Saddam Hussein may soon be executed and at the end of his life, he is the main character in a drama that no fiction writer would concoct. The writer would be deemed mad; out of touch with reality. Saddam finds himself in hyper reality however. Fitting perhaps, for a man that has lived a surreal life.
Show Time
This show trial has now resumed after a hiatus. Prior to that, the trial had been a public spectacle on the world stage. Now, at its resumption, the unprincipled lynch mob that presents itself as a trial adheres to its lynch mob quality of legal professionalism. It promises to remain a public spectacle on the world stage. The trial grinds along as lawyers are murdered, witnesses for Saddam risk their lives by testifying and witnesses against him are hidden and unnamed. The court room is an ongoing reality show on par with Jerry Springer.
It is in our interests that this trial is legitimate in the eyes of the Arab world, the Iraqis, and in the world as a whole. Saddam Hussein has been a tyrant and has ruthlessly killed scores of political opponents. A kangaroo court, such as it is, will not get at the nitty gritty of what has happened in Saddam's life. He will be found guilty and perhaps executed but in the eyes of everyone that has the flimsiest respect for legal processes, this will not be legitimate. It will simply be some of what Saddam meted out come home to roost. A wave of karma from the depths of hell, but not legitimate.
Getting to the truth of not only Saddam's crimes but what his accomplices have done in the past is an important chaper of the history of the Middle East. It is also an important chaper in American history and learning what has happened will educate us in the art of tyranny. This is an art that we better understand because tyranny isn't going to disappear tomorrow or the next day. We need to understand what makes these psychopaths tick.
A fair and open trial, carried out preferably outside a war zone, conducted under the auspices of the UN, would serve to illuminate the charatcer of not only Saddam Hussein, but of all those that have cultivated his demonic rise to power. The problem is that the very same powers that helped him rise to his throne where he sat for so many years are the ones that are building his gallows today.
His Accomplices
There is a murky world waiting to be exposed. In that murky world there is plenty of evidence showing Saddam and the Americans in cahoots. Not only during the bloodbath between Iraq and Iran in the 80s, but well before that. In the 1980s, Saddam and Western governments collaborated against Islamic Iran. Iran had recently thrown out another American placed tyrant willing to liberally slaughter opponents, the Shah. It was quite natural then for neo cons such as Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher to applaud and support Saddam's criminal Iran war. He is not, by the way, being tried for this particular crime (the Iran war), his grandest crime of all.
Well before the atrocities of the 80s and 90s, Saddam was a CIA stooge and anti-communist thug. In the 1950s, the threat of communism gaining a foothold in Iraq was a serious threat to the Americans. The Americans overthrew General Kassam in Iraq in 1963 and had developed close ties with the Baath Party to this end. At the time, Saddam was a minor stooge who was willing to kill to advance his station. In 1958 he had served six months in jail for killing a relative who was a communist. After that the CIA said, 'he's our man'. A month after the coup in 1963, Saddam retuned from exile in Egypt (having fled after his part in attempting to kill Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem in Baghdad) and went to work as a torturer and killer of communists in the Fellaheen and Muthaqafeen detention camps.
In 1968 the Baath Party successfully fought its way into power and gained control of Iraq. Again, this had the backing of the CIA. In 1979 Saddam grabbed the reigns of power amidst his passion for the anti opposition purges he was conducting at the time.
In 1980, Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran. They used brutal means of collective punishment against the people of Iran and backstage, there was applauding and cheering from the very same folks that are fixing to execute him now. Ronald Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Saddam in 1983 and 1984 to discuss cooperation between America and Iraq (They had fallen out after the Baathists warmed up to the Soviets). They discussed the war, further arming of Iraq, economic collboration, the provision of intelligence, loans and so on. Rumsfeld does not want Saddam talking to the world about what was said behind closed doors. At the times Rumsfeld knew he was using poison gas and he also knew that Saddam was buying military weaponry from American firms.
