Hang 'Em High

Three cheers because Saddam Hussein is dead. Let's forget for a moment the analogy that what happened in Iraq Saturday, December 30th, is akin to putting to death George W. Bush on Friday, December 23rd in Guantanamo Cuba for invading Iraq after a failed execution attempt against his father. We'll pick that up later.

What is really interesting is the method of death. Hanging by the neck until dead. Could we have found a more backward method that reinforces the stereotypes we hold of people in the Middle East?

Why not just throw stones at him until he's dead? Or behead him?

America practices far more "humane" methods of execution. Currently, three states still allow a criminal to be hung, but only if lethal injection can't be given. It's not a real popular option, we have others.

Thanks to our good old buddy, Thomas Edison, there's always the electric chair. Used by ten states, Old Smokey provides a dramatic finish for those unlucky enough to be strapped to it.

Why not use that on Saddam? For the same reason that Ethiopia didn't in 1890. No electricity. At least, no reliable electricity. Except for the THREE HOURS they get EACH MONTH. I suppose they could have done it at the 104 acre US Embassy in Baghdad, the only place in Iraq with a working electric power plant, but somehow I get the impression the Bush Administration would rather you not know about that.

Well, why not lethal injection? The preferred method for thirty seven states, lethal injection seems the most advanced of our capital punishments. Unfortunatly for Iraq's medical network, once free services are now being dispensed by insurgent leader al-Sadr's political party. As a result, hospitals have become killing grounds for the civil war. Not many trained medical professionals are left and the hospitals remain without power, medicine, or equipment. Regular Iraqis have no other options and are denied care at the military bases, the idea being, "Our goal is for the Iraqis to use their own existing infrastructure and become self-sufficient, not dependent on U.S. forces for medical care."

Yet, there is always the gas chamber. But perhaps the administration shied away from that as an uncomfortable reminder of Hussein's gassing to the Kurds in 1988-89 using US helicopters, chemicals and logistics. Or that the reconstruction decided to abandon any efforts to provide the survivors of Hussein's gas attacks with clean water.

Still, they could have done it by firing squad, an option reserved by both Oklahoma and Idaho.

"For execution by this method, the inmate is typically bound to a chair with leather straps across his waist and head, in front of an oval-shaped canvas wall. The chair is surrounded by sandbags to absorb the inmate's blood. A black hood is pulled over the inmate's head. A doctor locates the inmate's heart with a stethoscope and pins a circular white cloth target over it. Standing in an enclosure 20 feet away, five shooters are armed with .30 caliber rifles loaded with single rounds. One of the shooters is given blank rounds. Each of the shooters aims his rifle through a slot in the canvas and fires at the inmate."

Which is kind of morbid and not really the association you want to make when, in Baghdad today, masses of people are routinely found on the streets, handcuffed and shot to death.

So hanging it was. Gruesome. Ignorant. Backward. Welcome to American foreign policy.

At the top I compared Saddam's crimes to Bush's so let's be clear. Saddam was convicted of killing 148 Shiites people in the city of Dujail after a visit to the town resulted in a failed assassination attempt on his life. And one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq came because "After all, this is a guy who tried to kill my dad at one time." Like Saddam, Bush killed innocent people when he rolled to get his man. He just killed 52,000-ish more of them.

Noam Chomsky has said, "The Nuremberg principle was that a war crime is some hideous crime that you committed and we didn't. Those charged were maybe the worst criminals in history, but the trial had no moral basis whatsoever."

I guess it would be too much to hope for an "accessory to war crimes" charge to be brought against the members of the Bush Administration who supported Saddam when it was a la modé.

~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/

Microwaved Babies

I got a little behind with emails this month and as I was cleaning out my inbox, two stories caught my attention:

New Weapon Cleared by Military for Use in Iraq Under Scrutiny

Ohio Woman Faces Charges In Microwave Baby Death

I paid attention to the first story because an anonymous source contacted me regarding this project, which is supposed to be hush-hush. The second, well, it ties in to the first.

