Indecent Haste… Hypocrisy, Saddam and Stoning Satan

With indecent haste, the puppet Iraqi government has executed Saddam Hussein.

A dictator created then destroyed by America
By Robert Fisk
Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold – that crack of the neck at the end of a rope – than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a “great day” for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed – by the Iraqi “government”, but on behalf of the Americans – on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers – what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don’t gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn’t invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead – and thousands of Western troops are dead – because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.
In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent – we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam’s shame at Abu Ghraib – and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.
Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam’s weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our “bunker buster” bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our “victory” – our “mission accomplished” – who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement. […]
I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us – and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam’s executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib – only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own – and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator’s soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman – now a messianic columnist for The New York Times – who perfectly caught Saddam’s character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, “part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck”. And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.
But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam’s cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman’s lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they – and millions of other Muslims – will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. “Handed over to the Iraqi authorities,” he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down – correctly – as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this – that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a “martyr” to the will of the new “Crusaders”. […]
Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there’s a thought. …

It’s a very bad precedent all the way around. George and gang should shy away from doing unto others what they wouldn’t want done to themselves… after all, in the eyes of most of the world, they, too, are War Criminals and are committing genocide. Murdering Saddam Hussein is not going to wash away the blood on the hands of the U.S. Neocons.

Saddam: The questions that will live on
by Andrew Buncombe
So why did George Bush decide to invade Iraq? Nearly four years and hundreds of thousands of casualties later, the reasons appear both as obvious and as elusive as they were in the spring of 2003. …
In an address to the nation just three days before the invasion, Mr Bush declared: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
It quickly became clear that central claim was not true, and it became equally clear the administration had been manipulating uncertain and “caveated” intelligence to make the case for a war that had been decided on long before. The famous Downing Street memo suggests that as early as July 2002 ” intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”. Indeed, within hours of the attacks of 9/11, senior elements within the administration were seeking for a strike against Iraq even though there was no evidence it was involved.
But if the alleged threat of WMD was based on manipulated intelligence – some provided by Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress – what else motivated the US? Many remain convinced the overwhelming factor was a desire to control Iraq’s oil supplies, the second largest proven reserves in the world. Such a view has been reinforced by recent recommendations of Iraq Study Group which said: ” The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.”
Veteran dissident Noam Chomsky said: “It is glaringly obvious that Iraq is estimated to have the second largest energy reserves in the world and is right at the heart of the world’s major energy producing region, and that establishing a client state in Iraq would considerably enhance policies that go back to the dawn of the oil age, and in particular to the post-war period when the US was taking over global domination, and established as a very high and natural policy principle the need to control this ‘stupendous source of strategic power’.”

He added: “It takes remarkable obedience to authority to believe that the US would have ‘liberated’ Iraq – or taken revenge – if its main exports were lettuce and pickles, and the major petroleum resources were in the South Pacific.” …
Indeed, among the signatories to the 1998 letter from the neo-con Project for the New American Century calling on President Clinton to take on Saddam were former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Mr Wolfowitz later said Saddam’s alleged possession of WMD was just one of many reasons for invading. “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” he said.
David Swanson, a founder of afterdowningstreet.org, a coalition of peace and activist groups, said: “The one thing we know is that the reasons they told us were false. [I think] they wanted an Iraq that looked free but isn’t and they wanted to control it¿They wanted the oil and the power that comes with controlling that oil and making profits for British and US oil companies.”

Did other factors influence Mr Bush? Was he seeking revenge against “the guy who tried to kill my dad” – a reference to an alleged plot to kill the president’s father during a visit to Kuwait in 1993 or was there even a broader strategic rationale, one that would benefit Israel… ?

The irony of America mourning for that pusillanimous coward, Gerald Ford, while exulting over an illegally carried out trial and execution is not lost on many…

And the Empire Mourned…
By Jason Miller
… Another un-indicted US war criminal has casually ridden off into a peaceful crimson sunset. In response, pundits, talking heads, reporters and various other infotainment personnel are working feverishly to perpetuate America’s collective delusion that we embody integrity, decency, and enlightened values.
Like virtually all of his predecessors and successors in the White House (regardless of their party affiliation), Gerald Ford was guilty of a host of egregious offenses against the human race. But the Big Lie must not die.
In the wake of the United States’ recent facilitation of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, we in the self-proclaimed “bastion of human rights” are in the midst of six days of mourning for a man would have swung from the gallows long ago had he been judged by the same standards as Saddam. …
[C]onsider how the affable “Jerry” enabled or caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings and ensured that the ruling elite in the United States would reclaim the power they had begrudgingly ceded to the masses in the face of economic upheaval, civil unrest, and powerful progressive movements.

