Lynching in Baghdad

IT IS painfully ironic that the United States, which still claims to be bringing the fruits of democracy and good government to the benighted Muslim World, keeps getting involved in the most gruesome atrocities.

The latest example is, of course, the lynching of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This sordid act, which grossly violated international law, the Geneva Conventions, and basic decency, provoked a well-deserved storm of criticism around the globe against the Bush/Cheney Administration.

Washington professed surprise and denied blame for this disgusting spectacle. But Saddam had been under US guard in a US-run prison in Baghdad’s US-run Green Zone. What did US officials think would happen when they turned him over to a mob of vengeful Shias? A parade?

The United States has already been heavily criticised for stage-managing the combination of Soviet-style show trial and rigged kangaroo court that condemned Saddam. Iraq’s deposed leader was hurriedly executed to prevent him from revealing embarrassing details about his long collusion with the US, Britain, and Arab states.

Ironically, Saddam’s courage and dignity on the gallows will reinforce his claim to martyrdom and make him the hero in death that he certainly was not in life.

By contrast, the UN’s new South Korean secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who was manoeuvred into office by Washington, shamefully supported Saddam’s execution even though the UN has long opposed the death penalty, and its human rights chief, Louise Arbour, had condemned the brutal execution. This was an inauspicious start for a timid yes-man. Now, the Bush/Cheney Administration is widely expected to announce plans to deploy another 20,000 or more troops to Iraq. This will be George Bush’s petulant reply to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s wise proposal that all US combat forces withdraw from Iraq within a year.

But 20,000-30,000 more US troops thrown into the cauldron of Iraq will make little military difference. One hundred fifty thousand or more might, but the US has run out of soldiers.

If Bush pours more troops into this a lost war, he will fall into the trap of many bad gamblers who double up their bets in a reckless effort to recoup previous losses. Bush continues ignoring his generals while still heeding the siren song of the pro-Israel neoconservatives around him.

Their goal is not a stable Mideast, but total destruction of Iraq, then Iran. By ERIC MARGOLIS - 7 January 2007.