regretted and there is no special significance to the overall number of casualties,” said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros.

Analysts called 3,000 deaths a major personal tragedy but said it had limited political and military significance. Anti-war activists vowed to use the milestone as a catalyst to press for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Read more 3000

From The Guardian UK
In this remarkable dispatch, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, one of the few journalists who can still move freely about Baghdad, watches the execution with Sunni insurgents

In a small, bare living room in Baghdad, two Sunni mujahideens, Abu A’isha and his friend Abu Hamza, sat mesmerised. The Shia-controlled state TV was showing the final moments of the life of their former leader, the noose being tightened around his neck. Saddam was dressed in a black coat, his black dyed hair pushed to the back, his hand and legs shackled. Men in civilian clothes and ski masks helped him up a small ladder. A trap door surrounded by a metal rail could be seen.

Saddam appeared a little confused and exchanged a few words with his masked hangman, who gestured at his neck. Saddam nodded and the hangman wrapped a black piece of cloth around his neck.

‘They killed him, is that possible?’ Abu Hamza, a muscled Sunni insurgent in his early thirties asked in disbelief. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ he continued, resting his head on his palm. The TV channel repeated the scenes many times, cut before the actual execution moment and followed by television scenes of jubilant Shia men and boys dancing, accompanied by patriotic songs. ‘Those Shia, they killed him on the day of the Eid just to humiliate us,’ said Abu Hamza.

Abu A’isha, a mid-level commander of an insurgency group in west Baghdad, short, stout, in his forties and dressed in a blue tracksuit, was more calm. ‘It’s better for the jihad,’ he explained. ‘Every time the mujahideen do an operation they say it’s the people of Saddam. Where is Saddam now? Let’s see if his death will affect the jihad. Of course it won’t.’ He added: ‘The resistance is led by the Islamists, and we don’t love Saddam. It’s good that he is out of the picture. Now things will be clearer.”

Read More History

From Common Dreams
By Martin Schram

There are two schools of thought about the tradition that highly trained professional pundits practice at this time of year by unveiling their New Year’s predictions.

Some say these predictions are not worth the paper they are written on. But I say they are. Punditry predictions are worth the price of one slim piece of newsprint — if not in its pristine form, then certainly after the accrued accumulation after the newsprint is recycled as lining in birdcages.

By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated as America’s 43rd president, it had become apparent that nothing uplifting could be predicted with confidence. Rather than start a new year off by gushing gloom and doom, I gave requisite prognostication a rest.

Nobody wants to be The Grinch Who Stole New Year’s. But the slim possibility that some good may be accomplished by telling an unpleasant truth means that 2007 may be a year to get back into the New Year’s prediction business.

Unconscionable blunders of willful arrogance and willful ignorance on the part of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld produced a failed policy in Iraq that is more perilous than any of the failed policies of any of the presidencies in our nation’s history. These policies have left more than 130,000 brave U.S. troops mired in Iraq, with no sure way to accomplish their mission nor extricate themselves without leaving behind a failed state that is even worse.

Months ago, it seemed to me that we needed to rush more troops to Iraq to help safeguard U.S. soldiers and marines who are now caught in the uncivil war that is being waged between the Sunni insurgents and the Shi’a militias and their complicit police thugs.

But Bush rejected more troops when it made sense. Now the Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned that a 15,000-30,000 troop surge for a few months will do more harm than good. Their reasoning is compelling: More troops may mean more targets for insurgents and militia and may spark a new recruiting boost for al Qaeda’s terrorist ranks in the region and beyond.

Prediction: Bush, now a desperate Undecider, will compel a military fig-leaf acquiescence and order more troops for a few-months surge. Sadly, it will only prove his Joint Chiefs of Staff were right. Only by starting to withdraw troops can the United States jolt Iraq’s government so that its Shi’a-installed leaders will demand the disbanding of Shi’a militia — and that is the only way Iraq can even have a chance of controlling its own destiny.

Read More Worst

From Informed Comment
By Juan Cole

Iraqi guerrillas killed 6 more GIs and AP put the total dead in combat at 2998. The dreadful milestone of 3000 is upon us.

Like all statistics, this one is deceptive. It does not include US troops killed in Afghanistan, that oddly forgotten war where the US still has a division engaging in active combat. Nor is it nice to ignore NATO dead in Afghanistan, including French and Canadians (yes).

The number does not include the Coalition troops killed in Iraq. The sacrifices of the British, Italians, and others should be included.

And why ignore the seriously wounded? These brave warriors have brain damage, or spinal damage, or have lost limbs or been burned and disfigured. There are probably 8000 of them. Their sacrifice should be foregrounded. Life is not going to be easy for them, and they are not goiing to get that much help from Bush.

Indeed, why not count all the wounded? The number must be near 25000 by now.

Read more 3000

From Unclaimed Territory
By Glen Greenwald

President Bush today hailed the critical importance of fair trials and the rule of law . . . . in Iraq:

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

The President is certainly right that it is is a good thing that Saddam Hussein was given a trial, represented by lawyers, with an opportunity to contest his guilt, before being deemed to be guilty. That is how civilized countries function, by definition. In fact, allowing people fair trials before treating them as Guilty is one of the handful of defining attributes — one could even say (as the American Founders did) a prerequisite — for countries to avoid tyranny.

That is why it is so reprehensible and inexpressibly tragic that the Bush administration continues to claim — and aggressively exercise — the power to imprison and punish people without even a pretense or fraction of the due process that Saddam Hussein enjoyed. The Bush administration believes that it has the power to imprison whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, without even giving them access to the outside world, let alone “a fair trial.” The power which it claims — which it has seized — extends not only to foreign nationals but legal residents and even its own citizens.

Read more Fair Trials