The United States under Democratic Test:
Firing Rumsfeld or Prosecuting the War Criminals?
By Ndzana Seme
05/10/2004 - "The horrific torture of Iraqi prisoners is more evidence that the war in Iraq is not creating
peace, freedom or democracy, but is perpetuating a greater sense of hostility and mistrust toward America
around the world? said today U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chair of The Congressional Black
Caucus.
"I again renew the Congressional Black Caucus' call for Secretary Rumsfeld to offer his resignation for the
good of the nation and as a demonstration of goodwill to the international community?, he added.
More and more people have hard time finding a difference between Mobutu Sese Seko, late dictator of
Congo, and George W Bush. Mobutu used to cover his ministers? and commanders? crimes of rapes,
tortures, murders and mass murders, until the world community was alerted and an international outcry
forced him to do something. Then the something to do he always found was firing or jailing some
scapegoats who, once the noise of critics had dissipated, reappeared a couple of years later in other no less
rewarding public and commanding functions. All dictators in the world use this tactic.
By flatly rejecting the People?s calls to fire Rumsfeld, Georges W Bush shows that he is worst than a
tropical dictator. His character traits are closer to Adolf Hitler than Mobutu. Same contempt of the
international outcry, same stubbornness in pursuing with actions that are perilous to his own People?
Apparently, U.S. representatives are unwilling to do something to stop the monster they have contributed to
create by giving him a blank check for the war on January 2003. Most U.S. representatives try to stick
with their first support of the ?preemptive war?, even though they know that they were misled by the White
House?s false information and blackmailed with the threat of ?Unpatriotic? label.
Along with part of the American people, they jubilated on July 2003 when they were shown the body parts
of Saddam Hussein?s sons, Uday and Qusay. I don?t remember (I may be wrong for not having heard the
usual Robert Blyrd and the like) that any U.S. law maker ever denounced either the barbaric show of the
war trophy or the violation of the sheer human decency rule until then observed by the American
mainstream media.
The opposite picture is a handout picture made
available by the U.S. Army. It shows an
American helicopter-propelled bomb rocking the
hideout of Uday and Qusay in Mossul, Iraq, on
Tuesday 22, 2003. American troops that had
surrounded the building were just onlookers,
putting their fingers in their ears because of the
explosion, apparently facing no threat at all from
the building.
It is doubtful that they tried to negotiate the
victims? surrender, since their Commander
In-Chief wanted Saddam?s sons ?dead or alive?.
The picture shows a clear and unquestionable
public murder, not a war battle.
Assassinated this way, Uday and Qusay would
never challenge George W Bush?s accusations
presenting them as rapists, torturers, and mass
murderers; because they would not be
prosecuted with a fair trial granted them by the
Geneva Convention.
Uday?s and Qusay?s body parts were
distributed or sold to media vultures, thus
creating a precedent that was perpetuated later in
U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Scenes of prisoners? tortures, rapes, humiliations
and murders were shot and taped, often to
produce pornographic video records that had to
be utilized as a means for psychologically
terrorizing the Iraqi people.
The Nuremberg Tribunal was organized as a
means to distancing the ?Free World? from the
rest of nations considered as barbaric. The Nazi
rapists, torturers, murderers and mass murderers
were prosecuted and sentenced, many of them to
death, even though the Nazi Party had come to
power through a Western democratic process.
After that, strong codes of ethics, called
International Law and based on human rights
have governed the world? until a group of far
right fundamentalists seized power in the U.S.
Similar to Hitler?s stubbornness to invade and
subject Germany?s neighboring nations, Bush
ignored the world community?s outcry, mass
demonstrations, and opinions challenging his
evidences presented to justify his ?preemptive
war? on Iraq. Bush and his group of hardliners
decided that the U.S. is above the International
Law and the United Nations, above the Geneva
Convention, above the very American human
rights laws and Constitution.
Like Hitler and the Nazi, they ordered mass
killings, the assassination of Bass Party leaders,
of unfriendly journalists, of critics of U.S. invasion
such as the cleric Al-Sadr, the humiliation,
torture, rape and murder of captured Iraqis.
Even with these unquestionable war crimes, the
U.S. law makers still do not find that it is time to
save the America?s face before the world
community, by prosecuting the war criminals
from executors to commanders, starting with the
Commander In-Chief.
Firing Rumsfeld is viewed as a timid decision that
would not reduce the spreading anti-American
sentiment worldwide. Not prosecuting and
severely sentencing the masterminds of the Iraqi
prisons? human rights crimes and of the other
traceable war crimes is the precious gift that
Al-Qaeda and other Muslim, terrorist
organizations ever expected in order to inflate
their ranks.
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