Like our current unitary executive, Ford did not get into the Oval Office by winning an election. Also like Bush, in spite of the fact that the people did not vote him into office, Ford brazenly defied the will of the American public on an issue of great magnitude. Exercising the integrity of the mythologized Ford, “Jerry” fulfilled his end of the bargain he had made with Alexander Haig (3). In exchange for his ascendancy to the Empire’s throne, he shielded Richard Nixon from facing consequences for his multiple grievous transgressions of international and domestic laws.

Paving the way for Reagan and his successors to marginalize America’s poor, minorities, and working class and to gut our Constitution, Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, chose to keep habitual war criminal Henry Kissinger(4) on as his Secretary of State, and elevated future mass murderers, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney to key White House positions.
Letting Nixon off the hook was a particularly sinister act in at least two ways. Ford, an unelected president in a purported constitutional republic, absolved a fellow patrician of grave violations of international law, the public trust, and the US Constitution. Thus Ford became Nixon’s accomplice. …
Bear in mind that Ford pardoned a man who was responsible for the deaths of at least 600,000 innocent civilians. During the invasion and occupation of Vietnam, Nixon ordered secret bombings of neighboring Cambodia.
Nixon’s use of illegal wire-taps was such a flagrant abuse of executive authority that Congress passed the FISA Law in 1978 to prevent similar breaches of Constitutional law. In the wake of Nixon’s immunity from prosecution, the Bush Regime has subsequently ignored the FISA Laws and run roughshod over the Constitution, without consequence. Thank you for setting the precedent, “Jerry”.
Ford also enabled Nixon to evade prosecution for obstruction of justice, perjury and possible income tax evasion. The IRS eventually ordered Nixon to pay $467,000, a relative pittance for a man of his means….
Declassified in 2001, several US government documents clearly demonstrate that “Jerry” and Kissinger gave Suharto, Indonesia’s leader, their blessing to do as he wished with East Timor. Shortly thereafter Suharto launched a wave of US-supported state-sponsored terrorism that lasted until 1999.

Obviously, Gerald Ford was far more shrewd and Machiavellian than the mainstream media’s recent wave of white-washing would indicate. Aside from his complicity in Nixon’s crimes (for which our Ministry of Truth has exculpated Ford by concluding that the pardon was necessary to “heal the nation”), and his role in the carnage in East Timor, he also aligned himself closely with J. Edgar Hoover. Ford played a pivotal role in the Warren Commission’s affirmation of Hoover’s “lone-assassin theory”. As a member of the Warren Commission, Ford convinced the group to alter the final version of their report to conclude that the same bullet killed Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Governor Connally. Robert Morningstar, who has researched the Kennedy assassination extensively, stated that the Ford revision was “the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report.” …
Those who remain captive to the Big Lie will spend the next few days mourning the passing of a man who was fortunate to escape the death penalty with which his country is so infatuated. Those same comforting delusions of superiority, entitlement, and invincibility that enable men like Gerald Ford to act with impunity will entice many Americans to continue wearing the intellectual manacles of the Empire.

As frightening as it may be, it is spiritually and mentally liberating to realize and admit that one of “our own”–an Eagle Scout, a football hero, a Christian, a White heterosexual male, a Capitalist, and an “American”–was capable of the savagery and lawlessness that minds shackled by the Big Lie can only ascribe to “terrorists” like Saddam Hussein.

Despite the damage and suffering they left in their wake, Nixon and Ford both lived in security and wealth until their mortality finally caught up with them. Saddam met his maker as he dangled from the end of a rope.

Since when has covering up the truth and pardoning criminals been an act of “healing the nation”? All Gerald Ford did was to set the stage for Bush and the Gang to make their play to take over the world with their brand of Zionist Fascism. The same gang that was behind the Kennedy assassination is behind the Zio-Nazis.

Cheney hails Nixon pardon at Ford’s state funeral
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Dick Cheney hailed former U.S. President Gerald Ford at a state funeral on Saturday for pardoning Richard Nixon, his disgraced predecessor, and helping to heal the nation after the Watergate scandal.

Ford, the 38th president who died on Tuesday at age 93, steered the United States through “a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe,” said Cheney, chief of staff in Ford’s White House 30 years ago and an honorary pallbearer at the ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. …
Ford stirred lasting controversy by granting Nixon a blanket pardon for any crimes he may have committed — a move that helped Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, beat him in 1976.
“In politics it can take a generation or more for a matter to settle, for tempers to cool,” Cheney said. “We will never know what further unravelings, what greater malevolence might have come in that time of furies turned loose and hearts turned cold. But we do know this: America was spared the worst and this was the doing of an American president.” …
Bush was at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and did not attend. Also absent were Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and incoming House of Representatives’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Washington Post said about 500 of the 535 members of the next Congress skipped it as did six of the nine Supreme Court justices and all but one member of Bush’s cabinet, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. …
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also served as Pentagon chief under Ford and was to have been another honorary pallbearer, missed it because he was snowed in New Mexico, NBC News reported. A Rumsfeld spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

When I read that Cheney had the gall to say “We will never know what further unravelings, what greater malevolence might have come in that time of furies turned loose and hearts turned cold. But we do know this: America was spared the worst and this was the doing of an American president” I lost my morning coffee through my nose! I mean, say WHAT? I think we DO know what greater malevolence has come as a result of that barbaric act of covering up the public murder of a sitting president of the United States: 9/11 and all that has followed. “Furies turned loose and hearts turned cold” indeed! And no, America was not spared the worst. The worst is yet to come courtesy of the chief Barbarian at the Gate, Dick Cheney and gang.

