September 24, 2007

I was wondering about something the other day. Why are there people ready to call Pres. Bush a war criminal for advocating the latest Iraq war, yet do not have a spark of righteous indignation for Saddam Hussein, a documented, repeat-offender? I realize that he was duly executed in the course of justice. I'm just wondering why no one ever bothers to point out that he was a war criminal.

He used poison gas against the Kurds, and I'm fairly sure against the Iranians too: the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, and the Kurds after the Gulf War. After the Gulf War, as I understand it, Saddam Hussein attempted genocide on the swamp Arabs, used chemical weapons on the Kurds, who are citizens of Iraq, and as I recall, took potshots at our fighters, whose presence was mandated by the treaty he signed. Further, he bribed officials all over the U.N. via the corrupt Oil-For-Food program. Of course, one of his most despicable acts was holding his nation's children hostage to make an Oil-For-Food program necessary.

So by any standard, Saddam Hussein is a documented, proven, war criminal. Where was the righteous indignation against him? Why were our leaders, who meticulously built international coalitions and negotiated with the U.N., condemned as violators of international law, when Hussein actually violated international laws both subtly and flagrantly, yet went uncondemned?

Do we even remember nowadays that his actions, which repeatedly broke the peace treaty that he signed with us, were a declaration of war- under international law?

We were patient and had mercy upon him, or perhaps it was his people we were thinking about (the same people he thought nothing of, starving and brutalizing them.) Apparently America's reward for that, in the eyes of some, is to call our present leaders by the titles that are truly deserved by the deceased dictator.