The hanging of Ali Hassan al-Majid better known as 'Chemical Ali' was uneventful. He was equally barbaric and cruel as his cousin Saddam Hussain. He put down a Kurdish uprising in Halabja, Northern Iraq by gassing thousands of innocent people to death. A method not very different from the one deployed by Nazis against the Jews.
This should be a lesson to future dictators in Iraq and elsewhere that when you occupy the seat of power, you don't own it. It is the people who own it and one day you will have to pay for your crimes and excesses.
One aspect of this whole sordid affair that should have been discussed openly and has not been by the US and Western media is, how did Iraq get hold of these chemical weapons? There are allegations that in the eighties, Donald Rumsfeld and the US Government of the time provided these to Iraq for use in the Iran/Iraq war. That was the time when on a visit to Baghdad Donald Rumsfeld parised Saddam Hussain as "a Great Leader". If it is true that Rumsfeld supplied chemical weapons to Iraq, then is he not also complicit as a co-conspirator in war crimes and should he not be tried?
Unlike the British, who are holding an open and an independent inquiry into legality of Iraq War, the US Congress does not have the courage or the willpower to hold an open and a fair enquiry to determine whether Rumsfeld is guilty of these crimes.
Would Mr. Rumsfeld like to voluntarily submit to International Court of Justice to clear his name?
2 comments:
I think that the trail to US involvement through Donald Rumsfield of providing Iraq with chemical weapons diuring the Iraq/Iran war will be difficult to follow. I do believe that a well funded and enthusiastic investigator could probably work their way to the truth, but I fear any investagator would soon find their path to dangerous to follow.
Where the British "open" investigation implies that the British government wants the "truth" only time will show what kind of "truth" actually emerges.
Mike
You are right, only time will tell whether the outcome of British inquiry will be of any value. The Chilcott Commission started off well, but they seem to have let Tony Blair off the hook by not asking him tough questions.
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