The killing of Hussein's sons: the Nuremberg precedent and the criminalization of the US ruling elite

The killing of Hussein's sons: the
Nuremberg precedent and the
criminalization of the US ruling elite

By David Walsh
24 July 2003

There is little doubt that Uday and Qusay Hussein, the two sons of
former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein killed by US forces in a house on the outskirts of Mosul
July 22, were morally
and politically reprehensible figures. By all accounts, Uday Hussein,
the elder, was a sexual
predator and murderer, while Qusay, as chief of Iraq's notorious
security apparatus, had even
more blood on his hands. Given the reactionary nature of the regime,
there is no reason to doubt
the extent and depth of their crimes.

Having said that, both the means by which Hussein's sons were liquidated
and the manner in
which the killings were greeted by the American government and media
speak volumes about the
nature of the US intervention in Iraq and the character of the American
political establishment.

On the plane of morality, there exist no fundamental differences between
the personnel of the
Hussein regime and the Bush administration. The latter operates in every
sphere with unashamed
lawlessness and violence. If there is a difference in the degree of
brutality against its own
citizens, the "restraint" exercised by the Bush forces is a matter of
circumstance rather than
moral superiority over the killers and torturers of the ousted Iraqi
regime.

In the operation against the Hussein brothers the US military mobilized
hundreds of troops and
dozens of vehicles and aircraft. The American forces used automatic
weapons, rockets,
rocket-propelled grenades and tow missiles against four individuals
armed with AK-47
automatic rifles.

The assault had the character of a gangland slaying, the vengeful wiping
out of the cornered
leadership of one gang by a more powerful and better-armed outfit. An
unnamed senior US
military official in Iraq spoke like a Mafia don, telling the UPI: "This
is a very beneficial hit.
They cannot feel anything other than doom, since if we can take down
these guys, we can take
down anybody."

The exultation of US and British officials and the media over the
killings in Mosul-which
included the death of the 14-year-old son of Qusay Hussein, Mustapha-can
only arouse
revulsion. The pleasure that these circles take in bloodletting and
violence has a pathological
character.

President George W. Bush boasted, "Now more than ever Iraqis can know
the former regime is
gone and is not coming back." Senator Ted Kennedy, the dean of
Democratic "liberals,"
expressed satisfaction over the killings. "It's progress," he said.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was less restrained, declaring,
"This is a great day for the
new Iraq."

The American media was both jubilant and bloodthirsty. The New York
Daily News carried
photos of Saddam Hussein and his two sons, with red crosses placed over
Uday and Qusay, and
the words, "One to go." Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, headlined its
editorial
"E-RAT-ICATED!"

The New York Times also celebrated the "hit" in Mosul, calling the
assassination of the Hussein
brothers "the most encouraging news out of Iraq in weeks." The editors
of the Washington
Post called the deaths "very good news indeed" and went on to claim that
the killings "meant a
serious blow to the diehard resistance that has plagued the postwar
administration."

The notion that the murders in Mosul will halt Iraqi resistance to the
US colonial occupation of
that country is wishful thinking of the most politically blinkered
variety. The American
government and media establishment apparently believes its own
propaganda that the only
opposition to the US presence is being offered by "holdouts" of the old
regime, "terrorists" and
"criminals."

These people are so blind to social and political reality and so distant
from the Iraqi people that
they cannot conceive of popular resistance that rejects both the
Ba'athist regime and foreign
imperialist tyranny. Attacks on US forces continued unabated July 23, as
two more American
soldiers died and nine were wounded in attacks.

Why were they not taken alive?

Why was no effort made to capture Uday and Qusay Hussein alive? When
asked about this, Lt.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge of the operation, answered
blandly, "Our mission is to
find, kill or capture."

A number of factors come into play. After weeks of US deaths and sagging
troop morale,
American officials no doubt concluded that a murderous assault would
boost the spirits of the
war constituency in the US and the psychotic element in the military. In
any event, they share the
outlook of this constituency and were in need of a bloodletting
themselves. The pent-up rage and
vindictiveness, in the face of growing Iraqi resistance, expressed
itself in the extermination of
Hussein's sons.

More fundamentally, the capture of Uday and Qusay Hussein presented
politically troublesome
problems. Putting the two former officials on trial would have
inevitably raised the issue of the
entirely lawless character of the war and occupation. The Hussein
brothers would not have
found it a great challenge to turn the tables on their prosecutors and
expose the hypocrisy and
criminality of the Anglo-American operation in Iraq.

We have the example of the ongoing Slobodan Milosevic war crimes trial
in The Hague, which
has turned into a fiasco for the US and NATO. The former Yugoslav
president has already
succeeded-during the prosecution phase of the case-in using the tribunal
to expose the
machinations of the great powers. Milosevic is expected to develop his
arguments during the
two years he will now have to present his defense.