The military, always looking for new and innovative ways to bring America's messages of liberty and freedom to the world, has developed a "non lethal" weapon and cleared it for use in Iraq. It is the Air Force's Active Denial System, ADS.


Using electromagnetic wavelengths, controlled doses of radiation are fired at crowds in order to dispurse them. They essentially microwave people. Already tested on veterans and soldiers in our own military, the experience can be summed up like this.

Yet, as we can see with the Ohio case, microwaving someone is illegal. Why the difference? Would it have been considered an effective form of parental disciplining if the baby had survived? Perhaps James Dobson would jump all over this and include the technique in his next book, "Brining Up Straight Boys".

Or is it acceptable to use because the "crowds" we will be controlling live in the Middle East?

~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/

A Genocide In The Making*

As bad as things in Iraq are, and they are bad, they are potentially going to get much, much worse. Dozens of bodies are already turning up every single day, totured and mutilated. Sunni-Shi'ite clashes, Iraq's civil war that Bush says isn't a civil war, is raging unabated. And I fear we're just seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg. I think we're going to see a genocide in Iraq much like the one going on in Darfur, much like the one that ravaged Rwanda. I shudder to think how many people are going to die.

Radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced that he will pull the members of his bloc out of Iraq's Parliament should Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meet with Bush in Jordan as scheduled. Should al-Sadr follow through with his threat, the Iraqi Parliament will utterly collapse. Followers of al-Sadr occupy many of the key Cabinet spots within the Parliament and they are angry over the rash of bombings that killed over 200 people in Sadr City last Thursday. Hareth al-Dari, a Sunni cleric has declared Iraq's "unity government" dead, has called for Arab nations to withdraw support for the Shi'ite-led government of Iraq and said that US troops are complicit in the sectarian violence, that they've given cover to Shi'ite death squads.

"The occupying forces have been giving cover to the militias and criminal gangs," Dhari said.

al-Sadr's followers seized control of Iraqi State-run television on Saturday and promptly labeled all Sunni's "terrorists" while calling Shi'ites to arms. The two hour broadcast, which included a few members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, among other things, gave out the names and addresses of prominent Sunni's they want executed. They promised reprisals for the attacks in Sadr City. al-Sadr's Mahdi Army controls large areas of Baghdad already and he has followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi Security Forces. Members of the Mahdi Army claimed that they were distributing police uniforms throughout Shi'ite neighborhoods to allow them free movement and access to all areas. This has all the markings of a massive genocide in the making. This is exactly how the killings in Rwanda began, with lists of names being read over the airwaves. Over a million died there, how many will be killed in Iraq?

Militia leaders told supporters yesterday to prepare for a fresh wave of incursions into Sunni neighborhoods that would begin as soon as the curfew ends tomorrow, according to Sadr City residents.

Bush has no intention of canceling the meeting between he and Maliki despite al-Sadr's threats and the looming specter of an Iraqi genocide. Nor does he have any intention of getting our troops out of harm's way. Bush declared today that US troops would be staying in Iraq until the "job was finished." My question is, what job are they supposed to be finishing, George? Is the "job" getting every last service man and woman stationed in Iraq killed? Our troops are caught in between two factions that, as much as they hate each other, hate them even more. Sunni and Shi'ite alike see US Occupation Forces as the key reason for so many of their troubles. They'll be getting shot at from all sides and there will be no safe haven in Iraq for our troops, stuck in an impossible situation.

The violence in Iraq, as bad as it has been, is about to get so much worse. Pandora's Box is about to be opened. Tens of thousands of people, American and Iraqi alike, have already died as a direct result of Bush's Foreign Policy decisions. And with a massive genocide looming, how many more are going to be killed?

~Kevin S.

*Ha! I'm not the only one who compares Rwanda with Iraq. ~ Lila