The Iraqis slaughtered Kurds using poison gas and likely used American helocopters to do it. The Americans responded in the most lackluster way they could. They had no choice but to condemn it, but they made sure that Saddam knew that it would not alter diplomatic or economic relations. In the UN the Americans engineered a statement that condemned the use of chemical weapons without naming names. The Americans knew that he was using poison gas against the Kurds and they did nothing.
It is no surprise that the Americans are not going to expose this murky world that they and Saddam shared. It is this as a backdrop to the farce, the bizarre show trial that is going on today. Saddam had accomplices to his crimes, not only in Baghdad, but in Washington as well. In some cases it is the very same individuals that were involved back then as are involved now with this spectacle.
If he takes the stand and is free to speak, he will have stories to tell. As it is, the judges at the trial have the time delay and the switch to shut off the microphones when something is said to offend the hangmen. He may talk about how the West helped him in the manufacture of chemical weapons. He may discuss collaboration and deals that are well buried in the private world of madmen.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Working for the Enemy
Don Bragg and Elvis Hatfield toiled in dangerous conditions to provide food, clothing, shelter and Christmas toys for their children. Unfortunately, their employer was their enemy. Their employer placed profit above the safety coal miners and the miners died as a result.
The two miners died in the Alma mine in West Virginia. This tragedy follows on the heels of 12 other miners deaths in West Virginia who died in an explosion.
Class Conflict
The governor of the state is busy making proclamations that mine safety will become a priority - starting now. Politicians and owners always make such proclamations after workers deaths. What else are they going to do? Part of the problem is defined in the question; Why do miners work in such dangerous conditiuons in the first place? Mines are inherently dangerous, yes. But there is no need for deaths in coal mines. Death is preventable.
The problem is essentially this. The more owners have to pay attention to health and safety for employees, the less profit they make. It is in the interests of owners to ignore safety. A safe mine requires inspections, equipment that is working properly, and a particular kind of culture. That culture is a culture of safety and that includes the safety to report dangers with no fear of reprisals. A culture where managers actually want workers to report safety problems.
Unfortunately, the culture of profit has an inherent fear of bosses built in. If managers cut the most coal with the fewest stoppages for maintenance and safety problems, they will be slapped on the back by their bosses and congratulated. On the other hand, if a manager is always complaining about cutting coal too fast or overheated bearings or bad roof conditions, he will not be a manager for long.
Evidence of this is apparent in an interview with an anonymous miner in the New York Times (Ian Urbina, Jan.22) who asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisals from his employer. He said that he had put out a fire in the same place on December 23rd and reported it to his boss who ignored it. This is the crux of the matter. The miner lives in fear. Not only the fear of being killed in the mine, but he lives with the fear of losing his livlihood. Not only miners know this oppression but many other workers that face danger at work can understand exactly the plight of this double and conflicting fear. If they say anything about what they can see that might kill them, they will be out of work. If they lose their jobs, not only do their wives and kids face destitution, they also face the stigma and the direct pain of poverty.
In the very narrow frame of reference within American economics and politics, there are no choices. From that perspctive it is the profiteer that is God and the provider of wages and security. It is the same force that is forcing you to risk your life for bread that has created the job in the first place. Either you work for the owner or you take your chances at Wal Mart or on welfare.
The mine owners have state and federal politicians on their side. The politicians will not impose legislation that will affect profits because politicians and profit makers are working in their own best interests. The only way the miners get anything out of it is that they are granted the privelige of risking their lives to make profit for the owners who bribe politicians and often know them personally.
The governor said that he will impose legislation on Monday to improve mine safety. But as Democrat Nick Rahall (another local politician) suggested, "...every coal mine health and safety law on the books is written with the blood of miners". This again reflects the reality that no safety or regulations are put in place without force. Any safety measures or regulations run against the tide of neo liberal, free wheeling, unbridled, capitalism. Anything goes; the bosses are feudal lords. For the governor to remin a good governor in the eyes of his lords, he will shuffle this off until the heat dies and let it go. Either that or he will get a bill through that has no teeth.
