Dirty Slate

We have a chance to unveil a new direction in the coming year, but we face what may be among the toughest obstacles ever faced by a Congress in power. President Bush and his cronies are determined to fight the Democrats in every way possible, and their partisanship has no rival in American history. The calls for bi-partisanship from the President only mean that he wants his critics to capitulate to his plans; he's certainly not going to budge in the slightest. In the past, this has been portrayed by the media as a position of strength, but in this case it's a sinking life raft and he's taking the rest of the country down with him. We can expect vetoes of virtually all legislation, along with outlandish provocation designed to bemuse us into accepting arduously obtained tidbits. Token bills will be passed that fall far short of the meaningful progress voters indicated they wanted last November.

Our Christmas and New Years' celebrations were tainted by the rush to hang Saddam Hussein, in a travesty of justice that we were taught in grade school only occurred under totalitarian regimes. It's true that the man did deserve punishment, but it should have been delivered by an international court if it was to have legitimacy. A trial like this could never occur in the United States, because we would have assured that he had an impartial jury and location. Oh, I forgot, except that now anyone deemed an "enemy combatant" can be tried by military tribunals under the same farcical conditions as the Iraqi court. It was the Bush administration that insisted that Saddam be tried in Iraq (in our own Green Zone, of course) instead of by the International Criminal Court; the ICC doesn't allow the death penalty, and the U.S. has withdrawn from its jurisdiction anyway.

It's obvious that a speedy execution is the result that our government wanted from the beginning. There was never any doubt what the verdict would be. Factions in Iraq have always wanted their revenge against Saddam, and this fit well with our plan to silence him before any more could be revealed about U.S. complicity in his crimes. The next trial could have brought to light inconvenient details about the U.S. arming of Iraq during the Iran war, and even our involvement in the gassing of the Kurds. We claimed at the time that it was the Iranians who were responsible for the attacks; it appears now to be an attempt to explain the event away. On the other hand, there are reports that this might be a correct assessment after all, thereby nullifying one of the main charges of both the prosecution and the Bush administration's propaganda machine. A serious investigation of this incident would have exposed uncomfortable truths that the U.S. wanted suppressed. In any case, we can't ignore the fact that the chemical weapons allegedly used by Saddam were supplied by us, with our approval. Our government was arming the Iraqi military for many years in a failed attempt to solve the perceived Iran problem.

When Saddam became resistant to providing us with all the oil we wanted, we gave him the "green light" to invade Kuwait, and then used that as an excuse to start the first Gulf War. It should be understood that Kuwait was part of Iraq until it was sectioned off as part of the British empire, and that the current regime was using U.S. equipment to slant drill under the border in order to siphon off Iraqi oil. After pushing Saddam's forces back into Iraq, we declared victory, and then proceeded to starve the Iraqi people for twelve years with the "oil for food" sanctions. In the autumn of 2000, Saddam threatened to switch to euros instead of dollars as a standard for monetary exchange and thus make it harder for the U.S. to plunder huge profits from oil sales. This was the last straw for the forces in the new Bush administration who were determined to oust him; well before their false excuse of 9/11. After the invasion of Iraq, one of the first acts of the U.S. installed government was to revert back to a dollars-based system.

It's a shame that the citizens of Iraq have had to suffer so grievously because American oil interests embedded in our government acted illegally and invaded a sovereign nation while essentially assassinating their leader. Apparently, the secrets Saddam held could not be allowed to be recited in the semblance of an open courtroom (such as it was). Saddam Hussein was installed into power by us, and by not stopping this rush to execution we have now lowered ourselves to the level of atrocities we purport to abhor. Our audacity cannot be undone, and the beginning of a new year isn't enough to erase the sin.

Lost in the shuffle is the landmark 3000th death of U.S. military forces in Iraq; perhaps this was another reason to expedite the hanging. Maybe they thought the numerous deaths would look better in the light of one high-profile death for "crimes against humanity," particularly since it was supposedly to rid Iraq of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" that we invaded their country in the first place. Considering the gullibility of the American public, they may have been right in their calculation.

It probably doesn't bother George W. Bush that our holiday celebrations were overcome by a savage, barbaric act that we refused to stop because we ourselves instigated it. The President could spend time on his ranch and then mourn former President Ford's passing, while downplaying what should have been his gleeful "victory." In the next weeks, a new Congress will begin to sift through the hubris and will face a belligerent executive determined to press forward with his scorched-earth agenda. Instead of scaling down troop levels, Bush wants to increase them; whether he gets his "surge" or not, he will at least get to maintain current numbers, and that's part of his goal.

It remains to be seen whether Congress will have the guts to pull the funding for this misadventure. Perhaps if those representing Iraq will just sign over all the oil contracts to U.S. companies, our troops can withdraw. Wait, that's exactly what they are in the process of arranging. Of course, we will need half our current forces operating from permanent bases to forever protect the booty. That's the real reason behind this fiasco: to establish a long-term U.S. presence in the Middle East, thus securing the natural resources we believe we so desperately need. A better option would be to sign a peace treaty with the countries involved, and help with the development of wind, solar, and bio-mass energy sources world-wide. It may be the only way to avert an unsolvable crisis, but time is running out.

We can be thankful that at least we don't have a rubber stamp Congress anymore, and perhaps the most disastrous legislation won't get passed this year. There is a looming presidential race that the media won't let us forget about, though heaven knows we need to be thinking about a new president as soon as possible. Meanwhile, restraining President Bush is the most daunting task before the American people. If we can get through the next year without starting another war, I guess we can call that a success.

Happy New Year!


Sources:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0107-01.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0106-29.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0108-25.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0107-28.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0103-61.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0103-60.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0103-56.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0104-27.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0104-30.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1231-30.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-30.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-25.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-27.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-26.htm

http://consortiumnews.com/2003/022703a.html

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123106D.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123106A.shtml