Sunday, December 31, 2006

local conservative mp colin mayes, flunks again

once again, our local mp Colin Mayes flaps his gums and blunders, as usual. one would think when he is talking on a particular subject, as in his latest report on 'the status of women' he would check and double check his facts.

a letter to the editor of our local newspaper the salmon arm observer publishes:

MP needs a political history lesson
Dec 27 2006

In his recent
MP Report, Colin Mayes claims that the first woman elected as an MP was a Conservative.

Does the man know nothing of Canadian political history?

Agnes MacPhail, first woman MP, was a member of the old Progressive party and certainly no ‘small c’ conservative. This pacifist and advocate for farmers, women’s rights and prison reform would turn over in her grave if she could hear herself being associated with the Harper Conservatives. By all historical accounts, Agnes MacPhail would have been appalled at the attitude of this government towards women.

Agnes MacPhail was elected to Parliament five times — the last time under OFO-Labour banner in 1935. She was a member of the Ginger socialist group from which the CCF grew — in fact, she was the first president of the Ontario CCF.

She was a Progressive not a Conservative Mr. Mayes.

Howard Brown


and as vernonblog points out:

Elections CanadaThe 1921 election made history in another way, as well. For the first time, the Liberals and Conservatives no longer held all the seats in the Commons. Sixty-four Progressives were sent to Parliament, nearly all of them farmers from Ontario and the West. Macphail sat with them in the Commons. The Progressives saw themselves not as a political party, but as a group of independents participating in a revolution against the two old parties, which, they charged, were dominated by the interests of business and the wealthy. These newcomers to Ottawa advocated group government in which legislators would make laws through co-operation and without having to follow partisan lines. While they had the second-largest block of seats in the Commons, the Progressives refused to be the Official Opposition.

For the first fourteen of her years in Parliament, Macphail's was the only female voice there. She was rumoured on several occasions to have been offered a Cabinet post by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, if she or the Progressives would join his Liberals. But she preferred to keep her independence and not have to follow the official line of a governing party.

1921 First woman elected to the Canadian House of Commons, Agnes Macphail"I want for myself what I want for other women, absolute equality. After that is secured, men and women can take turns at being angels." -- Agnes Macphail, first woman member of Canada's House of Commons

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saddam, cellphone video leak

Full Saddam Execution Video Leaked from Cellphone
Unofficial video, as officials taunted Saddam on the gallows
Warning: Could upset some viewers




http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=863ce7d4a3




And, from Roads to Iraq blog:

The video shows no blood on Saddam’s face and body, TV aired video of the body showed blood, cuts and bruises on the face.

Qudspress sources inside the Green Zone said:

The body of President Saddam Hussein, subjected to beatings and torture by the guards who were in charge of transportation the body.

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Who Armed Saddam, from the archives

Who armed Saddam?
Hartford Web Publishing, World History Archives
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 00:11:50 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lev Lafayette
Subject: Who armed Saddam
Organization: The University of Melbourne
Article: 142758


1. The British Foreign Office's Report on Strategic Export Controls (released last night) shows that:

a. Arms sales to Indonesia increased from #2m to #15.5m. Licences include all-wheel vehicles, components for aircraft cannon, combat aircraft and military aero-engines. This to a country that committed state-sponsored terror in East Timor.

b. Arms sales to Pakistan increased from #6m to #14m. This to a military dictatorship that created the Taliban.

2. In light of these figures, and the rhetoric of war against Iraq, some points need to be made. Given that Saddam is often described as a man who is willing to kill his own people by using chemical weapons, it's worth examining who armed him in the first place.

3. In the 1970s, Saddam approached the USSR, until then his conventional weapons supplier, to buy a plant to manufacture chemical weapons, but his request was refused. Saddam then began courting the West, and received a much more favourable response.

4. An American company, Pfaulder Corporation of Rochester, New York, supplied the Iraqis with a blueprint in 1975, enabling them to construct their first chemical warfare plant. The plant was purchased in sections from Italy, West Germany and East Germany and assembled in Iraq. It was located at Akhashat in north-western Iraq, and the cost was around $50 million for the plant and $30 million for the safety equipment.

5. British, French and German multinationals turned the request down on moral grounds or because the Iraqi delivery schedule couldn't be met—not because their governments objected.

6. The United States took other steps to ensure that Saddam's rule was strengthened. Mobile phone systems were mainly in the military domain at the time, but the United States government approved the 1975 sale by the Karkar Corporation of San Francisco of a complete mobile telephone system. The system was to be used by the Ba'ath Party loyalists to protect the regime against any attempts to overthrow it.

7. The United States also supplied Saddam with satellite pictures of Iranian positions during the Iran-Iraq war.

8. France provided Saddam with extended-range Super Etendard aircraft capable of hitting Iranian oil facilities in the lower Gulf.

9. While Britain's Margaret Thatcher mouthed platitudes about not supplying either Iran or Iraq with lethal weapons, Britain's Plessey Electronics supplied Saddam with an electronic command center.

10. Iraq was also able to buy French-built Mirage-1 aircraft and Gazelle and Lynx helicopters from the British company Westland.

11. In 1976, while on a visit to France, Saddam concluded the purchase of a uranium reactor. Jacques Chirac, then the Prime Minister and now the President, approved the deal. The supplier was Commissart l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and the plutonium reactor was called Rhapsodie. France also signed a Nuclear Cooperation Treaty with France, providing for the transfer of expertise and personnel.

12. In 1978, the Italian firm Snia Technit, a subsidiary of Fiat, signed an agreement with Iraq to sell nuclear laboratories and equipment.

13. Whenever the declared policies of the Western countries stood in the way of an arms deal, Western governments used two methods to get around their own rules and thereby manage public opinion.

a. The first method was the well-established use of the 'front'. Thus, Western governments supplied Saddam through the pro-West countries of Jordan and Egypt, which acted as a front for Iraq. This was done to overcome Congressional, parliamentary and press hurdles, even when it was obvious to military experts that Jordan and Egypt had no use for the weapons in question. Saddam also set up his own weapons buying offices in the West, with the knowledge of the host governments. For example, Matrix Churchill was a weapons purchasing company set up in Britain.

b. The second method was to extend Saddam massive credits which he could then use for military purposes. Thus, the Banco di Lavoro in the United States gave Saddam US$4 billion worth of credits, ostensibly to buy food, but which was diverted to buy weapons with the knowledge of everyone involved. Britain's Export Credit Guarantee department kept increasing his credit and much of the money went to the direct purchase of arms. The French government guaranteed US$6 billion worth of loans to French arms makers to sell Saddam whenever he wanted. Whenever the declared policies of the Western countries stood in the way of an arms deal.

14. When Saddam did in fact use chemical weapons against his own people, he did so on the afternoon of 17 March 1988, against the Kurdish city of Halabja. The United States provided diplomatic cover by initially blaming Iran for the attack. The Reagan Administration tried to prevent criticism of the atrocity. The Bush (senior) administration authorised new loans to Saddam in order to achieve the goal of increasing US exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record.

