Puja & Sachin's Page: 2006

My apologies to anyone reading this. I know that this is not a political blog but I feel that Iraq is an ethical issue more than a political one.

Saddam's hanging today (about 6 AM Iraqi local time) is a grave miscarriage of justice seldom before seen in the history of humankind. I may not be an expert on Iraq, Saddam and all the evil deeds that he has done, but what I know the following for sure:

Saddam has done some pretty evil things
Some or most of these evil things were being done with either implicit or explicit permission of the current "Sheriff of the Globe" and his assistant (both being representatives of their former governments)
Iraq has had some serious issues between the 2 major factions and both hold grudges against one another
The current Iraqi government is composed of the faction which hates Saddam and his posse of people (whatever those reasons maybe)
Saddam has been accused of "crimes against humanity"
Humanity is defined as " world: all of the living human inhabitants of the earth" (as per http://www.wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
Saddam was captured by the Coalition forces and has strangely been handed over to the Iraqi government for a trial against the charges that he has been accused (see point 5)
The last time this type of charges were levied (II nd World War), the trails gained the attention of the world and were tried by a group of internationally renowned jurists (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials). The German war criminals were not handed over to the Russians? were they??

Let me get straight to the point, Saddam's hanging has clearly revealed that the so called peacemakers are as myopic, selfish and under-evolved as any other goddamn dictator anywhere else in the world.

There is no higher pursuit of democracy, peace or justice. It all boils down to the neanderthal urge of man (in this case, read it as 'men') to take revenge and not admit to a mistake to feed an extraordinarily large ego.

Here is why Saddam was hanged (at least that is what I can make out of this entire sham-show of a trial!):

Hanging Saddam was the easy way out from the "Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction" debacle. No Saddam = all WMD destroyed (no one will ever remember that there were no WMDs to begin with!! - shame on Public Memory)
It lets the ruling faction of the Iraqi government to have their "pound of flesh" (Shylock's immortalized expression from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice") and establish the "quid" of the quid pro quo with the Coalition and help satiate their SUV fueled appetite for oil and energy
Eliminate all evidence of how many of these "crimes against humanity" were undertaken and completed with either implicit or explicit consent/material and human support of the Coalition members (you know who I am talking about)

I am no fan of Saddam nor do I think that he should not be punished. But just like any reasonable man next door, I too believe that justice cannot be delivered by a kangaroo court of shouting lawyers, a sand dune of judges (changed thrice during the trial), defence attorneys afraid of death threats, political harangues from both sides, and television cameras and microphones emphasising the status of the proceedings as mass entertainment (the last 19 words borrowed from Brian Barder's blog, for their eloquence)

This day will live in infamy for all humankind and should be remembered as a day when the world forgot all about justice in its blind pursuit for punishment. God help us all!!

Here are some opposing views ("What's life without hearing and understanding the other side")