sandhya jain's latest
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sandhya Jain
Pioneer-14November2006
Ambushed in Iraq
Sandhya Jain
The mills of god grind slowly, the Bible says, but they grind exceedingly fine. The inexorability of this process ensured that the perfect timing of Saddam Hussain's death sentence could not check the Republican Party's freefall in America's mid-term Congressional elections. Nemesis is a double-edged sword.
Convicted with two others for the retaliatory killing of 148 Shia's in Dujail for an abortive attempt on his life in 1982, the deposed Iraqi dictator's punishment has drawn Western comparisons with the Nuremberg trials after World War II. This calls for deeper scrutiny. The Nuremberg trials against former Nazis have long been touted as the most exalted example of White Man's Justice, where Adolf Hitler's appalling atrocities against European Jews were dubbed a crime against humanity and meted appropriate retribution.
I have always wondered if this was the truth behind the Euro-American denigration of Hitler. The Inquisition and similar acts of bloody persecution in many 'civilized' European countries never yielded a similar quest for justice. Indeed, Europe's dislike of Jews led many nations to "encourage" their Jewish populations to migrate to the newly created State of Israel in the Muslim heartland, concurrently with the conduct of the Nuremberg trials. Moreover, many high and middle level Nazis who escaped before the Allies landed in Germany found safe havens with Latin American dictators supported by the United States. Some circles acknowledge that America made good use of the 'research' that the cold-blooded Nazis conducted on their hapless Jewish victims.
I believe Hitler's boys were punished for what his opponents could legally crucify them with, rather than for his really indigestible, unforgivable sin, which was politically unmentionable. This is that he breached the tacit accord of the White Colonial People (that dog does not eat dog) and practiced imperialism upon the White Christian peoples, bringing France, Austria, Poland, and virtually all of Europe under his heel. His invocation of a mythical non-Christian, Aryan ancestry for the German people must have enraged the epoch's dominant colonial power, Great Britain, which took pride in its Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) origins, which were being undermined by the 'Aryan' hogwash.
The Italian windbag, Mussolini, may have seen profit in going along with Hitler, and the then Pope may have felt comforted by the persecution of Jews, but Western Christians as a whole knew an unacceptable transgression had taken place. The Second World War was fought for the liberation of Europe alone; White Anglo-Saxon Protestant America joined it to stave off a godless communist takeover of the continent which was also the religio-political fountainhead of Christianity. This is evidenced by the fact that after the war, every colonial country tried to hold its non-European colonies for as long as possible. The once-occupied France fought a bitter war in Algeria; Portugal stuck to Goa till 1960, to cite just two examples.
Interestingly, the Teutonic Pope's controversial Regensburg speech makes amends for 'Aryan' Germany by reaffirming Western Christianity's racist core. This is the only meaning of his claim that the convergence of Biblical faith, Greek philosophy, and Roman heritage gave Christianity it's historically decisive character in Europe, and forms the continent's religio-cultural foundation. In other words, Christian Europe's White racial ethnicity makes it the dominant face of the faith, despite Christianity's Eastern origins.
Returning to Saddam, he has been punished for the Dujail massacres because trying him for the 1980-88 war against Iran would open the proverbial can of worms. This is because the arms, including chemical weapons, used against Tehran came from Washington. Little wonder that the Bush administration's kangaroo court, plagued by delays and discredited by the murder of defence counsel, change of judges, courtroom chaos and overt bias, has not inspired confidence in any world capital, must less on Arab street. The external forms of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are not enough to convey the spirit of justice, much less erase the international conviction that the trial is a sham to cover the corporate rapacity of oil traders from Texas. It is now to be hoped that the Democratic domination of Congress will quickly expose how America was pushed into war, who profited from it, and how much.
New Delhi's declaration that the death sentence to the deposed President required "credible due process of law" and should not appear to be victor's justice reflects the sagacity of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Although it has been criticized by some for appeasing domestic pressure groups, the truth is that Iraq is an occupied country and the trial was conducted through a collaborator regime. It is providential that as home minister Mr. L.K. Advani failed to send Indian troops to assist the American occupation of a friendly nation.
Pakistan's Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition claims American forces have caused more deaths in the past three years than Saddam did over a 23-year reign. The accusation that Texan oil merchants, including President Bush, are even guiltier of war crimes than Saddam is not without merit. Further, ten years of UN sanctions have seen an appalling decimation of the Iraqi people, for which Mr. Kofi Annan must be held accountable; an independent tribunal should at least record these crimes.
Europe, frozen with fear of its radical Muslim population, has reacted with typical schizophrenia. Britain and Australia stand by the United States. The European Union has welcomed the verdict, but said Saddam should not be hanged. The Vatican's top prelate for justice issues has dubbed the sentence an example of "eye for an eye" justice. Reflecting widening geo-political faultlines in the West over the Iraqi invasion, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero commented that conditions have deteriorated after the US occupation.
Actually, Saddam's fate is not a Muslim problem, but a problem of America's domestic-corporate political culture, which counts success in dollars and disregards costs exported to other shoulders. The fact that an ally like Egypt has spoken against the hanging, while major capitals like Riyadh maintain silence, suggests a serious re-think among the ummah about its attitude to the West. Russia doubts the sentence will be carried out, especially after the Republican eclipse in Congress. But a judicial reprieve given for political reasons, albeit through the agency of the automatic appeals process, will not assuage international Muslim sentiment because the new Iraqi regime and constitution are illegitimate, the handiwork of occupation leader Paul Bremer.
EOM
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