Thursday/Friday, March 17-18, 2005


On March 15, 2005, Agence France News Agency published a press release that was short, yet chilling. Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq who is being illegally held in prison, appealed to the world for help for him and his imprisoned comrades in a note that literally had to be smuggled out of the building. The plea was hand-written on the pages of a lawyer’s pocket calendar. The lawyer was present as Aziz was being grilled by a United Nations panel investigating corruption in Iraq’s oil-for-food program. It read:

To the world public opinion: we hope that you will help us … We need fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally, a fair trial. Please help us.

We have been (text not clear) for a long time and we have been out of our families, no contacts or phones, no letters, even no parcels sent to us by our families and not one given to us.

Other than Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz was the most recognizable face that the western world saw from Iraq between 1990 and 2003. Many times, he appeared in press conferences giving the Iraqi side to the stories fabricated by the U.S. He was eloquent by any standards in a language that was not his first (English). Watching him speak was a treat to those of us who did not buy into the U.S. fabrications about Iraq. When he finished a speech, the listener came away with not only his current message, but information about world history and sociology as well.

For instance, about six months before the illegal March 2003 invasion, a speech by Aziz was carried by the U.S. network C-SPAN, that was an in-depth lecture about how revolution and terrorism were opposing forces. This was during the time when the Bush administration was giving a full-court press to the absurd concept that Saddam Hussein and Osam bin-Laden were in cahoots in attempting to destroy the U.S.

I was mesmerized by Aziz’ mastery of the English language as well as the sociological information he brought forth. No U.S. or British professor could have exceeded his eloquence.

Today, Tariq Aziz sits in a prison cell. He does not know where he is and neither does his family. His incarceration, as well as that of the other imprisoned Iraqi government officials, is a blight that the world should be ashamed of.

Part of the U.S. arsenal is to humiliate people beyond the norms of human behavior. Aziz is now in the middle of such a program.

Part of U.S. culture is based on humiliation. In sports, business, education, and many other cultural pursuits, this humiliation is standard fare in the American psyche, so it is easy to see why the administration uses these methods against its "enemies." Recently, I wrote a piece concerning how the U.S. tried to humiliate President Saddam Hussein in depicting his capture; showing him to be a coward on the run. Fortunately, the truth did emerge and it differed considerably from what was shown on TV and published in the print media.

Demonizing a leader who disagrees with the U.S. is a successful manner in which to con the U.S. public. Despite all the truth eventually emerging, the citizenry of America still believes the lies every time they are told. And, the lies are big: the bigger, the more the U.S. public believes them.

Saddam Hussein was crazy. Psychologists (in all probability U.S. administration employees posing as doctors in print) wrote that he was nuts because his left eyebrow was at a different angle from his right one. The public bought it. Saddam was a madman who must be stopped.

Manuel Noriega, the former president of Panama was depicted in the same terms. And, he was kidnapped by the U.S.

In 1993, the U.S. went into Somalia and after a few months changed strides and began to demonize Mohamed Aidid. Instead of being a nationalist who was fighting for his country, Aidid was again portrayed as a madman.

A little-known fact behind the demonizing of Aidid is the identity of the author of the scenario. The infamous April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 1990 who met with Saddam Hussein in July of that year and made the statement, "We (U.S.) take no opinion in Arab to Arab matters," was assigned to Somalia in June 1993 to up the ante. She created anti-Aidid propaganda and the so-called humanitarian mission changed into a manhunt for Aidid.

The U.S. is masterful at creating enemies and depicting them as crazed madmen. It is also masterful at kidnapping and assassinating foreign leaders. Saddam Hussein had been the target of many a U.S. missile or bomb since 1991.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq has been declared illegal by the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anan. We all know that is was illegal. If so, how can the U.S. be allowed to kill or kidnap members of a legal government and not be held accountable? This is the question that the world should be discussing now.

Instead, most countries ignore the plight of the imprisoned leaders. Many are outright afraid of a U.S. reprisal, either in the form of military action, or the taking away of funds they used to buy off the countries. Others, such as Arab countries who once benefited from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, are just willing to keep their mouths shut because their leaders do not want to lose the money the U.S. gives them and by not speaking up about Iraq, they are allowed to keep their medieval societies in place without opposition from U.S. propaganda. So much for the U.S. crusade for "democracy" in the world.

The current state of the imprisoned Iraqi government officials transcends the plight of a dozen or so individuals. If their trial does come forth and they are not given proper representation or justice, the world will be sent a message that will be even more dire than that of the invasion of Iraq. From that day on, the world will be given notice that the U.S. can and will do anything it wants at any time it wants and there will be no opposition. Never in the history of the world has such power been given to any one nation.

The peace groups who once massed in cities worldwide to protest the impending war against Iraq are now mute on the subject of the incarcerated Iraqi government. Most have bought into the administration’s line of "what’s done is done." They have taken their signs home and thrown them in the trash.

We should be seeing a worldwide movement that could define the history of this planet. We should be seeing massive numbers of people protesting the plight of Tariq Aziz and his comrades. Baghdad should be the destination of millions of fair-minded people to create an atmosphere of protest that no one can ignore. Instead, we hear silence.

There are a few leaders who have stood up for justice in Iraq. Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela are two. However, they both are in the cross-hairs of U.S. policy and they know they will be targets, but they have let their integrity rule, instead of fear or greed. How long will they stay alive?

Terrorism is rampant today in the world. Never have their been so many terrorist activities; daily and worldwide. The headquarters for the largest, most efficient, most well-armed and most dangerous terrorist organization in the world are located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.