Beyond the immediate situation in Iraq, there is the equally vexing
question of the long-standing
relationship between the US government, including some of its current
leading officials, and the
former Hussein regime.

In February 2003 the National Security Archive released 60 documents
detailing the extent of
the relations between the Reagan administration and the Iraqi government
during the 1980s. At
the time of the Iran-Iraq war the US, while claiming to be neutral in
the conflict, supported
Hussein against the Islamic regime in Teheran. The Archive notes that
Washington, through
direct and indirect means, provided financing, weaponry, intelligence
and military support to
Baghdad "in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald
Reagan," several years
before the US restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984.

A highlight of the process of normalizing American-Iraqi relations was
the visit by then
presidential envoy (and current Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld to
Baghdad in
December 1983, where he held a 90-minute conversation with Saddam
Hussein. The US was
well aware that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against Iranian
forces and Kurdish
insurgents. Rumsfeld made no mention of the issue in this discussion. A
secret memo sent to the
State Department reported that "Saddam Hussein showed obvious pleasure
with [the] President's
letter and Rumsfeld's visit and in his remarks."

As the New York Times reported in March 2003, the US and France were the
sources of Iraq's
biological weapons programs.

Iraqi officials have learned to their cost that whether a foreign leader
is feted by Washington or
assassinated depends entirely on the circumstances.

The assassination of the Hussein brothers has further undermined the
claim that the US went to
war to prevent the Iraqi regime from developing or using weapons of mass
destruction (WMD).
According to Judith Miller in the July 23 New York Times, Qusay Hussein
"was also
responsible for overseeing Iraq's unconventional weapons. ... Stephen
Black, a former inspector
and chemical weapons expert, said that by virtue of his control of the
security services, Qusay
would have known, for instance, 'whether they had chemical weapons, how
many they had, and
where they were deployed.' ... Finally, he said, Qusay would have known
not the exact hiding
places but the 'broad brushes of the concealment policy and
practices-whether Saddam had
destroyed or hidden weapons or the capability for just-in-time
production, and what the goals of
this concealment were.'"

Obviously, by taking the decision to murder Qusay, the US government and
military expressed
their total lack of interest in the existence of WMD and, in effect,
acknowledged that such deadly
and dangerous weapons do not exist.

US role at Nuremberg

The bloodlust and lawlessness of the present-day political establishment
is placed in sharp relief
by comparing its campaign of political assassination in Iraq with the
attitude of the US to the
treatment of fascist mass murderers captured at the end of World War II.

Less than sixty years ago, Washington opposed the summary execution of
the leaders of Nazi
Germany and Imperial Japan-who had committed crimes on a far more
massive scale than any
carried out by the regime of Saddam Hussein-and insisted they be placed
on public trial and
accorded all of the legal privileges of due process. The vast contrast
between then and now
underscores the break with any conception of democratic principles that
has occurred within the
American ruling elite.

The surviving Nazi leaders were responsible for the deaths, by genocide
and war, of tens of
millions, yet American officials were scrupulous in demanding that they
be captured alive and
placed on trial, as they eventually were, at the Nuremberg War Crimes
Tribunal in 1945-46.
Considerable pains were taken to ensure that the defendants not take
their own lives. The US
was insistent that the defendants be provided with counsel and access to
evidence and that they
be accorded the right to cross-examine witnesses.

Dennis Hutchinson of the University of Chicago in a November 18, 2001
Chicago Tribune
article cited the comments of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson,
chosen to represent the
US in any post-war proceeding, explaining the options he presented to
President Harry Truman:
"We could execute or otherwise punish them [the Nazi officials] without
a hearing. But
undiscriminating executions or punishments without definite findings of
guilt, fairly arrived at,
would ... not set easily on the American conscience or be remembered by
our children with
pride." Jackson insisted that the only appropriate "course is to
determine the innocence or guilt
of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times and horrors
we deal with will permit,
and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear."

Jackson feared that summary executions would erode the moral high ground
that the victorious
powers enjoyed, according to Hutchinson, and that it was necessary as
well to document the
precise nature of the Nazi crimes for posterity. Jackson commented:
"Unless we write the record
of this movement with clarity and precision, we cannot blame the future
if in days of peace it
finds incredible accusatory generalities uttered during the war. We must
establish incredible
events by credible evidence."

In a comment directly relevant to the current international situation,
both in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Jackson noted that the Allied triumph by itself did not
provide the victors with the
legal sanction to punish German officials, nor did Allied claims and
proclamations. The guilt of
the Nazi leaders had to be proven in a court of law.

Jackson declared, "The president of the United States has no power to
convict anyone. He can
only accuse. He cannot arrest in most cases without judicial authority.
Therefore, the accusation
made carries no weight in an American trial whatsoever. These
declarations are an accusation
and not a conviction. That requires a judicial finding. Now we could not
be parties to setting up
a formal judicial body to ratify a political decision to convict. Then
judges will have to inquire
into the evidence and give an independent decision."