The Enemy
The mine is owned by the Massey Energy Company, a rabid privateer with a strong anti union bent. The mine is actually operated by Aracoma Coal which is owned by Massey. It is part of Massey's operating strategy to use subsidiaries to avoid the extra expenses (wages, safety rules, etc.) that a union would force upon them.
Massey Energy fought hard against unions in the past and has shut down mines to then re open them under the name of a subsidiary. Massey energy is well connected, not only to local and state politicians but to the Bush administration as well. It is no surprise that there have been cutbacks to federal safety mechanisms such as mine inspectors under Bush's reign. As losely regulated as it is, the Alma mine still manageed to receive over 100 warnings from the federal mine and safety body (MSHA) in the past year.
West Virginia tragedies are not isolated incidents. Miners have gone for too long down into mines they knew would kill them and yet, to feed their families, did it anway. In coal mines and many other workplaces, workers face living with dangerous conditions and keeping quiet about it or face loss of wages. This double layered oppression is unacceptable and cruel. Miners should not have to live in constant fear and neither should any other worker. They often find themselves in an enviornment where speaking up would mean not only the risk of being fired but also of social ostracization as a trouble maker or rabble rouser.
Today and tomorrow miners will continue to travel down into the bowels of the earth, fishermen will go out to sea on poorly equipped ships, and workers will force themselves into plants run by petty tyrants. They are torn between their very rational fear of being killed and the smiles on their wives faces trudging home with Christmas presents for the kids. They are torn between the social acceptance that goes with being a worker and the rejection and stigma that goes with not having work. They are torn between pride and fear of death. And each time the miners look up and see that round diminishing hole of light at the surface disappear into a pinhole and then into blackness they have to wonder whether they will ever see sunlight again.
The two miners died in the Alma mine in West Virginia. This tragedy follows on the heels of 12 other miners deaths in West Virginia who died in an explosion.
Class Conflict
The governor of the state is busy making proclamations that mine safety will become a priority - starting now. Politicians and owners always make such proclamations after workers deaths. What else are they going to do? Part of the problem is defined in the question; Why do miners work in such dangerous conditiuons in the first place? Mines are inherently dangerous, yes. But there is no need for deaths in coal mines. Death is preventable.
The problem is essentially this. The more owners have to pay attention to health and safety for employees, the less profit they make. It is in the interests of owners to ignore safety. A safe mine requires inspections, equipment that is working properly, and a particular kind of culture. That culture is a culture of safety and that includes the safety to report dangers with no fear of reprisals. A culture where managers actually want workers to report safety problems.
Unfortunately, the culture of profit has an inherent fear of bosses built in. If managers cut the most coal with the fewest stoppages for maintenance and safety problems, they will be slapped on the back by their bosses and congratulated. On the other hand, if a manager is always complaining about cutting coal too fast or overheated bearings or bad roof conditions, he will not be a manager for long.
Evidence of this is apparent in an interview with an anonymous miner in the New York Times (Ian Urbina, Jan.22) who asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisals from his employer. He said that he had put out a fire in the same place on December 23rd and reported it to his boss who ignored it. This is the crux of the matter. The miner lives in fear. Not only the fear of being killed in the mine, but he lives with the fear of losing his livlihood. Not only miners know this oppression but many other workers that face danger at work can understand exactly the plight of this double and conflicting fear. If they say anything about what they can see that might kill them, they will be out of work. If they lose their jobs, not only do their wives and kids face destitution, they also face the stigma and the direct pain of poverty.
In the very narrow frame of reference within American economics and politics, there are no choices. From that perspctive it is the profiteer that is God and the provider of wages and security. It is the same force that is forcing you to risk your life for bread that has created the job in the first place. Either you work for the owner or you take your chances at Wal Mart or on welfare.
