Fair for the most foul

What
a “two-fer” — starkly asymmetrical stories that raise the same
moral question about ends and means.

            Number one is Dick Cheney’s
participation in a “canned hunt” in Pennsylvania that bagged hundreds
of game birds. Cheney shot 70 pheasants all by himself. How sporting. But some
bloggers wonder if donating the birds to soup kitchens would make it all
better.

            Story number two is the capture of
Saddam Hussein, the mass-murderer run to ground. US officials and military
officers are pounding their chests. They promise Saddam will be given a fair
and open trial in Iraq. More than most national leaders, he has plenty to
answer for. And many Iraqis naturally will seek revenge for what Saddam did to
them.

            This is no time to gloat, however.
First, the long search for Saddam showed our “intelligence” and
tactics are nothing to write home about. But more important, what happens now
to Saddam and his henchmen will mold the framework and set the tone for the
future of the entire Middle East — and beyond. So it must be done right.

            The White House is already headed in
the wrong direction, though. In his usual manner, George W. Bush rejected the
proper course, as dictated by international law. He won’t hear of remanding
Saddam to the International Criminal Court. (Neither will he let American war criminals fall under the
court’s jurisdiction.) And Bush wants the death penalty on the table, just as
surely as in Texas.

            Meanwhile, Bush disgraced himself
and the US at a recent news conference. “International law?” he said
sarcastically in response to a question. “I’ll have to ask my
lawyer.” You can bet this will make us new enemies.

            But back to the prisoner-defendant.

            Yes, Saddam is responsible for the
deaths of huge numbers of people, as attested by the infamous mass graves. In
1988, he gassed Kurds in Halabja. He ruthlessly suppressed uprisings in
southern Iraq after the first Gulf War, killing many thousands. He also
committed ecocide there. And his mad war against Iran killed roughly one
million. Saddam’s long term of “office” was a reign of terror and
torture; he carried out some killings personally.

            But Saddam should be taken out of
Iraq and American hands.

            Because those hands are anything but
clean.

            First, there’s the present
situation. The US has no legal leg to stand on in Iraq. The occupation is
illegal, having followed an illegal war of aggression, in contempt of the UN
Charter. America’s only responsibility is to withdraw and turn things over to
the UN — including the prosecution of war criminals.

            Second, there’s history. And it’s
not pretty.

            The CIA helped put the Ba’ath Party
in power in 1963 by aiding a coup against Adbul Karim Kassem, who later was
executed. Saddam had taken part in a 1959 plot to assassinate Kassem; in 1979,
Saddam himself became the maximum leader. A chummy relationship between Saddam
and the US developed; the US ended up supporting him during the Iraq-Iran war,
one of the high points in his criminal career. (US leaders have cultivated many
friendships with monsters. Take Indonesian dictator Suharto, who with US
connivance and arms eliminated a half-million “communists” and
200,000 East Timorese.)

            During the Iran-Iraq war, the US
military lent a hand by attacking Iranian oil platforms. This policy was billed
as a response to Iranian attacks on oil tankers, but it also boosted Saddam’s
fortunes. Washington continued to give Saddam financial and moral support, even
after Halabja. US suppliers sent Iraq the building blocks of biological
weapons. And guess who was a US envoy to Saddam in the early 1980s? None other
than Don Rumsfeld.

            In 1990-1991 came the first Gulf War
(thousands killed by US forces), followed by a decade of lethal economic
sanctions (an estimated one million dead, half of them children). The current
war and occupation have killed thousands more.

            Again, hanging out this multilateral
dirty laundry is no defense of Saddam, just as an afterthought about feeding
the hungry is no defense of Cheney’s little safari.

            Saddam must be held accountable. He
also must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and he must have the chance
to put US complicity with his regime into the record.

            Above all, the death penalty must
not be imposed. No human being should be denied the possibility of reform.
Executions are barbarisms worthy of Saddam, not of us.

This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2003.