As the news channels and media went into a frenzy to cover the year-end news scoop, it has divided opinion in India right down the middle and I guess in the rest of the world. I wouldn’t be knowing what the Americans think though! The way Saddam was quickly despatched with smacks of political expediency and a very warped line of thinking. Yes Saddam did undertake political and ethnic cleansing, yes he waged war on Iran and Kuwait, yes he ruled with an iron fist but then we forget who created the Frankenstein monster. For those with selective amnesia it was the Americans! Yup, and when the monster turned on its master, refusing to be a British poodle well! setup a lame duck trial court, populate it with your stooges, pronounce the defendant guilty and hang him when half the world sleeps!
No I don’t condone what Saddam did but then were we just ourselves? If Saddam was pronounced guilty of massacring a 148 Kurds then does President Bush demand any better treatment? Bush, as a typical American Cowboy, went in and attacked an already economically sanctioned and crippled Iraq on a false pretext (at least Saddam had the guts to proclaim that he went after Kuwait for its oil reserves!), treated civilian casualties as mundanely as swatting flies and forgot to tell the world that it was strategic reserves of oil that he was after, what with the Saudis refusing to toe a straight American line! So what does Mr. Bush achieve? 3,000 American military men dead and 22,000+ wounded in different degrees of severity topped with at the last count (on the lower side) over 52,404 Iraqi civilians killed.
How should you and me judge Mr. Bush? For 55,000+ deaths and as many families affected; for thousands other disabled for life; for turning Iraq into a basket case; for pushing a world towards a more insecure future with fundamentalism on the rise. And we hang a man for 148 deaths? Yes all men inflicted deaths are abhorrent but then where is the sense of justice?
No I don’t condone what Saddam did but then were we just ourselves? If Saddam was pronounced guilty of massacring a 148 Kurds then does President Bush demand any better treatment? Bush, as a typical American Cowboy, went in and attacked an already economically sanctioned and crippled Iraq on a false pretext (at least Saddam had the guts to proclaim that he went after Kuwait for its oil reserves!), treated civilian casualties as mundanely as swatting flies and forgot to tell the world that it was strategic reserves of oil that he was after, what with the Saudis refusing to toe a straight American line! So what does Mr. Bush achieve? 3,000 American military men dead and 22,000+ wounded in different degrees of severity topped with at the last count (on the lower side) over 52,404 Iraqi civilians killed.
How should you and me judge Mr. Bush? For 55,000+ deaths and as many families affected; for thousands other disabled for life; for turning Iraq into a basket case; for pushing a world towards a more insecure future with fundamentalism on the rise. And we hang a man for 148 deaths? Yes all men inflicted deaths are abhorrent but then where is the sense of justice?