Uri Avnery on Saddam capture, trial, and the war

[DuctapeFatwa]

The spectacle was disgusting."Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it, and it displeaseth Him, and He turn away His wrath from him!" Thus commandeth the ancient Jewish moral code (Proverbs, 24, 16).The writer of this warning knew, of course, that every person tends to gloat when his enemy falls. But he wanted to point out that this is an ugly human trait and one should try to overcome it. And now a mighty world-power has sunk to this level. It is repeatedly displaying the spectacle of American soldiers looking for lice in the hair of a miserable Saddam and poking about among his teeth. If it is possible at all to evoke pity for a man like Saddam..the Americans have achieved this. By showing him off as a drugged tramp, they created the opposite effect from what they wanted. The Vatican has called for mercy....This may cost blood, much blood. (Not long ago, the United States cried to high heaven when the Iraqis showed off some American prisoners. But there are apparently no mirrors in Washington DC.)

The Americans invaded Iraq in order to remain there. They did not invade because of "international terror". Nor because of "weapons of mass destruction". It’s the oil that drew them there...Saddam has been eliminated - and the Americans are not heading home. Elections could be held at once. But the Americans refuse. They want to keep their marionettes in place, so they can invite the Americans to stay forever. The American occupation will last a long, long time. It is not a means. It is the aim. The toppling of Saddam will not be the end of the war. It will only be the beginning. This forecast is now being confirmed in the most extreme fashion. No people resigns itself to foreign occupation. Occupation breeds resistance..The vicious circle so well known to Israelis....The public humiliation of the defeated leader will only accelerate the process.

A vanquished Saddam will be more dangerous than a victorious Saddam. The question arises: what to do with the prisoner?..in a fair trial Saddam would use the public platform to make his own accusations and reach out to hundreds of millions of Arabs and other Muslims. The best would have been to let him escape to the Fiji islands, there to live out his life quietly, like Idi Amin in Saudi Arabia. But George Bush needs the ongoing humiliation of Saddam for his reelection campaign. The only reasonable way out now is to transfer Saddam to The Hague. In the eyes of the world, he is entitled to the same treatment as another political mass-murderer, Slobodan Milosevic. If he is treated differently, every Muslim will rightly suspect that there is a double standard: one for a Christian European leader, one for a Muslim Arab one. But Bush will not be satisfied until the body of Saddam is hanging in a public square in Baghdad - perhaps the same square where his statue stood before it was toppled in a carefully staged TV spectacle.

The talk about bringing democracy to Iraq is hypocritical nonsense. .What is happening now to Western democracy in Russia? Ask any Russian, and he will burst out laughing. Iraq will disintegrate....In a democratic regime...A simple fact: The Shiites have a majority. They will rule. There is no chance at all that that they would institute a benevolent regime, after their long oppression by the Sunnis. There is no chance that the Sunnis in central Iraq, who despise the Shiites, would accept their supremacy. There is no chance that the Kurds in the north, who have always fought for their independence, would accept Arab rule...The Americans can prevent the disintegration of Iraq only by maintaining an occupation regime...When Iraq will cease to exist for practical purposes, a new balance of power will come about. For centuries Iraq has served as the eastern wall of the Arab world, a barrier against Iran - which has never forgotten the days of Cyrus, when it was the regional power. The fall of this wall will change the geo-political situation in the entire region, which includes Israel. The implosion of Iraq will be the signal for general anarchy: the Arab world will be in turmoil, Islamic fundamentalism will threaten all Arab regimes, the border between Turkey and the Kurdish-Iraqi state will heat up, between Israel and Iran a nuclear balance of terror may or may not hold, "international terror" will turn from legend to reality. Since it is neither nice nor wise to say "I told you so," I will restrain myself.


http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/December/22%20o/Uri%20Avnery%20on%20Saddam%20capture,%20trial,%20and%20the%20war.htm

[Karenina]

1. Truth written

clearly and concisely... NO RESPONSE. :sigh: