Category Archives: Middle East

DEBKAfile Says Saddam Execution Staged By US

After receiving irate letters from recovering waraholics about “No Due Process for a Despot,” my latest column, it appears, once again, my deductions therein were not only reasonable, but warranted. Iraqi sovereignty my foot; DEBKAfile confirms the following:

“Saddam Hussein’s execution was a stage in the newly-crafted Iraq strategy Bush has promised to unveil in the New Year.
The strategy, already in the works, was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 283, Dec. 22. It hinged on the cooperation of two key national religious figures: the most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and the Sunni cleric with the most influence on the Sunni Arab insurgency and the Baath, Sheik Hares al-Dari, head of the Sunna Scholars Council. The plan as conceived by the US president is not contingent on engaging either Iran or Syria.
The next stage, possibly the toughest, is to bring a form of stability and security to Baghdad, for which an infusion of troops will be required, followed by the partition of Iraq into three semi-autonomous Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni regions. Baghdad will serve as the federal capital. Its key role will be the administration of Iraq’s oil resources. Oil revenue will be distributed equitably to all three regions by a higher oil authority, whose members will not be Iraqis but Iraqi federal government appointees backed by the national army.
These arrangements which depend largely on the continuing cooperation of the two clerics are intended to pave the way for the orderly exit of US forces from Iraq.”

A least DEBKAfile, an Israeli source for intelligence, doesn’t pretend that the Iraqis who hunker down in the Green Zone with the Americans are autonomous in any meaningful way.

‘No Due Process For A Despot’

Iraq, Middle East, Terrorism

“As repugnant as it was, [Saddam’s] hasty hanging was far less offensive —and certainly not illegal —than the legal proceedings that preceded it.

Saddam’s trial did not even qualify as a show trial. Justice coming out of terror-riddled Iraq better resembles the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution (or Mike Nifong’s in Durham County). Masquerading as a court of law, the Iraqi, US-sponsored, Tribunal is more like the French Revolutionary Assembly, meting justice by popular demand…”

The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily column, “No Due Process for a Despot,” in which, in addition to explaining why Saddam was not accorded due process (as well as why we should care), I offer a plausible explanation as to why the US did not object to Saddam’s “hasty hanging.” (With thanks to my daughter for her original suggestion.)

'No Due Process For A Despot'

Iraq, Middle East, Terrorism

“As repugnant as it was, [Saddam’s] hasty hanging was far less offensive —and certainly not illegal —than the legal proceedings that preceded it.

Idio-Experts Find Their Groove

Iraq, Media, Middle East, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, The Zeitgeist, War

The experts—the cakewalk crowd; the people whose utter ignorance of geopolitical realities had them insisting our soldiers would be greeted with blooms and bonbons in Iraq; those fools who said an Iraqi democracy would rise from the torrid sands of Mesopotamia; those jokers who labeled as a liberal or a traitor anyone who exposed their invasion of Iraq for the immoral and illegal crime it was; the likes of Victor Davis Hanson, David Frum, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, George Will, Tucker Carlson, and Andrew Sullivan (a few of whom seem to have conveniently recanted at the eleventh hour), Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Mark Steyn, Max Boot, John Podhoretz, and the list goes on—the philosopher-kings who’ve been right about almost nothing have finally found a prediction they can make with absolute (ponderous and pompous) certainly:

A is likely to increase violence in Iraq
B is likely to increase violence in Iraq
C is likely to increase violence in Iraq
Saddam’s execution is likely to increase violence in Iraq

Ad infinitum…

Violence in Iraq is rising and is going to continue to rise no matter what. As the idio-experts have discovered, violence in Iraq is a certain thing.