Full of Sound and Fury

In regards to the hanging of Saddam Hussein, I am reminded of Gandhi's statement that violence will vanquish violence only when darkness can dispell the darkness. In other words, if anyone thinks that executing Saddam Hussein in the middle of a civil war is going to curtail the mutual slaughter, this isn't going to happen. Violence is only going to "surge". Many Sunnis were devoted to Saddam and will likely want revenge in the form of assassinations and bombings of Shiites and Americans. Perhaps the Bush Administration will welcome this as an excuse to escalate its attacks on Anbar Province further. But we also know that even our good buddies, the Saudis, are financing Sunni insurgents and organizations in Iraq, to keep them from being exterminated by the Shiites. The confragration will only grow.

Furthermore, everyone knows that Saddam's trial was a cariature of justice by American legal standards, with bizarre goings-on from beginning to end, with the not so hidden hand of the Bush Administration influencing the entire process. This trial, however, was not so much about justice as it was about Shiite revenge, a Roman-style trophy for American audiences and the shutting up of Saddam before he could be questioned about the complicity of American officials in arming and directing him during his war against Iran, as well as other obscenities.

If true justice against Hussein, who was indeed a bloody tyrant, was the goal, why was he executed so hastily, before the trial over his massive slaughter of the Kurds had even taken place, leaving millions of Kurds without any sense of resolution? Hussein should have been tried before an international tribunal. The thousands of Iranians who also lost loved ones because of Hussein's war with Iran should have also been invited to press charges, especially in reference to his chemical attacks on Iranians. But then uncomfortable inquiries about alleged American chemical and biological weapons sales to Hussein might have been brought up during the proceedings, not a welcome idea to George Bush Senior and Donald Rumsfeld, to name a few players. (see Wayne Madsen's revelation on this at: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_061228_why_the_bush_crime_f.htm )

As for the poetic symbolism of this event, even though President Bush must certainly feel ecstatic now at fulfilling his obsession to get Saddam, what has transpired with Saddam's hanging is the equivalent of the three fateful witches in MacBeth throwing another bat's wing or spider into their witches' brew, so as to make it all the more potent. Our benighted President, acting out his pathetic version of MacBeth, can't wait to drink another cup from their black cauldron, again mistaking it for the Holy Grail.