15. The US Department of Commerce licensed the export of biological materials—including a range of pathogenic agents—as well as plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities and chemical-warhead filling equipment—to Iraq until December 1989, 20 months after the Halabja atrocity.

Sources:
Saod K. Aburish, Saddam Hussein, The Politics of Revenge, New York, 2000.
Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq, Boston, 1997.
Geoff Simons, Iraq from Sumer to Saddam, London, 1996.
Kenneth R. Timmermann, The Death Lobby, How the West Armed Iraq, London, 1994

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Saturday, December 30, 2006

monsters in the closets ...

For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

Juan Cole, December 30, 2006

The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body.

Saddam Hussain was one of the 20th century's most notorious tyrants, though the death toll he racked up is probably exaggerated by his critics. The reality was bad enough.

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades. Initially, the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad.


The British-installed monarchy was overthrown by an officer's coup in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim. The US was extremely upset, and worried that the new regime would not be a reliable oil exporter and that it might leave the Baghdad Pact of 1955, which the US had put together against the Soviet Union (grouping Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Britain and the US). (Qasim did leave the pact in 1959, which according to a US official of that time, deeply alarmed Washington.) ...

a worthy read of the american connection:For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

Juan Cole, December 30, 2006

The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body.

Saddam Hussain was one of the 20th century's most notorious tyrants, though the death toll he racked up is probably exaggerated by his critics. The reality was bad enough.

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades. Initially, the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad.

The British-installed monarchy was overthrown by an officer's coup in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim. The US was extremely upset, and worried that the new regime would not be a reliable oil exporter and that it might leave the Baghdad Pact of 1955, which the US had put together against the Soviet Union (grouping Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Britain and the US). (Qasim did leave the pact in 1959, which according to a US official of that time, deeply alarmed Washington.)

Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s had become an extremely unequal society, with a few thousand (mostly Sunni Arab) families owning half of the good land. On their vast haciendas, poor rural Shiites worked for a pittance. In the 1950s, two new mass parties grew like wildfire, the Communist Party of Iraq and the Arab Baath Socialist Party. They attracted first-generation intellectuals, graduates of the rapidly expanding school system, as well as workers and peasants. The crushing inequalities of Iraq under the monarchy produced widespread anger.

Qasim undertook land reform and founded a new section of Baghdad, in the northeast, which he called Revolution Township, where rural Shiites congregated as they came to the capital seeking work as day laborers (it is now Sadr City, where a majority of Baghdadis live). The US power elite of the time wrongly perceived Qasim as a dangerous radical who coddled the Communists.

1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

In 1959, Richard Sale of UPI reports,

' According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.


Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.'


CIA involvement in the 1959 assassination attempt is plausible. Historian David Wise says there is evidence in the US archives that the CIA's "Health Alteration Committee" tried again to have Qasim assassinated in 1960 by "sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief."

2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms). Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer of the 1960s, alleged that the US played a significant role in this Baath coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money.". Morris's allegation was confirmed to me by an eyewitness with intimate knowledge of the situation, who said that that the CIA station chief in Baghdad gave support to the Baathists in their coup. One other interviewee, who served as a CIA operative in Baghdad in 1964, denied to me the agency's involvement. But he was at the time junior and he was not an eyewitness to the events of 1963, and may not have been told the straight scoop by his colleagues. Note that some high Baathists appear to have been unaware of the CIA involvement, as well. In the murky world of tradecraft, a lot of people, even on the same team, keep each other in the dark. UPI quotes another, or perhaps the same, official, saying that the coup came as a surprise to Langley. In my view, unlikely.

There really is not any controversy about the US having supplied the names of Communists to the Baath, which rooted them out and killed them. Saddam Hussein was brought back from Cairo as an interrogator and quickly rose to become head of Baath Intelligence. So that was his first partnership with the US.

The 1963 Baath government only lasted 8 months, and was overthrown by officers who had been around Qasim. The military wing of the Baath, which was heavily Shiite, was relentlessly pursued by the new government, and was virtually wiped out. The largely Sunni civilian party, however, survived underground.

4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup. David Morgan of Reuters wrote,

' "In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979. "It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says. '

As I noted in The Nation, in their book Unholy Babylon, "Darwish and Alexander report assertions of US backing for the 1968 coup, confirmed to me by other journalists who have talked to retired CIA and State Department officials." It was alleged to me by one journalist who had talked to former US government officials with knowledge of this issue that not only did the US support the 1968 Baath coup, but it specifically promoted the Tikritis among the coup-makers, helping them become dominant. These included President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and his cousin Saddam Hussein, who quickly became a power behind the throne.

5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah's Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader. As supporting the Kurdish struggle became increasingly expensive, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran decided to abandon the Kurds. He made a deal with the Iraqis at Algiers in 1975, and Saddam immediately ordered an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The US acquiesced in this betrayal of the Kurds, and made no effort to help them monetarily. Kissinger maintained that the whole operation had been the shah's, and the shah suddenly terminated it, leaving the US with no alternative but to acquiesce. But that is not entirely plausible. The operation was supported by the CIA, and the US didn't have to act only through an Iranian surrogate. Kissinger no doubt feared he couldn't get Congress to fund help to the Kurds during the beginnings of the Vietnam syndrome. In any case, the 1975 US about-face helped Saddam consolidate control over northern Iraq.

6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement. Historians are deeply indebted to Joyce Battle's Briefing Book at the National Security Archives, GWU, which presents key documents she sprung through FOIA requests, and which she analyzed for the first time.

I wrote on another occasion,

' Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Baghdad in December 1983. The National Security Archive has posted a brief video of his meeting with Hussein and the latter’s vice president and foreign minister, Tariq Aziz. Rumsfeld was to stress his close relationship with the U.S. president. The State Department summary of Rumsfeld’s meeting with Tariq Aziz stated that “the two agreed the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and promoting Egypt’s reintegration into the Arab world.” Aziz asked Rumsfeld to intervene with Washington’s friends to get them to stop selling arms to Iran. Increasing Iraq’s oil exports and a possible pipeline through Saudi Arabia occupied a portion of their conversation.

. . . The State Department, however, issued a press statement on March 5, 1984, condemning Iraqi use of chemical weapons. This statement appears to have been Washington’s way of doing penance for its new alliance.

Unaware of the depths of Reagan administration hypocrisy on the issue, Hussein took the March 5 State Department condemnation extremely seriously, and appears to have suspected that the United States was planning to stab him in the back. Secretary of State George Shultz notes in a briefing for Rumsfeld in spring of 1984 that the Iraqis were extremely confused by concrete U.S. policies . . . "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that US policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel.”

Rumsfeld had to be sent back to Baghdad for a second meeting, to smooth ruffled Baath feathers. The above-mentioned State Department briefing notes for this discussion remarked that the atmosphere in Baghdad (for Rumsfeld) had worsened . . . the March 5 scolding of Iraq for its use of poison gas had “sharply set back” relations between the two countries.The relationship was repaired, but on Hussein’s terms. He continued to use chemical weapons and, indeed, vastly expanded their use as Washington winked at Western pharmaceutical firms providing him materiel. The only conclusion one can draw from available evidence is that Rumsfeld was more or less dispatched to mollify Hussein and assure him that his use of chemical weapons was no bar to developing the relationship with the U.S., whatever the State Department spokesman was sent out to say. '

7) The US gave practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:

' As former National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed, “Pursuant to the secret NSDD [National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.” The requisite weaponry included cluster bombs. . . '

Richard Sale of UPI also reported that military cooperation intensified:

' During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group. . .

