Saddam Death Penalty: Will More US Troops Die?
by James Buchanan
It has been predicted for the past few weeks that Saddam Hussein would be sentenced to death just prior to the November election. It was a foregone conclusion that Hussein would be executed even before he was dragged out of his spider hole and taken prisoner. Announcing the death sentence could inflame some of the insurgents into retaliating against our troops. This raises the question: Did Karl Rove and the neocons choose to announce Hussein’s death penalty in the hope of getting a few more votes at the cost of the lives of US soldiers?
Some especially naive individuals may assert that the new Iraqi government is controlling Saddam’s trial and that this announcement and our November election are coincidentally happening at the same time. I guess that would be the same Iraqi government that asked us to leave their country and we simply ignored them. Yup, that’s a government with a lot of sovereignty. And don’t forget that Saddam was actually held OUTSIDE Iraq for a considerable period of time after he was first captured. Perhaps it was feared that he might be freed by the Iraqi rebels and then we’d have to spend another couple years looking for him. If Saddam were on trial in America, he would already have grounds for a mistrial given the considerable number of defense lawyers, who have wound up gunned down during the trial so far.
George Bush has boasted over and over about how much he supports the troops. Never mind the fact that the Iraq War could have been entirely avoided, which would have spared the lives of 2,800 Americans about the same number of Americans that died in the 911 attack. Apparently the lives of US soldiers don’t count when chalking up the statistics in the war on terror –otherwise Bush should be blamed for doubling the US casualties.
If we ignore the “small” matter of whether we were lied into the Iraq War, then we are faced with several more issues that suggest the neocons don’t care about our soldiers’ lives. First there was General Shinseki’s warning that we needed several hundred thousand troops in Iraq to maintain order. Shinseki was forced into early retirement for disagreeing with various civilians such as Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfeld. Then there was the matter of bullet proof vests and adequate armor for Humvees and trucks. Hundreds of US soldiers died because the neocons were more focused on ginning up excuses for war than planning for the safety of the soldiers.
The whole issue of putting Saddam on trial is hypocritical at best. Consider the fact that:
1).We don’t have the legal authority to execute him and to do so is a war crime. Hussein was allowed to continue as dictator of Iraq by the post-war agreement after the 1991 Gulf War. The United States under the neocons has violated this agreement and is in violation of International Law.
2).We still haven’t punished our federal authorities responsible for the deaths of two Americans at Ruby Ridge and 96 Americans at Waco.
3).When do we prosecute the neocons for causing the deaths of 655,000 Iraqis, who would otherwise still be alive if we didn’t illegally invade their country?
The simple truth is that the neocons have had their puppets in Iraq announce the death sentence of Saddam Hussein as an election tactic to try to get the GOP a few more votes. They know full well that this will inflame the pro-Hussein rebels and cause the deaths of more US soldiers. The neocons couldn’t care less about the lives of US soldiers and this latest little development is just more proof.