The Immunity of Empire
Press Action
Friday, December 29, 2006
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/saddam12292006/
The U.S. government is about to carry out another great offense as part of its foray into Iraq: the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The U.S. government’s responsibility for the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since its invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 surely represents a greater offense than the killing of a single person, Saddam Hussein. But the symbolism of the U.S. government killing a foreign leader only serves to further highlight the credo of the American political, economic, judicial and military system: death and destruction.
The terrible deeds that the U.S. government has perpetrated throughout its history would make almost every American leader, from the chief executive on down to leaders of Congress, eligible for the same treatment that Saddam Hussein is about the receive. If this were a just world, the “international community” would have issued arrest warrants for all of the current top leaders of the U.S. government, including members of the executive branch and leaders of Congress, for their murderous transgressions against the rest of the world.
The evidence against them would be overwhelming enough to promptly mete out guilty verdicts. But instead of embracing death and destruction, the international community—in a just world—would simply lock up these miscreants, preventing them from doing additional harm to the rest of us.
Instead, we will continue to face a world where leaders of the U.S. government and leaders of U.S. client states will get off scot-free for grievous acts against fellow humans and the environment, acts that are intensifying in their level of brutality with every year that passes.