According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days. '

8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons. I wrote at Truthdig:

' The new American alliance might have been a public relations debacle if Iran succeeded in its 1984 attempt to have Iraq directly condemned at the United Nations for use of chemical weapons. As far as possible, Shultz wanted to weasel out of joining such a U.N. condemnation of Iraq. He wrote in a cable that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. “should work to develop general Western position in support of a motion to take ‘no decision’ on Iranian draft resolution on use of chemical weapons by Iraq. If such a motion gets reasonable and broad support and sponsorship, USDEL should vote in favor. Failing Western support for ‘no decision,’ USDEL should abstain.” Shultz in the first instance wanted to protect Hussein from condemnation by a motion of “no decision,” and hoped to get U.S. allies aboard. If that ploy failed and Iraq were to be castigated, he ordered that the U.S. just abstain from the vote. Despite its treaty obligations in this regard, the U.S. was not even to so much as vote for a U.N. resolution on the subject!

Shultz also wanted to throw up smokescreens to take the edge off the Iranian motion, arguing that the U.N. Human Rights Commission was “an inappropriate forum” for consideration of chemical weapons, and stressing that loss of life owing to Iraq’s use of chemicals was “only a part” of the carnage that ensued from a deplorable war. A more lukewarm approach to chemical weapons use by a rogue regime (which referred to the weapons as an “insecticide” for enemy “insects") could not be imagined. In the end, the U.N. resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons but did not name Iraq directly as a perpetrator. '

9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

' Teicher adds that the CIA had knowledge of, and U.S. officials encouraged, the provisioning of Iraq with high-powered weaponry by U.S. allies. He adds: “For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous than Iraq to Israel’s existence due to the growing Iranian influence and presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister Ytizhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein.” It might have been hoped that a country that arose in part in response to Nazi uses of poison gas would have been more sensitive about attempting to ally with a regime then actively deploying such a weapon, even against its own people (some gassing of Kurds had already begun). '

10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

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bush should practice what he preaches

Presidential Message on Eid al-Adha
Office of the Press Secretary
December 29, 2006


I send holiday greetings to all Muslims gathered to celebrate Eid al-Adha.

For Muslims in America and around the world, Eid al-Adha is an important occasion to give thanks for their blessings and to remember Abraham's trust in a loving God. During the four days of this special observance, Muslims honor Abraham's example of sacrifice and devotion to God by celebrating with friends and family, exchanging gifts and greetings, and engaging in worship through sacrifice and charity.

America is a more hopeful Nation because of the talents, generosity, and compassion of our Muslim citizens. This holiday reminds us of the values that so many of our citizens hold in common, including love of family, gratitude to God, the importance of community, and a commitment to respect, diversity, tolerance, and religious freedom.

Laura and I offer our best wishes for a memorable holiday.

GEORGE W. BUSH
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061229-10.html

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the depths to silence

Silencing Saddam
Robert Scheer, editor, truthdig.com
Dec 29, 2006


It is a very frightening precedent that the United States can invade a country on false pretenses, depose its leader and summarily execute him without an international trial or appeals process. This is about vengeance, not justice, for if it were the latter the existing international norms would have been observed. The trial should have been overseen by the World Court, in a country that could have guaranteed the safety of defense lawyers, who, in this case, were killed or otherwise intimidated. ... The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime. ...


Silencing Saddam
Robert Scheer, editor, truthdig.com
Dec 29, 2006

It is a very frightening precedent that the United States can invade a country on false pretenses, depose its leader and summarily execute him without an international trial or appeals process. This is about vengeance, not justice, for if it were the latter the existing international norms would have been observed. The trial should have been overseen by the World Court, in a country that could have guaranteed the safety of defense lawyers, who, in this case, were killed or otherwise intimidated.

The irony here is that the crimes for which Saddam Hussein was convicted occurred before the United States, in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, embraced him. Those crimes were well known to have occurred 15 months before Rumsfeld visited Iraq to usher in an alliance between the United States and Saddam to defeat Iran.

The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.

At Nuremberg in the wake of World War II the U.S. set the bar very high by declaring that even the Nazis, who had committed the most heinous of crimes, should have a fair trial. The U.S. and allies insisted on this not to serve those charged, but to educate the public through a believable accounting. In the case of Saddam, the bar was lowered to the mud, with the proceedings turned into a political circus reminiscent of Stalin’s show trials.

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play ball ...

Saddam At The End Of A Rope
By Tariq Ali

Saddam's hanging might send a shiver through the collective, if artificial, spine of the Arab ruling elites. If Saddam can be hanged, so can Mubarak, or the Hashemite joker in Amman or the Saudi royals, as long as those who topple them are happy to play ball with Washington http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-ali301206.htm

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saddam's assaination

Why hide your face?





Video of preparation of Saddam hanging: http://www.4law.co.il/sad4/player.html
Video of Saddam dead: http://www.4law.co.il/sad5/player.html

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Friday, December 29, 2006

the real face of american justice

Hanging Saddam
Mike Whitney
December 29, 2006


...What right does Bush have to kill Saddam? What right does the author of Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha and countless other atrocities have to pass judgment on the former leader of a nation which posed no threat to the United States? ... Capital punishment is a moral evil. The state never has the right to kill its own people regardless of their crimes; Saddam is no exception.


Hanging Saddam
Mike Whitney
December 29, 2006


"There’s no way to describe the loss we’ve experienced with this war and occupation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of the Americans in their tanks, fear of the police patrols in the black bandanas, fear of the Iraqi soldiers wearing their black masks at the checkpoints." Riverbend; blogs from Baghdad

The execution of Saddam Hussein is another grim chapter in the catalogue of war crimes perpetrated against the Iraqi people. It is a gratuitous act of barbarism devoid of justice.

What right does Bush have to kill Saddam? What right does the author of Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Haditha and countless other atrocities have to pass judgment on the former leader of a nation which posed no threat to the United States?

Let’s be clear, the lowliest, most ruthless Iraqi has more right to rule Iraq than the most upright American. That’s what’s meant by "self determination". When we honor "self rule" we avoid bloody interventions like the invasion of Iraq.

Bush believes that killing Saddam will achieve the "closure" which has eluded him through 4 years of occupation. But he is mistaken. Saddam’s death will only eliminate any opportunity for a political solution. Reconciliation will be impossible and Saddam will die as a hero.

Is that what Bush wants?

Or does Bush really know what he wants? Perhaps, he is just a war-mongering psychopath completely disconnected from reality.

Capital punishment is a moral evil. The state never has the right to kill its own people regardless of their crimes; Saddam is no exception. But the premeditated murder of Saddam is particularly appalling, because it is stupid as well as unjust. It cuts off dialogue with the very people (the Ba’athist-led resistance) who need to be entered into the political process to achieve normalization. Bush is destroying his last chance for a negotiated settlement and paving the way for America’s total defeat.