The mine owners have state and federal politicians on their side. The politicians will not impose legislation that will affect profits because politicians and profit makers are working in their own best interests. The only way the miners get anything out of it is that they are granted the privelige of risking their lives to make profit for the owners who bribe politicians and often know them personally.
The governor said that he will impose legislation on Monday to improve mine safety. But as Democrat Nick Rahall (another local politician) suggested, "...every coal mine health and safety law on the books is written with the blood of miners". This again reflects the reality that no safety or regulations are put in place without force. Any safety measures or regulations run against the tide of neo liberal, free wheeling, unbridled, capitalism. Anything goes; the bosses are feudal lords. For the governor to remin a good governor in the eyes of his lords, he will shuffle this off until the heat dies and let it go. Either that or he will get a bill through that has no teeth.
The Enemy
The mine is owned by the Massey Energy Company, a rabid privateer with a strong anti union bent. The mine is actually operated by Aracoma Coal which is owned by Massey. It is part of Massey's operating strategy to use subsidiaries to avoid the extra expenses (wages, safety rules, etc.) that a union would force upon them.
Massey Energy fought hard against unions in the past and has shut down mines to then re open them under the name of a subsidiary. Massey energy is well connected, not only to local and state politicians but to the Bush administration as well. It is no surprise that there have been cutbacks to federal safety mechanisms such as mine inspectors under Bush's reign. As losely regulated as it is, the Alma mine still manageed to receive over 100 warnings from the federal mine and safety body (MSHA) in the past year.
West Virginia tragedies are not isolated incidents. Miners have gone for too long down into mines they knew would kill them and yet, to feed their families, did it anway. In coal mines and many other workplaces, workers face living with dangerous conditions and keeping quiet about it or face loss of wages. This double layered oppression is unacceptable and cruel. Miners should not have to live in constant fear and neither should any other worker. They often find themselves in an enviornment where speaking up would mean not only the risk of being fired but also of social ostracization as a trouble maker or rabble rouser.
Today and tomorrow miners will continue to travel down into the bowels of the earth, fishermen will go out to sea on poorly equipped ships, and workers will force themselves into plants run by petty tyrants. They are torn between their very rational fear of being killed and the smiles on their wives faces trudging home with Christmas presents for the kids. They are torn between the social acceptance that goes with being a worker and the rejection and stigma that goes with not having work. They are torn between pride and fear of death. And each time the miners look up and see that round diminishing hole of light at the surface disappear into a pinhole and then into blackness they have to wonder whether they will ever see sunlight again.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Slaughter in Bajaur
On Friday, January 13, an American air strike killed at least 18 people in Pakistan. Eight of them were women and six of them were children. Children that had to be protected from scary things like ghosts and goblins by their mothers were suddenly snuffed out by American bombs. Those that survive will live in fear for the rest of their lives after such a brutal and inhumane event. After such a slaughter, it will be imposible for mothers or anybody else make those children feel secure. The psychological impact of war on the survivors is far more severe than most people imagine.
Collective Punishment
This is not an aberration and that is what is most alarming. We have come to look at such events as if its just another American mistake. How many times have innocent villagers been massacred by Americans? The Americans will say that they have received bad intelligence and deem it an unfortunate event. But what is really going on here is collective punishment. This feature of American foriegn policy is not new. The sanctions that were imposed on Iraq killed many thousands of Iraqi children and some estimate that over one million Iraqis have died as a result of them. It was collective punishment on a grand scale. The mass slaughter that is still happening all over Iraq is an extension of this. What happened in Falluja was another example of collective punishment when Falluja was singled out after American bodies were abused in public. There are many more.
What will happen regarding the attack in Bajaur on the 13th, predicatably, is that the Americans will say that they acted on false information. What is important to notice here is that they won't deny they did it. They want the world to know they did it.
The Americans reasoning is that if the human misery is bad enough, the victims will rise up and replace the status quo with something that can facilitate peace. Peace will only occur when the Americans are placated. That is the mesage. The imperial view is that if they instill a sufficient amount of fear in people, the people will behave like quislings and cowards. Although this formula doesn't seem to be working the murderers still hold fast to the theory.
