When the Devil decided that Satan should be hanged….

Congratulations to President Bush. Can we all rise from our seats and applaud the man’s successful attempt to immortalize his name. It’s a signal for the start of a great New Year. He has successfully authored a chapter that would find its place as another unforgettable one in America’s modern history. On December 30th 2006 as the noose tightened around Saddam’s neck the gasp that went out was so loud that one could have heard it from any where in the world. After all when millions of individuals who care for silly things such as ‘moral justice’ and ‘national sovereignty’ are strangled all at the same time you expect the noise to travel farther than the trivial 40076 km that the earth’s circumference offers as a challenge. Yet almost all of us and definitely those who matter chose to just duck under the noise hoping that it would count as being non-existent.

While Bush’s statements of the act being a ‘milestone’ and loads of other crap was definitely expected what was bothersome are the reactions of most of the ‘un-biased’ nations outside of the ‘Colonial Cousins Coalition’. India for example was ‘disappointed’ as was expressed by the External Affairs Ministry. Wow, how appropriate and well placed one should say!!!! Our parliamentarians are ‘devastated, pained and distraught’ to see the Indian Cricket team losing 0-4 to South Africa and what’s the reaction towards an execution arising from a mockery of a trial ……er…… ‘Disappointed’ is it? Very interesting.

Its not about whether capital punishment that too ‘death by hanging’ is acceptable or not. Its not even about whether Saddam deserved to be hanged or not, being the perpetrator of a long list of heinous crimes that were committed under his careful supervision for over a decade and a half. Those are topics for another day as those are different issues in themselves. The issues here are the oft repeated ones about 1) the right of a nation, however powerful it might be, to poke its nose into a) Sovereign affairs and b) Judicial Exercises , of another nation and of course 2) the fairness of the trial

But by now the USA has gotten so much into the habit of playing Football (American Rules at that) with other nations’ affairs that am not sure if it even remotely pinches them anymore. One wonders if that feeling of numbness has spread far and across a majority of nations that have just got accustomed to the game and are taking it as a way of life. ‘After all as long as it’s not our country or surrounding why bother’ seems to be the popular refrain. I had this wild thought that crossed my mind a couple of days back. In India we have no dearth of politicians who occupy their proud slots as MPs and MLAs after having been involved in varying degrees of criminal activity do we? We would more than welcome and even fervently hope that they are taken to court, prosecuted and punished for their crimes…a la Shibu Soren. But how ok would we be if one day Mr. Bush (in his extended role as President of three parts of the world – US, Friends of US and Foes of US) orders an enquiry and consigns a couple of them to the gallows??? Not very good am sure, for we are not talking about the appropriateness of a wrong doer being punished, but about the appropriateness of who should have the right to decide on rights and wrongs and the way to go about the decision.

Ok, for a moment let’s even forget and ignore the Sovereignty part. Lets assume for a moment that a war torn, leadership lacking nation such as Iraq does not have the bandwidth to conduct a high profile judicial exercise. Was a fair trial conducted? While the US, the other members of the coalition and the interim Iraqi government would all like us to believe that it indeed was the case, its no world secret that the trial was a farce. And come to think of it, we might be downright crazy to even expect that a fair trial should have been conducted in the first place. For, in a fair trial Saddam’s lawyers could have rightfully called 4 main characters of the American cast as prosecutable witnesses. President Bush’s right hand men at various stages (Cheney, Powell) and his dad Bush Sr. were all prime characters in the ugly precursor game that was played in the 1980s in Iraq/Iran and the Arab Nations by the US. Many of the Iraqi dictator’s ghastly crimes (the same ones that formed material during his trial) were performed under their noses and even abetted by them to a great extent. So, fair trial, did we say? Ho-hum

With the execution episode now dead and buried (literally too) the US has created a deeply divided Iraq and a much more antagonised ‘Islamic Nations’ gang. Also evident is a desire to break into unrecognisable pieces what remained of the world order. Iraq was just Bush’s version of a demo equipment, Somalia is waiting in the wings (of course it wont hog the headlines as its not glamorous media material) and a lot more nations are just brewing in their barrels. Thanks once again Mr. Bush You have successfully just tightened the noose….not just around Saddam’s neck…..