It’s complete madness.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, told the Times Online that "the deposed president could be hanged 'within hours’" and that his death sentence would be executed by Saturday at the latest.

Munir Haddad, the presiding judge on the appeals court, said, "All the measures have been done. There is no reason for delays."

Plans are already underway to film the entire event.

It’s impossible to imagine a more fitting summary of 6 years of Bush rule than video-footage of Saddam’s limp figure dangling at the end of a rope. The pictures will no doubt replace the iconic photos of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner who appeared in headlines across the world.

The United States will pay a heavy price for Bush’s savagery. The war is already going badly and this latest travesty will only quicken America’s inevitable withdrawal.

America has become a moral swamp, its leaders incapable of wisdom or mercy. Hanging Saddam only adds to our mutual disgrace and exposes the real face of American justice.

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picture this hanging

The three men and one woman sentenced to death by a military tribunal for their role in the assassination of President Lincoln are prepared for execution by hanging in this July 7, 1865 photo. Most of the objections now raised in the use of military tribunals rather than civilian courts were also raised and rejected 136 years ago. (AP Photo/File)

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a view from the kurds ...

Saddam’s execution now is unfair, illegal and a plan against Kurds
Friday, December 29, 2006
KurdishMedia.com - By Pir Aso Yarsani

Saddam’s execution now is unfair, illegal and thus a traitorous plan against the Kurdish nation. Do not let Americans and the Shiites in Iraq to execute Saddam now or in the coming days for mainly three important reasons; (1) Kurds and the rest of the civilized world are awaiting for a final verdict on the widely well-known Kurdish genocide (2) to investigate many unanswered questions such as the shares or multi-roles of foreign powers in his crimes ...

Saddam’s execution now is unfair, illegal and a plan against Kurds
Friday, December 29, 2006
KurdishMedia.com - By Pir Aso Yarsani

Saddam’s execution now is unfair, illegal and thus a traitorous plan against the Kurdish nation. Do not let Americans and the Shiites in Iraq to execute Saddam now or in the coming days for mainly three important reasons; (1) Kurds and the rest of the civilized world are awaiting for a final verdict on the widely well-known Kurdish genocide (2) to investigate many unanswered questions such as the shares or multi-roles of foreign powers in his crimes (3) Kurds will see a legal international paper which recognizes the Kurdish genocide and describes in detail what, how and when the Iraqi government will compensate the families of victims.

As said above, the first reason is he has not been yet received his verdict on the Kurdish genocide. The ongoing trial aimed to investigate or find out ‘WHAT’, ‘WHY’ and the ‘HOW’ of the well-known Kurdish genocide process must be indeed continued as long as it takes. This trial needs at least six more months to fulfill its purpose because Saddam has killed three generations of Kurds. This ongoing trial must be thus given a big chance to be continued unconditionally. Meaning, whatever times and resources it will be needed it is actually the duty of the whole international legal body to provide, assist and thus manage such needs. In this regard, many questions must be answered by Saddam personally such as;

(1) the faith of ca 180.000 disappeared Kurds during the notorious “Koranic Anfall - Campaign” imposed on the Kurdish people (2) why he hated the Kurdish people (3) who and what groups and specially countries (like Turkey and some Islamic countries) helped him to successfully conduct such bloody and murderous anti-Kurdish plan etc.

The second reason, if he is about to be executed tomorrow or in the coming days it only serves Arabs (read Shiites) who will benefit from an early execution and not the Kurds. As said above, Kurds are willing to delay his death for these three reasons explained in this short article. If he executes now, it means 140 Shiites death is all what he has caused, that’s all.

The third reason is, why so many so-called “democratic” western countries such as Russia, USA and France and Germany (the list of western countries that provide him deadly weapons are a long list as we all know) assist him during all those hellish days that the Kurdish people went through? And now the question is what and when these countries are going to do to compensate the Kurdish people who suffered due to these countries financial and morale support to the bloodiest Islamic Arab on the face of our planet.

As a last point here and to commemorate the late Yaser Arafat (the former Palestinian leader) particularly in these days when his brother Saddam Hussein is about to visit him in hell, I never forget when he was interviewed by Stina Dobrosky (a well-known female Swedish free journalist and TV personality) who she showed him a picture of dead Kurdish children from Halabja and criticized him for his support to Saddam, he suddenly became angry and denied all Kurdish sufferings and said, “Saddam is my brother.” So, his brother is on the way to visit him in the hell which Koran has promised criminal Muslims.

also see: Claims of Saddam's Genocide Far from Proven



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the lynching ...

THE LIVING MARTYR
Malcom Lagauche
www.malcomlagauche.com


The decision to uphold the death sentence of Saddam Hussein by the sham Iraqi appeals court has gained worldwide condemnation, except for the U.S., of course. The court took two days to read 1,500 pages of documents presented by the defense. No court in the world can decipher this number of pages in such a short time, not even a legitimate court. ... It’s quite a sad day, I think, for international justice and, unfortunately, an another example of how the United States is unwilling to conform with international law; to show respect for international law. What hurts me most, as an American, is that we’re the ones who benefit the most from respecting that law. When we set this example, we essentially tell people that the law cannot be used to try to get the United States to respect their rights. They have to use other means. That’s what got us into many of the problems that we’re in today.



THE LIVING MARTYR
Malcom Lagauche
www.malcomlagauche.com


The decision to uphold the death sentence of Saddam Hussein by the sham Iraqi appeals court has gained worldwide condemnation, except for the U.S., of course. The court took two days to read 1,500 pages of documents presented by the defense. No court in the world can decipher this number of pages in such a short time, not even a legitimate court.

No one was surprised by the verdict against Saddam because of the knowledge this was a foregone conclusion. However, the court outdid itself by ruling on the Iraqi vice president, Ramadan. He was sentenced to life in prison, but the appeals court took it upon itself to change the sentence to death, even though his case was not on the docket.

From the time Saddam first set foot in court until today, the entire system was stacked against him and conducted so many breaches of the law that it would take an expert mathematician to give us a tally.

Dr. Curtis Doebbler, a noted international human rights attorney, was on Saddam’s legal team from the start. I spoke to him today to get his opinion on the appeals court decision. He stated:

We’re trying to point out that if an execution takes place, it will be an ex-judicial, arbitrary execution outside the law in violation of the law. It’s somewhat ironic that this individual who will be executed has proven to have much more integrity than the individuals who are executing him, including the U.S. president who exhibits more evidence that he has committed crimes against the Iraqi people than there was against the president of Iraq in the first trial in which he was brought before the U.S.-created court and there has still has been no investigation of the U.S. president.

As you’ve seen the Iraqi president has maintained his dignity and also maintained his peace of mind in belief that he personifies the will of the Iraq people to continue to fight against this occupation, which they believe, and the majority of the international community believes, is illegal and the consequence of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

It’s quite a sad day, I think, for international justice and, unfortunately, an another example of how the United States is unwilling to conform with international law; to show respect for international law. What hurts me most, as an American, is that we’re the ones who benefit the most from respecting that law. When we set this example, we essentially tell people that the law cannot be used to try to get the United States to respect their rights. They have to use other means. That’s what got us into many of the problems that we’re in today.