This recent incident occured in the Bajaur region of Pakistan which is considered by the Americans an area where pro Taliban sympathies run high. The government of Pakistan was forced to lodge a protest against U.S. forces after they recently killed eight villagers in the nearby Waziristan area. But Pakistan has an spineless puppet firmly in place, General Pervez Musharraf, who is controlled by Bush, and is incapable of speaking against his master. Don't expect anything but weak lip service that is aimed to placate legitimate anger in Pakistan.
The Americans immediately follow such events with loud proclamations that the attack killed some cartoonish enemy of the American people. This serves to remove attention from the fact that what they are doing is as evil as what they accuse the enemies of America of doing. The American media are lulled into the hypnosis of power. They will report on who al-Zawahiri is with all the depth and analysis of any cartoon and the dangers of radical Islam with the same simplistic style. This has been an ongoing pattern and while the drones in mainstream media report from their hypnotic stupor, the administration plans and carries out further criminal massacres of innocent civilians.
Above the Law
Another sustantial aspect of this latest war crime in Pakistan is that it happened in Pakistan. Again, the Bush administration is pushing the envelope in terms of what is acceptable for the empire. They not only disrespect the soveriegnty of deemed enemies, they also treat the soveriegnty of friendly nations and puppets with disdain.
This particular redefinition of what is acceptable (attacking people in non warring countries) is that there are rules for the American empire and there are rules for all the rest of the nations on the planet. The supreme commander can kill, arrest and torture people, and they can do it in any corner of the world. But if any other country should behave in such a manner, the empire would rule them to be dangerous tyrants. This attack within the borders of Pakistan is tacitly accepted by Pakistan, by mainstram media and many world leaders as another event in America's war on terrorism. If this attack against Pakistan is accepted today, it will be accepted tomorrow when it happens in Venezuela or Iran and everywhere else the day after.
The formula they use is to commit further and more outlandish atrocities and not deny it. They justify it in terms of the security of America, the war on terrorism, or some bizarre style of pre emptive self defense. They deem it war and within this context, anything is possible. The problem is that people and particularily American people, seem to swallow it. The formula seems to work well for them. The views of the average American are well out of step with the rest of the world. It has that spooky aura of Nazi Germany or Communist Albania.
War Crimes
Since the adminisrations slaughter of foriegn Taliban in Deceber of 2001, they have commited countless war crimes. They have waged war, plundered, taken hostages, used chemical weapons, transported prisoners to secret locations, tortured them, slaughtered civilians repeatedly and so on. They should not comfort themselves with the thought that these crimes are not being counted. They are being counted. History will never absolve the Bushites. On the contrary.
If they were to be judged and prosecuted on the standards of the International Military Tribunal against German war criminals in Nuremberg; Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and many other members of that cabal would be hanged.
This indiscriminate attack on the villagers in Pakistan is just one more example of collective punishment and it is another event that is, by any standards, a significant and major war crime.
Let us not become jaded. We cannot normalize slaughter or get used to it. If we allow the psychopaths do do this to our minds, they will have won an important psychological victory. At least 18 innocent people have been murdered by the Americans in Pakistan. Let's not forget it. And let's not forget the individual incidents that have caused such pain and misery for so many people, particularily those in Iraq. Let us make a list. In the future, it will be useful.
Collective Punishment
This is not an aberration and that is what is most alarming. We have come to look at such events as if its just another American mistake. How many times have innocent villagers been massacred by Americans? The Americans will say that they have received bad intelligence and deem it an unfortunate event. But what is really going on here is collective punishment. This feature of American foriegn policy is not new. The sanctions that were imposed on Iraq killed many thousands of Iraqi children and some estimate that over one million Iraqis have died as a result of them. It was collective punishment on a grand scale. The mass slaughter that is still happening all over Iraq is an extension of this. What happened in Falluja was another example of collective punishment when Falluja was singled out after American bodies were abused in public. There are many more.
