Comments on: "…a tragic assault upon truth and justice"

By: Alan’s blog » keeping track of history (Blair, Iraq, and all of us)

Alan’s blog » keeping track of history (Blair, Iraq, and all of us) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 08:35:03 +0000

[...] The US involvement is well documented, both in terms of miltary presence in the Gulf at the time, officially neutrally, but with minimal pretense acting against Iran who was then the ‘evil power’. Indeed (recalling my own and Nad’s earlier posts about the execution), in looking for this I found George Washington University’s National Security Archive of declaissified documents. In this there is a photograph of Donald Rumsfeld, then a special envoy from President Reagan, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. This is not surprising, diplomatc have to do this all the time. Significantly though this meeting was, as the national secturity archives show, shortly after US intelligence had confirmed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons (Blair’s point 3) and discussed this at a presidential level. The US (in full knowledge) then went on to block UN resolutions deploring Iraq use of chemical weapons … initially with UK support. the ful story of UK support, I’m sure is there, but even harder to find … I seem to recall British warships in the gulf, but it was more than 20 years ago! I an age of instant information, it is amazing that getting the basic facts of ongoing news items is so difficult. I recall a year or so back there was a call for journalists to give more context in theor reporting. However, when interviews a respected journalist insisted that theor job was the news, the changes not the backgrund … but without the background the interpretation of what we hear is different. [...]

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:58:09 +0000

Thanks for an informative posting. I imagined that the US would fear a fair and independent trial because this would highlight that themselves and Britain are engaged in an illegal war in Iraq (but I wasn’t aware of the detail of the kind of hypocritical realpolitik that the west has engaged in during the past few decades). Has Saddams death given justice to his victims? I would say not because truth is part of the concept of justice and the trial was partial and therefore untruthful. I think most victims of abuse need the satisfaction of some kind of “legalised revenge” (one term for justice) but they also need the truth (they need to know why). This is why something like the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission was successful in that it uncovered the truth, exactly what when on, in a lot of human rights abuse cases. I would have hoped that a similar setup should play a part in a trial such as this. I think in most societies legalised revenge (truth plus justice) is meeted out so that the human instinct to “get even” doesn’t spiral out of control. Sadly what was delivered here was show-trial revenge without truth or justice … and which looks set to spiral out of control.

By: Alan’s blog » Nad’s post on the Saddam execution

Alan’s blog » Nad’s post on the Saddam execution — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:24:56 +0000

[...] Nadeem has written a really detailed analysis of the Saddam trial in “â€¦a tragic assault upon truth and justice“. He describes the US and general western collusion in the Halabja Poison Gas Attack that I refered to briefly in my earlier post on the execution. execution halabja nadeem poison gas attack politics saddam hussein [...]