Almost everybody in the U.S. is in the lynching mood. Pundits are frothing at the mouth while they discuss the upcoming execution. There is a collective air of insanity today in the U.S. Even former anti-war proponents are cheering on the future execution. Many Democratic politicians have said they were happy about the decision and that Saddam "deserves" it. Not one, however, has discussed the legality or the fairness of his trial.

Leftist journalists are trying to outdo each other in demeaning Saddam. Not only are they talking about his "brutal dictatorship," they are making up even new fables of atrocities committed under his regime.

I challenge all journalists who advocate the hanging of Saddam Hussein to take a few hours and research reality.

The standard figure of deaths attributed to the Ba’ath regime during the Anfal campaign is 182,000. Why have there not been any bodies found? If 182,000 people were killed, there must be piles and piles of bodies, yet none has appeared.

If 148 people were sentenced to death in 1982 for attempting to assassinate the president of Iraq, why are at least 24 still alive? And, those who were executed received a lengthy and fair trial that lasted about three years. They were fighting on the side of Iran while Iraq was engaged in a war with its eastern neighbor. In the U.S., this would be considered high treason. With Saddam Hussein, it was called mass murder. George Bush himself signed off more execution orders while the governor of Texas than did Saddam in the Dujail case.

If Iraqi military personnel gassed and killed 5,000 Kurds in Halabjah, why were only 300 bodies found? And, why was the gas used to kill the citizens cyanogen, a gas that Iraq did not possess but Iran did? Why have the CIA, the U.S. Army War College, Greenpeace, the main CIA analyst in 1988 (Stephen Pellitiere), the late Jude Waniski, the U.S Marine Corps Historical Report, and various other individuals and organizations blamed Iran for the gassing of the Kurds?

Why has not one Iraqi come forward and stated he was part of the gassing campaign? Today, with the Ba’athists out of power, one cannot use the excuse that no one would step forward because of threats of death from the Ba’ath administration. Huge sums of money have been offered for someone to state that he knew about or was part of the gassing: a pilot, or a supply specialist, or an observer, anyone. Not one person has emerged to claim the bounty.

In November 2003, the U.S. stated that 400,000 bodies were found in mass graves in the south of Iraq. The following June, Tony Blair admitted to the press that only 5,000 bodies were found. He "mis-spoke" when he used the original figure of 400,000. Subsequent investigations showed that many of the 5,000 were killed by U.S. bombs in Desert Storm. Why has no one taken the ball and run with this story?

I have reported extensively on the above anomalies. Unfortunately, few others have. To me, investigating and disproving accepted myths are the marks of an astute journalists.

No, today we still hear all the beastly acts attributed to Saddam Hussein from the mouths of people who should know better. Many people have stated that George Bush has lied about everything to do with Iraq: weapons of mass destruction; the Bin-Laden/Saddam link; the Iraqi involvement with 9-11; the fictitious biological weapons trailers; the imprisonment of an American POW since 1991; etc. Yet, the same people broadcast the myths about Saddam Hussein’s barbaric actions. I again issue a challenge to the leftist press: Please explain if Bush has lied about everything, why is he telling the truth about Saddam’s brutality? That’s a hard one for the pundits to answer. For someone with any amount of intelligence and logic, it is easy: Bush lied about Saddam as well.

Here are a few questions that are not heard today, but should be crucial in discussing Iraq:

Why don’t we hear about Iraq being designated "free of illiteracy" by the U.N. in 1982, when in 1973 the country’s literacy rate was below 40%?

Why don’t we hear about the proclamation of the U.N. in 1984 that Iraq’s education system was the finest the world had ever seen from a developing country?

Why don’t we hear about the New York Times calling Iraq the "Paris of the Middle East" in 1987?

Why don’t we hear about Saddam Hussein visiting houses in the south of Iraq in the 1970s just to make sure each one had a refrigerator and electricity?

Why don’t we hear about the several million foreign Arabs who went to Iraq to take advantage of the land program the Ba’athists instituted in which the person would be given land to create crops?

Why don’t we hear about the Iraqi educators and doctors who were sent to Arab countries to assist them in developing their own programs?

Why don’t we hear praise from Arab countries for Iraq having lost so many soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War, all for the defense of these countries who were scared about Iran exporting its religious fundamentalism to their shores?

Why don’t we hear about the several approaches made to Saddam in the 1990s by U.S. sources to recognize Israel and allow U.S. military bases in Iraq in trade for lifting the embargo?

Why don’t we hear that every U.S. person on the U.N. inspection team from 1991 to 1998 was a spy, not an inspector?

The list could go on and on. In my upcoming book, The Mother of All Battles: The Endless U.S.-Iraq War, I go into detail about these and other matters left untouched by the cliché-ridden, myopic and gullible media.

The current scenario just does not make sense. The people who lied through their teeth (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Bremer, Powell, Rumsfeld, et al) and stole tens of billions of dollars that belonged to the country of Iraq, are proudly speaking of creating a new Middle East or conducting booksigning tours for their memoirs. The results of their lies led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; a cost of about a trillion dollars so far to the U.S. public; and the destruction of a country’s culture and infrastructure. Even the history of Iraq has been re-written by people in Washington D.C.

On the other hand, the guy with the moustache who told the truth about all the lies and adhered to the U.N. request for inspections, as well as supplied a 12,000-page report that documented in detail every aspect of Iraq’s former WMD programs, sits in a jail cell awaiting execution. Something is fundamentally wrong when things can get so far out of hand.

Today, Saddam Hussein is the freest man in Iraq, although he is behind bars. His mind is clear and his integrity is nothing short of incredible. He awaits death with dignity. Not once has he cracked under torture or pressure. Even when offered a "get out of jail free" card by the U.S. if he stopped the resistance, Saddam refused to capitulate.

Other leaders, such as Ghadaffi and Noriega did succumb to U.S. pressure. Ghadaffi, once a revolutionary, today is nothing more than the head inspector of the transfer of his country’s oil to the capitalist giants. He no longer has a grand view of society. He may not be in jail, but he is a slave.

Noriega quickly began singing when the U.S. put on the pressure. He admitted to trafficking in drugs, despite the U.S. being his partner. And, he made a big deal of stating that he had found Jesus after he was incarcerated. He is a slave behind bars.

Saddam Hussein is not a slave, although his incarceration keeps him imprisoned. He is not allowed to see his family, unless, like his sons and grandson, they are shot to death with hundreds of bullets. The U.S. prides itself on "family values," but not for foreign individuals. A U.S. family is sacred, but an Iraqi family is merely cannon fodder.

On January 17, 1991, Saddam Hussein proclaimed to the world, "The mother of all battles has just begun." Despite two U.S. presidents declaring victory over Iraq with a New York parade and a U.S. aircraft carrier celebration, the mother of all battles now roars more fiercely than ever.