What will happen regarding the attack in Bajaur on the 13th, predicatably, is that the Americans will say that they acted on false information. What is important to notice here is that they won't deny they did it. They want the world to know they did it.
The Americans reasoning is that if the human misery is bad enough, the victims will rise up and replace the status quo with something that can facilitate peace. Peace will only occur when the Americans are placated. That is the mesage. The imperial view is that if they instill a sufficient amount of fear in people, the people will behave like quislings and cowards. Although this formula doesn't seem to be working the murderers still hold fast to the theory.
This recent incident occured in the Bajaur region of Pakistan which is considered by the Americans an area where pro Taliban sympathies run high. The government of Pakistan was forced to lodge a protest against U.S. forces after they recently killed eight villagers in the nearby Waziristan area. But Pakistan has an spineless puppet firmly in place, General Pervez Musharraf, who is controlled by Bush, and is incapable of speaking against his master. Don't expect anything but weak lip service that is aimed to placate legitimate anger in Pakistan.
The Americans immediately follow such events with loud proclamations that the attack killed some cartoonish enemy of the American people. This serves to remove attention from the fact that what they are doing is as evil as what they accuse the enemies of America of doing. The American media are lulled into the hypnosis of power. They will report on who al-Zawahiri is with all the depth and analysis of any cartoon and the dangers of radical Islam with the same simplistic style. This has been an ongoing pattern and while the drones in mainstream media report from their hypnotic stupor, the administration plans and carries out further criminal massacres of innocent civilians.
Above the Law
Another sustantial aspect of this latest war crime in Pakistan is that it happened in Pakistan. Again, the Bush administration is pushing the envelope in terms of what is acceptable for the empire. They not only disrespect the soveriegnty of deemed enemies, they also treat the soveriegnty of friendly nations and puppets with disdain.
This particular redefinition of what is acceptable (attacking people in non warring countries) is that there are rules for the American empire and there are rules for all the rest of the nations on the planet. The supreme commander can kill, arrest and torture people, and they can do it in any corner of the world. But if any other country should behave in such a manner, the empire would rule them to be dangerous tyrants. This attack within the borders of Pakistan is tacitly accepted by Pakistan, by mainstram media and many world leaders as another event in America's war on terrorism. If this attack against Pakistan is accepted today, it will be accepted tomorrow when it happens in Venezuela or Iran and everywhere else the day after.
The formula they use is to commit further and more outlandish atrocities and not deny it. They justify it in terms of the security of America, the war on terrorism, or some bizarre style of pre emptive self defense. They deem it war and within this context, anything is possible. The problem is that people and particularily American people, seem to swallow it. The formula seems to work well for them. The views of the average American are well out of step with the rest of the world. It has that spooky aura of Nazi Germany or Communist Albania.
War Crimes
Since the adminisrations slaughter of foriegn Taliban in Deceber of 2001, they have commited countless war crimes. They have waged war, plundered, taken hostages, used chemical weapons, transported prisoners to secret locations, tortured them, slaughtered civilians repeatedly and so on. They should not comfort themselves with the thought that these crimes are not being counted. They are being counted. History will never absolve the Bushites. On the contrary.
If they were to be judged and prosecuted on the standards of the International Military Tribunal against German war criminals in Nuremberg; Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and many other members of that cabal would be hanged.
This indiscriminate attack on the villagers in Pakistan is just one more example of collective punishment and it is another event that is, by any standards, a significant and major war crime.
Let us not become jaded. We cannot normalize slaughter or get used to it. If we allow the psychopaths do do this to our minds, they will have won an important psychological victory. At least 18 innocent people have been murdered by the Americans in Pakistan. Let's not forget it. And let's not forget the individual incidents that have caused such pain and misery for so many people, particularily those in Iraq. Let us make a list. In the future, it will be useful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)