Of course, we've had this all presented, in true Americana Hollywood style (for how can we perceive reality, these days, if it is not through the simplistic perceptions of the contrived cinematic narrative?), in very black and white terms (or rather, in black versus white). I have often discussed (those of you who were present for the Eye On Big Brother blog may remember) our inability to perceive greys, and the subsequent moral riddles we fail to solve (or even to truly understand the confound in the first place). The dual of America and Iraq (or Bush and Hussein) is one such conundrum; although, perhaps a better analogy in this example would be to say that we can only understand conflict in terms of polarity; there must be a black, and so too, a white. Good guys take on bad guys. Someone must be Tom Cruise, and someone must be Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The problem - if only more could see it (though thankfully, the numbers of those who do, at very least, increase - albeit, slowly) - is that in this case, we find black versus black. In fact, at the end of the day, the entire contemporary history of The Middle east - inclusive of Russia, Osama, the involvement of the (now all but forgotten) British and the more recent interference from the US - is a sad tale of black versus black versus black versus black. I've recently decided, once and for all, to educate myself on the history of the Middle East. I have scoured for some semblance of a good guy - perhaps due to the nature of my humanity, I do so with a pressing optimism - but alas, in a hundred years of The Middle East (at the end of the day, a Western creation) I cannot find any. And here we are, at another pivotal moment in this history (we place far too much emphasis on it in our ignorance, admittedly, for there have been many such moments), and all I see is the same monochromatic colour. Black.

 

Never mind the ridiculously blatant timing of the original sentencing of Saddam on the eve of the American senate elections (that Bush subsequently lost those elections is, for many of us, the first glimmer of hope in what has now become a long period of darkness). That was irritating - even infuriating. But the real injustice comes with the conveniently hurried path of Hussein to the gallows with only half of his trial over. It is no accident that the trial of Hussein was divided into two parts, and that the first (which was always, let's not pretend, going to result in the noose) was for the localised (and smaller) affair of the other killing of the Shias, which will now send him to the gallows before the later (and greater) attrocity of the gassing of the Kurds can be drudged up (something the Americans would prefer very much not to happen).

 

The Iraq/Iran war stretched between 1980 to almost the end of that decade, and like most of Hussein's military adventures, proved a little more difficult than he first assured the Iraqi people. He originally boasted that Iraqi forces would take hold of the Iranian capital, Tehran, in just three days, but by the mid 80's, needless to say, the Iranians' capabilities were a little greater than Hussein had anticipated - as was their loyalty to the Iranian leadership (who Hussein expected to be revolted against by their own people). Ironically, the United States objected to the Iranian goal of overthrowing Hussein (Iran claiming the dictator to essentially be a terrorist), and instead became buddies with the dictator they would now hang in the name of global "justice". Iraq is essentially divided between different forms of Muslims (the Shiites and the Sunnis which we now - thanks to the civil unrest - finally hear about in Western media) - although another irony should be noted that a small portion of Iraqi Christians co-exist with the Iraqi Muslims with greater success than they currently do here, and fought alongside their Muslim Iraqi brothers against the US invasion. In understanding the battle between the Sunnis and the Shiites (for those who don't understand the region - and that's probably most of us, I hate to say), it's best to think in analogous terms of the Irish conflict, or as if the Catholics and Evangelists fought for power in America. Iran, under Shiite rule, and having no interest in relations with America, posed a potential threat to American aspirations of controlling oil. If Iran managed to attain control of Iraq oil supplies, not only would America have little chance of being included in these reserves, it would effectively be rendered the second global economic power (and we all know it likes very much to be the first). It doesn't take a diplomatic genius to join the dots on how - or why - what happened, did.  

 

Part of what happened was the now infamous handshake between the recently resigned Donald Rumsefeld and Hussein. America (Britian, too, of course, though with much smaller participation) became an ally to Iraq, and set about in MAINTAINING his rule. Not only did they support the Iraq invasion of Iran (if they could win over Saddam - which they did - and Saddam then consequently owned Iran's oil reserves, one and one quite easily make two), they actively participated. Spotting the weakness in the Iraq invasion, and realising Hussein was clearly desperate for help (hence prone to diplomatic, let's say "mutually beneficial", relations), in the Americans rushed. Before too long, American sattelites were providing Hussein images of Iranian troup movements, and handing him weapons. 

 

Among these weapons were the chemicals, and knowledge, to produce biochemical warfare.

 

The initial usage of these chemicals - that slowly killed victims by essentially drowning them in their own saliva and blood, alongside paralysis and blistering - killed thousands of Iranians on their own soil, and has been left out of the trial of Hussein (the deaths or Iranians to chemical weapons was never to be part of the trial). What has been used, however (or would have been, if it were not for his execution before this second trial), is the use of these weapons on the Kurds of Halabja (an Iraqi city on the Iran/Iraq border).