In about three weeks, it will be the 16th anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Iraq. Despite U.S. denials and proclamations, the battle still rages. The bombing did not stop with the signing of a cease-fire agreement on March 2, 1991. It continued until March 2003 from the illegal "no-fly" zones the U.S. created.

Soon, Saddam Hussein will be hanged. He will be dead, but his legacy will not only survive him, it will be enhanced. The mother of all battles is a long way from being terminated.

December 28-29, 2006

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an arab voice

Statement in Support of Saddam Hussein
Nabila Harb, on the behalf of the Free Arab Voice editorial board
http://www.freearabvoice.org

The legitimate leader of what is supposed to be a sovereign state has been condemned to a criminal's death by hanging and the response of the world is totally out of proportion to the event. Instead of an international outcry of outrage, there is nothing much in the way of condemnation of this illegitimate attempt to finish off one of the last symbols of Iraq's independence. This should not be a surprise, however, as the entire chain of events that led to this point has been the product of international intimidation and bullying on the part of the U.S. and its Zionist ally. ...We call upon every Head of State as well as every private individual throughout the world to condemn unequivocally this mockery of justice and to protest against the impending murder of the President of the Arab Nation in Iraq. It is the equivalent of a mob lynching, clothed in legal trappings. Condemn the true war criminals, the so-called Heads of State of the U.S., Great Britain, and all who have allied themselves against the people of the Arab Nation. Condemn the foreign Occupation of Iraq and Palestine instead of pursuing phantom threats of 'nuclear capacity' against legitimate nations.


Statement in Support of Saddam Hussein
Nabila Harb, on the behalf of the Free Arab Voice editorial board
http://www.freearabvoice.org

The legitimate leader of what is supposed to be a sovereign state has been condemned to a criminal's death by hanging and the response of the world is totally out of proportion to the event. Instead of an international outcry of outrage, there is nothing much in the way of condemnation of this illegitimate attempt to finish off one of the last symbols of Iraq's independence. This should not be a surprise, however, as the entire chain of events that led to this point has been the product of international intimidation and bullying on the part of the U.S. and its Zionist ally.

Saddam Hussein remains the President of Iraq. Foreign invasion and occupation of Iraq cannot change that fact. In fact, it is the President of the United States and his underling Tony Blair who should be tried and convicted of war crimes. The sequence of events that led to Saddam's Hussein's conviction at the hands of a kangaroo court will become one of the more shameful chapters in World History.

Iraq was a progressive and successful country when the U.N., goaded by the U.S., imposed economic sanctions on it over a decade ago. To describe the sanctions as crippling would not be an overstatement. Iraq struggled for thirteen years to maintain its existence beneath the burden of those inhumane sanctions. Its President, Saddam Hussein, in the face of overwhelming international pressure, refused to compromise his political position with respect to the illegitimate Zionist Occupation of Palestine, as well as maintaining unwavering support for the Palestinian people.

This is one of the real reasons he has been sentenced to death. It has nothing to do with the Shi'a or the Kurds. It is because he dared to challenge U.S. foreign policy and to condemn its Zionist ally and to remain steadfast in that position through a decade of bullying, blackmail and collective punishment by foreign powers.

Collective punishment is prohibited by International Law and yet the people of Iraq were subjected to collective punishment for more than a decade by the U.N. The economic sanctions against Iraq affected every Iraqi. In fact, Madeleine Albright's notorious declaration that the death of over half a million Iraqi babies was a price worth paying made it clear that the U.S. recognised the enforcement of these sanctions to be tantamount to genocide. When the Iraqi people continued to support their President and to remain steadfast under this inhumane and illegal policy, the U.S. decided that it had to invade Iraq openly. The entire world now knows the truth about the spurious allegations of 'weapons of mass destruction' that was the ostensible reason for the invasion. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. All weapons of that nature were being stockpiled by the Zionists, manufactured and paid for by the United States.

The only mistake that Saddam Hussein made was when he surrendered what weapons Iraq did possess to the U.N. In the effort to spare his country the additional hardship and destruction of a war, he acceded to the demands of the U.N. and relinquished the weapons that he had in lieu of the 'weapons of mass destruction' that did not exist.

The U.S. then proceeded to invade Iraq, declaring that the country would welcome its armed forces with open arms and be grateful for the defeat of its leader. We all know the tortuous and disgraceful course of that ongoing war. Rather than accepting the U.S. definition of its military as 'liberators', the Iraqi people denounced the U.S. and refused to see it as anything but a foreign invader. Rather than surrendering to the overwhelming foreign military force, the people of Iraq have fought the invaders at every turn. Rather than surrendering its President to the Americans, the people of Iraq kept him safe for a year under the repressive foreign Occupation of the U.S. and its allies.

The Iraqi Resistance against a puppet government set in place by the foreign occupiers remains fierce and committed. The shameful travesty of the trial of Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein, has not diminished his standing among true patriots. In fact, so terrified were the 'powers that be' of the possible outcome even of this ridiculous charade that they felt compelled to assassinate lawyers who acted in his defence. These supposed 'legal proceedings' never would bear scrutiny by any legitimate legal standards.

Why is international outcry against this war crime not greater? It is because the U.S. has demonstrated its ability to act swiftly and unconditionally against any one who demonstrates any resistance to American/Zionist foreign policies. The U.S., despite the fact that its forces are stretched thin between a losing war in Afghanistan and one in Iraq has stated very clearly that it is happy to extend its military machine into Syria and Iran if a convenient excuse presents itself. North Korea, the other member of the so-called 'axis of evil' defined by Bush, must be handled with kid gloves in this respect, only because it has been rather overt in displaying its nuclear arsenal, a necessary act of self-defence, apparently, for any Nation that dares to oppose U.S. hegemony.

The fact that the U.S. and its allies will be defeated ultimately in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well as any other theatre of Occupation they open in the future does not make it less critical that we denounce the so-called 'war on terror' at every turn. Saddam Hussein is in danger of becoming one more victim of this spurious war. Whether as private individuals, members of any organisation or even as rulers of sovereign nations, the so-called 'war on terror' threatens the freedom of each and every one of us. It is a weapon designed to silence significant opposition of any kind, and it is a propaganda tool that has subverted both law and reality in order to attempt to portray heroes as villains and villains as heroes.

Robbed of power and his liberty, Saddam Hussein nonetheless has maintained his dignity along with his legitimacy throughout his illegal detention. Attempts to demean him or to force him into submission have failed utterly. He remains a strong leader, even behind prison bars.

The voice of Saddam Hussein is the voice of the Arab Nation. In condemning him to death by hanging, the very existence of the Arab Nation has been condemned. In medieval times, the government would execute political enemies and then display their bodies in prominent positions at the gates of the city as a warning to others. Saddam Hussein's conviction is designed to serve the same purpose, a declaration to others who oppose American and Zionist policies. 'Such is the fate of all who oppose us' is the message to heads of state throughout the world.