In his opening statement to the Nuremberg tribunal, Jackson said, "That
four great nations,
flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance
and voluntarily submit
their captive enemies to the judgment of law is one of the most
significant tributes that power
has ever paid to reason."

Jackson's comments and actions were bound up with a certain fidelity to
democratic principles
that still held sway within the American ruling elite. They expressed as
well a certain confidence
in the prospects for US capitalism and the post-war world. They came
from a position of relative
political and economic strength.

The prevailing atmosphere in present-day Washington, which venerates
repression and murder,
represents the collapse of any adherence to democracy, at home and
abroad. The Bush
administration, which came to power through fraud and thuggery, serves
the interests of a
crisis-ridden ruling elite that can only hope to exercise power through
the unrestrained use of
violence on a global scale.

The campaign of political assassinations in Iraq is a further
demonstration of the criminalization
of the American ruling elite.

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

hi Kraig,

> From: kraig grady [mailto:kraiggrady@...]
> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 1:42 PM
> To: metatuning
> Subject: [metatuning] The killing of Hussein's sons: the Nuremberg
> precedent and the criminalization of the US ruling elite
>
>
> The killing of Hussein's sons: the
> Nuremberg precedent and the
> criminalization of the US ruling elite
>
> By David Walsh
> 24 July 2003
>
> <snip>
>
> On the plane of morality, there exist no fundamental
> differences between the personnel of the Hussein
> regime and the Bush administration. The latter operates
> in every sphere with unashamed lawlessness and violence.
> If there is a difference in the degree of brutality
> against its own citizens, the "restraint" exercised
> by the Bush forces is a matter of circumstance rather
> than moral superiority over the killers and torturers
> of the ousted Iraqi regime.

... but think about Fuhrer Bush's track record of
executions as Governer of Texas.

i'm not so sure that the Bush administration *is*
showing very much "restraint" regarding "brutality
against its own citizens".

>
> <snip>
>
> The assault had the character of a gangland slaying,
> the vengeful wiping out of the cornered leadership
> of one gang by a more powerful and better-armed outfit.
> An unnamed senior US military official in Iraq spoke
> like a Mafia don, telling the UPI: "This is a very
> beneficial hit.

i'm glad Walsh had the balls to tell it like it really is.

>
> <snip>
>
> The exultation of US and British officials and the
> media over the killings in Mosul - which included the
> death of the 14-year-old son of Qusay Hussein,
> Mustapha - can only arouse revulsion. The pleasure
> that these circles take in bloodletting and violence
> has a pathological character.

i've been thinking about this all day today while
i was driving around between lessons, and i can't
agree more.

>
> <snip>
>
> The notion that the murders in Mosul will halt
> Iraqi resistance to the US colonial occupation
> of that country is wishful thinking of the most
> politically blinkered variety. The American
> government and media establishment apparently
> believes its own propaganda that the only opposition
> to the US presence is being offered by "holdouts"
> of the old regime, "terrorists" and "criminals."
>
> These people are so blind to social and political
> reality and so distant from the Iraqi people that
> they cannot conceive of popular resistance that
> rejects both the Ba'athist regime and foreign
> imperialist tyranny. Attacks on US forces continued
> unabated July 23, as two more American
> soldiers died and nine were wounded in attacks.
>
> <big snip>
>
> The prevailing atmosphere in present-day Washington,
> which venerates repression and murder, represents
> the collapse of any adherence to democracy, at home
> and abroad. The Bush administration, which came to
> power through fraud and thuggery, serves the interests
> of a crisis-ridden ruling elite that can only hope
> to exercise power through the unrestrained use of
> violence on a global scale.
>
> The campaign of political assassinations in Iraq is
> a further demonstration of the criminalization
> of the American ruling elite.

more kudos to Mr. Walsh for telling the real truth.
and thanks to you, Kraig, for finding this and
posting it.

remember back in March when an enthusastic Marine
draped an American flag in Umm Qasr, and was ordered
to take it down because "this is a war of liberation,
not occupation"?

notice that, imperceptibly, the media, the Bush
administration, and the British and other world
governments, have *all* dropped that facade, and
now speak openly of the occupation.

these guys have become so bold that now they don't
even have to follow Orwell's (_1984_) principles.

i think it's only a matter of time before the whole
thing comes crashing down. maybe i'm just hopeful,
but i do think that most people are smart enough
to see thru all this bullshit.

-monz

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, <monz@a...> wrote:
> i think it's only a matter of time before the whole
> thing comes crashing down. maybe i'm just hopeful,
> but i do think that most people are smart enough
> to see thru all this bullshit.

I've always considered myself a hopeful person as well, and yet it appears most people aren't even smart enough to stop filling their gullets at McDonald's until they are a populace of obese couch potatos. I don't count on them being smart enough to think about things like this - I guess that is why I've become more active politically lately: things weren't going too well on 'hope' alone!

Persevere,
Jon