 

Kurds, for those who don't know, are a people who have no state (again, in analogous terms, think of them as displaced gypsies). They inhabit various regions of the Middle East, including Iran (who religiously are sympathetic to the Kurds), and were accomplices to the Turkish genocide of the Armenians (raping and killing hundreds of Armenians - a Christian race the Turkish Muslim state had decided must perish - in the early 1900's). Kurdish uprising had already been a problem for Hussein, and come the Iran war, the Kurds were given safe passage out of Halabja, in return for using the city as a strategic point for their war against Hussein. Of course, the popular spin now used in mainstream Western media, with the soul purpose of justifying American invasion and the inevitable death of Hussein, is that the gassing of Halabja was the work of a tyrant who "killed his own people" - but even the Kurds would be inclined to disagree, especially considering their battle with Iraq has been to gain this region of Iraq as their own to form a sovereign Kurdish state. Nothing justifies what would happen to the Kurds of Halabja, but certainly Hussein wasn't senselessly killing his own people from some pathological pleasure, as the Western dichotomy of the goodie versus the psychotic baddie knows very well to put it to us as. Regardless, Hussein wreaked his terror on the inhabitants of the city... with chemicals given to him by the Americans.

 

This crime was to be the second installment of Hussein's trial. During the first part, for the killing of the Shias accused of attempting to assasinate Hussein (although, as far as we know, they did - and even this still poses an interesting moral comparison to the actions of America when it's leadership is threatened), because this crime (still hideous, of course) did not concern American involvement, Hussein was formally forbidden from speaking of his relationship with Rumsfeld and the Americans during this period because, technically, it had nothing to do with the trial at hand. This would all come later, in the second trial, where Hussein would have his chance to explain the killing of the Kurds... with a little help from his friends (regardless of whether he was assisted to kill Iranians and not Kurds, the Kurdish disaster is still linked to this war).

 

That the Americans were a part in the crimes they now use to justify their occupation is by no means a secret - it's in any contemporary encyclopaedia (including Wiki), and the evidence was clearly laid out in 1991 (we've known this for well over a decade). At first (here's the other amazing wickedness of the Republican administration of the time), Americans publicly blamed Iran for using the gas, blatantly lying - absurd not only in that it dared to suggest they were using it against their own army (?) but because, being among those who gave Hussein the gas, they clearly knew where the chemical warfare was coming from. Eventually, they admitted they were wrong, and blamed... wait for this... "bad intelligence" (deja vous, anyone?).

 

And so, not long after America's initial PR lies, the whole world "knew", but for some "strange" reason, did not feel this crime to be of any relevance. Once this became clear that not only had Iraq been the ones using chemical warfare, but that the they had done so with chemicals obtained from the States, the Republican administration was promptly questioned by human rights groups; but the administration dismissed them altogether, and acknowledged only that they'd prefer for Hussein not to have committed the acts, but that it would in no way affect their friendly handshaking relationship (predictably, the groups' concerns were largely seen to be the annoying over-reaction by lefties). To be fair, there is some division between the instance of gassing the Iranians and that of gassing the Kurds; but even this was all irerelevant at the time; we didn't care very much about any of it - the division or the links. It was largely kept out of media, naturally, who - quite rightly, let's face it - saw it not only as detrimental to positive diplomatic/economic relations to criticise the acts, but something that Western readers simply wouldn't care about. And they haven't. Until now, of course.

 

With the media and world attention on the trials, however, the last thing the Americans would want would be for this nagging moral contradiction to transcend the realm of the politically aware, the left wing, or people who bother to read about the Middle East in any other form than the pages of tabloid sensationalism (all in all, a fairly small group - certainly in terms of voting demographics). Which is why, of course, Hussein has been rushed to the gallows so quickly; the second part of his "justice", in the supposedly fair rule of the new Iraqi (American) law, now mysteriously foresaken (because it's not just about the sentencing and justice of saddam, it's about the recording of history).  No, no, we must hang him, now! We must keep this horrible contradiction out of the history books which will present this moment of time for many years to come. Mainstream commercial media certainly allude to the fact that Hussein's conviction comes only from the first half of the trial, meaning that the second charge will not even be tried, but they conveniently ignore the known American relationship to this second crime, and rather, present it as some sort of further victory (he's so bad, we didn't even need to put him on trial for the Kurdish genocide). That would change, however, if that trial were to go ahead; but that's not going to happen. In thirty days (bet you it's much less than that, in the end), Saddam Hussein will die, before any awareness of the hypocrisy of this trial makes it to the dinner tables of people who watch Fox. 

 

We will be shown - naturallement - images of dancing Iraqis, joyous children shouting for their "freedom" (despite the mourning and anger that has already begun for many Iraqis, which will no doubt translate into even more bloodshed; the fact that rebelling Shiites will be very happy - even though the Americans are desperate to keep them from control - and it will mostly be these people we will see, who are often enemies of America just as much as they are of Saddam; and despite that many of those dancing will be celebrating Hussein as a martyr - as he himself has asked of "his" people). We in the West will be expected to feel that most illustrious of American concepts - justice - and, but of course, a little safer, a little more - dare I say - "free". All thanks to George Dubya Bush and his spurs of liberty. We will be forced to sit through this joyous propaganda, and there will be very little the more intelligent among us can do but simply switch the television off. 

 

Is the loss of Saddam Hussein a sad day for Planet Earth? I don't believe in the death penalty in any case - even here - but at the end of the day, the loss of Hussein is no mammoth tragedy.

 

The ongoing sustained hypocrisy of the US, however, is. There'll be no dancing in my street.