We must counter this message with our own message of unequivocal support of the Arab Nation and those who symbolise it. Silence can be misinterpreted. A strong message of support is a slap to the face of the enemy and a declaration to the effect that the Arab Nation cannot be crushed or bulldozed into oblivion. Especially in view of so-called 'anti-terrorism' legislation purporting to criminalise opposition to 'American interests' or Zionist interests, we must make our protest one that echoes throughout the world.

Even if public outcry and whatever 'legal' action is allowed by the puppet government does not reverse this 'conviction', the death of Saddam Hussein will not serve the U.S. and Zionists ultimately. By executing a symbol of steadfastness and independence, they cannot hope to extinguish the resistance itself.

In fact, the death of Saddam Hussein may prove to be the flame that ignites people throughout the world to resistance to the American/Zionist threat to freedom everywhere. If the puppet government sponsored by the U.S. and its allies manage to hang him, they ultimately only tighten the noose round their own necks.

We call upon every Head of State as well as every private individual throughout the world to condemn unequivocally this mockery of justice and to protest against the impending murder of the President of the Arab Nation in Iraq. It is the equivalent of a mob lynching, clothed in legal trappings. Condemn the true war criminals, the so-called Heads of State of the U.S., Great Britain, and all who have allied themselves against the people of the Arab Nation. Condemn the foreign Occupation of Iraq and Palestine instead of pursuing phantom threats of 'nuclear capacity' against legitimate nations. If you have any interest in real peace and justice, you must act against the Zionist entity with its huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and support the legitimate aspirations of those who seek to end the foreign Occupation of their lands.

Any one who truly believes in freedom and justice must support Saddam Hussein as a legitimate leader whose life is being threatened by forces that consistently have lied about their motivations and goals and who, rather than 'liberating' the people of Iraq, have brought it to ruin. God help any one who receives his/her 'freedom' at the hands of the U.S. and its allies! God help any one who is honest enough to denounce the Zionists!

Denounce this outrageous war crime against the legitimate leader of an Arab country!

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u.s. mockery to the very end ...

Saddam handed over to Iraqi custody: lawyer
Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:14 PM ET

DUBAI (Reuters) - U.S. officials have transferred former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Iraqi custody, the chief defense lawyer told Reuters on Friday in an indication that Saddam's execution may be imminent.

"The American side has notified us that they have handed over the president to the Iraqi authorities," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, head of Saddam's defense team.

"They told us the president is no longer under the authority of the American forces and they requested us not to go to Baghdad," he said.


Saddam handed over to Iraqi custody: lawyer

DUBAI (Reuters)Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:14 PM ET

U.S. officials have transferred former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Iraqi custody, the chief defense lawyer told Reuters on Friday in an indication that Saddam's execution may be imminent.

"The American side has notified us that they have handed over the president to the Iraqi authorities," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, head of Saddam's defense team.

"They told us the president is no longer under the authority of the American forces and they requested us not to go to Baghdad," he said.

An appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam's November 5 death sentence for crimes against humanity for the killings, torture and other crimes against the Shi'ite population of the town of Dujail.

Although legally in Iraqi custody, U.S. troops had hitherto physically kept guard over Saddam. Although Iraqis will carry out the execution, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, it is likely U.S. forces will stay on hand throughout for fear that opponents of the former leader could turn it into a public spectacle.

Senior Iraqi officials have dismissed mounting speculation, including from Washington, that they could hang Saddam within hours and said some in the cabinet were pushing for it to be put off for a month or more.

But a defense lawyer said he thought Saddam might well die on Saturday after lawyers were told to collect his belongings.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has demanded the ousted president to be put to death this year for killing and oppressing Shi'ites, said there would be "no review or delay" in the sentence after this week's failure of Saddam's appeal.

With some of Saddam's fellow Sunnis angry at what they see as a political act of vengeance by the U.S.-sponsored court and many Kurds keen to see him first convicted of genocide against them, the timing of Saddam's walk to the gallows is an explosive issue for a country on the brink of sectarian civil war.

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Thursday, December 28, 2006

let's remember who else should be accountable ....

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442_pf.html
By David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer

October 11, 2006; A12

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000
David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; A12


A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

The same group in 2004 published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the invasion. That figure was much higher than expected, and was controversial. The new study estimates that about 500,000 more Iraqis, both civilian and military, have died since then -- a finding likely to be equally controversial.

Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster sampling," is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters.

While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe it is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were also substantiated by death certificates.

"We're very confident with the results," said Gilbert Burnham, a Johns Hopkins physician and epidemiologist.

A Defense Department spokesman did not comment directly on the estimate.

"The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in Iraq or anywhere else," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. "The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries."

He added that "it would be difficult for the U.S. to precisely determine the number of civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of insurgent activity. The Iraqi Ministry of Health would be in a better position, with all of its records, to provide more accurate information on deaths in Iraq."

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy" of the survey.

"I expect that people will be surprised by these figures," she said. "I think it is very important that, rather than questioning them, people realize there is very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq."

The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in the 14 months before the invasion and in the period after.

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

According to the survey results, Iraq's mortality rate in the year before the invasion was 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people; in the post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The difference between these rates was used to calculate "excess deaths."

Of the 629 deaths reported, 87 percent occurred after the invasion. A little more than 75 percent of the dead were men, with a greater male preponderance after the invasion. For violent post-invasion deaths, the male-to-female ratio was 10-to-1, with most victims between 15 and 44 years old.

Gunshot wounds caused 56 percent of violent deaths, with car bombs and other explosions causing 14 percent, according to the survey results. Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said.

Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq's pre-invasion death rate -- 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people -- found in both of the Hopkins surveys was roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team's results.

He thinks further evidence of the survey's robustness is that the steepness of the upward trend it found in excess deaths in the last two years is roughly the same tendency found by other groups -- even though the actual numbers differ greatly.

An independent group of researchers and biostatisticians based in England produces the Iraq Body Count. It estimates that there have been 44,000 to 49,000 civilian deaths since the invasion. An Iraqi nongovernmental organization estimated 128,000 deaths between the invasion and July 2005.

The survey cost about $50,000 and was paid for by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.


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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

for someone's child

This project — centered around a simple song, entitled "Anthem for Someone’s Child"
[see below to hear it] — is dedicated to all the children across the world who are the
innocent victims of war and of the aggressive policies of warmongering politicians.
However, at this particular point in history, this project is especially dedicated to
those children who are suffering as victims of the wretched and needless bloodshed
being prosecuted and supported by Western powers in the countries of the
Middle-East: Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.

“That’s someone's child”, she cried,
I sighed,
his life lay broken on the ground.
The man who shot him down
just smiled,
beguiled by his amazing aim.
How can you go
back home to show
your face to all those lively children of your own?

He looked into the air,
that stare
was where there once had been a smile.
A woman sat alone
nearby
bled dry by grief and mother’s pain.
She wondered why
he searched the sky
with those warm eyes she’d known so well from birth.

A shot sent to the head
Instead of life
He’s buried in the earth.
They’ve dug a six-foot hole
to hide
their crime so all the world won’t know.
So much to give,
no more to live;
“It’s all in the name of freedom”, so they said.

And yet they dare to cry
that I
should bear the guilt for all they’ve done.
Because I said “No war!”
They roar
and project all their hate on me.
Democracy
is just a dream,
if to create it you have to kill that child.

There’s places you can go
with snow
and rain and sunshine all around.
But where that child now lay
in clay
is scorched and birds don’t make a sound.
He died in vain -
this war’s insane -
And the earth cries out this Anthem for her child.

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Sunday, December 17, 2006

good on france

France to pull elite troops from Afghanistan
Sunday, December 17, 2006
www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/12/17/afghanistan-france.html

France will withdraw its 200 special forces troops from Afghanistan within weeks, authorities announced Sunday. ... During the past year, Afghan, Canadian, U.S., British and Dutch forces have done most of the fighting and borne most of the casualties as the insurgency intensified.

France will withdraw its 200 special forces troops from Afghanistan within weeks, authorities announced Sunday.

The elite soldiers have been serving under U.S. forces in the southeast, battling Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.

The rest of France's contribution in Afghanistan — about 1,100 troops — have been under NATO leadership and stationed in the relatively safe capital, Kabul. French authorities have resisted repeated calls from NATO leaders and individual countries in the coalition, including Canada, for the troops to be deployed in more volatile areas.

News of the withdrawal came amid growing militant strength despite the efforts of NATO's 32,800-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

France said the decision to pull the special forces troops, based in the southeastern city of Jalalabad, didn't indicate a weakening of its support for the mission in Afghanistan.

"There is a general reorganization of our [troops]," Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said during a visit to Afghanistan, in comments that aired on France-Info radio.

Among planned changes is a "withdrawal of special forces from Jalalabad in the coming weeks," she said.

Alliot-Marie said France would continue to supply air support and would add two helicopters near Jalalabad.

Capt. Sébastien Caron, a Paris-based spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the country's NATO contingent would remain in Afghanistan.

France is among the countries in ISAF that have faced heavy pressure to boost their contribution in Afghanistan in recent months, including from Canada, the United States and top NATO leaders.

France and some other countries have been accused of putting too many restrictions on their troops, including refusing to let them serve in places where most of the militant attacks are taking place.

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Friday, December 15, 2006

Mayes Still Doesn't Get It

Libel settlement suits Mayes
Dec 06 2006,RICHARD ROLKE, Morning Star Staff
vernonmorningstar.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=35&cat=23&id=786407&more=


Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes is pleased a
libel suit has been settled although he continues to insist it has little to do with him. ... Husband disagrees with Mayes’ interpretation of the process. “If you look at the document, it was against him. It had nothing to do with Salmon Arm. The document will be signed off on by him,” said Husband.

Libel settlement suits Mayes
Dec 06 2006,RICHARD ROLKE, Morning Star Staff
vernonmorningstar.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=35&cat=23&id=786407&more=

Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes is pleased a libel suit has been settled although he continues to insist it has little to do with him.

Year-old legal action launched by Greg Husband of Salmon Arm has come to an end with an out-of-court settlement.

“The City of Salmon Arm has advised me there has been closure to the court case,” said Mayes.

Husband, who ran for Salmon Arm mayor last year, initiated the court action as a result of a letter that was written by Mayes, who was mayor at the time. The letter was published in the Lakeshore News, which was also named in the suit.

Mayes has always maintained that the suit didn’t target him individually, but the position of mayor of Salmon Arm.

“It’s good to have it behind me. I was mayor and I wrote the letter as mayor so it’s important that Salmon Arm had it settled,” he said.

Some Conservative members recently wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, complaining that Mayes had misled them about his role in the suit. They believed that he individually, and not the municipality, was involved.

However, senior party officials investigated the matter and they found Mayes had not done anything wrong.

Mayes recently spoke to a party representative about the suit.

“In his words, I was squeaky clean,” said Mayes.

Husband would not get into specifics about the agreement.

“We’ve not concluded the wording in the document and that should happen this week,” he said. “The settlement is typical of an out-of-court settlement because it’s not been tried in a court and no one was found guilty or innocent. There’s been a private conclusion.”

Husband disagrees with Mayes’ interpretation of the process.

“If you look at the document, it was against him. It had nothing to do with Salmon Arm. The document will be signed off on by him,” said Husband.

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Friday, December 8, 2006

Local Conservative MP Lawsuit Resolved

and this is who represents us????

Mayes Comments On Lawsuit
December 5, 2006 http://www.1075kiss.com/news/headlines/?page=3

Details are being kept quiet about a settlement in a lawsuit involving the Memeger of Parliament for Okanagan Shuswap.

Greg Husband was suing Colin Mayes for libel dating back to last year when Husband wasrunning for mayor of Salmon Arm.

Husband claimed he was defamed by Mayes in a letter that was published in a Salmon Arm newspaper. Mayes tells KISS FM, he found out the suit had been finalized through a media report.

"It was actually news to me. I didn't realize it had been settled. I was told it was going to besigned off but I didn't know when."

Mayes says he doesn't know the terms of the agreement because it was handled by the BCMunicipal Insurance Corporation."He (an official with the Corporation) phoned me to tell me they had come to a resolve and he didn't tell me what the terms were. He just said its best that you don't comment on any of the accusations."

Husband is also not releasing details.

The owner of the Lakeshore News was also named in the suit. (Pete McIntyre)

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Monday, December 4, 2006

Colin Mayes MP / Libel

Mayes settles suit
Scott Neufeld
December 4, 2006 http://www.dailycourier.ca/article_770.php


A settlement has been reached in the libel suit against Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes, one year to the day after the lawsuit was launched.Greg Husband, who brought the suit against Mayes, said the settlement was reached on Dec. 2. Husband said he cannot confirm if the settlement included financial compensation or any other details of the settlement saying that there has yet to be an agreement between the parties on what details would be made public. “All I can say is we’ve negotiated a settlement and we are in the process of drawing up the documents,” he said.Mayes has said publically that the lawsuit was against himself as the former mayor and was being defended by the City of Salmon Arm. However, Husband said the settlement is with Mayes and not the city.Mayes could not be reached Sunday for comment.In October, 33 local Conservative Party members sent a letter to Stephen Harper saying that Mayes had lied to them about the lawsuit at a nomination forum. The party cleared Mayes of any wrongdoing.The civil suit was launched last December in response to a letter that Mayes distributed and had published in the Lakeshore News, a local Salmon Arm newspaper. Husband was running for mayor at the time and also named the newspaper’s owner Sally Scales in the lawsuit.According to the lawsuit’s statement of claim, Mayes’ letter “was intended to interfere with (Husband’s) election for mayor through the deliberate use of specific and defamatory wording.”Husband said he is happy to have closed the book on a stressful time for his family.Although he would not go into detail, Husband said that in the year since the lawsuit began his name has been cleared and his reputation restored.“I think there have been events in the meantime that have somewhat vindicated me,” he said.Husband organized his own case while occasionally seeking the advice of a lawyer. He said he has learned a lot about the workings of the legal system over the last 12 months.“What I’ve learned is when a person goes to court they have to have a lot of resources behind them it’s not about justice, it’s about winning,” he said.A finalized settlement is expected to be filed in Salmon Arm court sometime this week, Husband said.

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