Indeed, in the eyes of most of the world, Americans are barbarians, and the technical detail that it was the “Iraqi government” that executed their former dictator means nothing; America has just proven its total descent into barbarism.

Hanging Saddam ‘barbaric’ says top EU official
Hanging former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was ‘barbaric’ and may turn him into a martyr, the European Union’s aid and development Commissioner said.
Saddam, who had been convicted of crimes against humanity, was hanged at dawn in the Iraqi capital.
‘You don’t fight barbarism with acts that I deem as barbaric. The death penalty is not compatible with democracy,’ Louis Michel said.
‘Unfortunately Saddam Hussein risks to appear as a martyr, and he does not deserve that. He is not a martyr, he committed the worse things,’ Michel said in a phone interview.
‘The death penalty is against the values of the European Union … we are against by principle, whatever the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein – and he committed horrible ones,’ Michel said.

Video Shows Saddam at the gallows
Dec. 30 – Iraqi state television and Al Arabiya television have shown footage of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein being led to the gallows and a noose being placed around his neck. http://tinyurl.com/y55uha
Ramsey Clark reacts to the execution of Saddam Hussein
“A tragic assault on truth and justice”
Saddam: The death of a dictator
Juan Cole
Through the bumbling of the U.S.-backed regime, justice becomes revenge, and a despot becomes a martyr.
The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare.
Saddam Hussein was tried under the shadow of a foreign military occupation, by a government full of his personal enemies. The first judge, an ethnic Kurd, resigned because of government interference in the trial; the judge who took his place was also Kurdish and had grievances against the accused. Three of Saddam’s defense lawyers were shot down in cold blood. The surviving members of his defense team went on strike to protest the lack of protection afforded them. The court then appointed new lawyers who had no expertise in international law. Most of the witnesses against Saddam gave hearsay evidence. The trial ground slowly but certainly toward the inevitable death verdict. …
Saddam was a symbol of Sunni-Shiite rivalry long before the U.S. occupation. In 1991, while he was in power, he had ferociously suppressed the post-Gulf War Shiite uprising in the south, using helicopter gunships and tanks to kill an estimated 60,000. After the invasion, many Shiites wanted him to be captured, while many Sunnis helped him elude capture. When Saddam was finally caught by U.S. forces in late 2003, Shiites in the Baghdad district of Kadhimiya crossed the bridge over the Tigris to dance and gloat in the neighboring Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya, provoking some clashes. After his capture, students at Mosul University, in Iraq’s second-largest and mostly Sunni Arab city, chanted, “Bush, Bush, hear our refrain: We all love Saddam Hussein!” and “We’ll die, we’ll die, but the nation will live! And America will fall!” …
Through the bumbling of the U.S.-backed regime, justice becomes revenge, and a despot becomes a martyr.
Libya declares national mourning for Saddam:

LIBYA declared three days of national mourning today after the execution of Iraqi ex-president Saddam Hussein who had been a “prisoner of war,” official media said.
Arabiya says Saddam half-brother, ex-judge executed
Arabic satellite channel Arabiya said Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander were also executed by hanging on Saturday. No other details were immediately available.

What’s worse, Dec 29 was a beginning of Hajj, a very important holiday in Islam. There had been talk that the executions would be postponed until after the holiday, but no, they had to do it now, adding insult to injury.

Arab haj pilgrims outraged at Saddam execution
Arab pilgrims in Mecca expressed outrage on Saturday that Iraqi authorities had chosen to execute former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on a major religious holiday, saying it was an insult to Muslims.
“His execution on the day of Eid … is an insult to all Muslims,” said Jordanian pilgrim Nidal Mohammad Salah. “What happened is not good because as a head of state, he should not be executed.”
The Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, marks biblical patriarch Abraham’s willingness to kill his son for God. Muslim countries often pardon criminals to mark the feast, and prisoners are rarely executed at that time.
The death could harden hatred for Shi’ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Sunni Islam whose Islamic orthodoxy — known as Wahhabism — regards Shi’ites as virtual heretics.
Saddam, a Sunni, was admired by many Arabs for standing up to the United States.
Timing of Saddam execution risks Arab backlash
Images of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein being led to the gallows on one of Islam’s most important feast days risk further alienating public opinion in an Arab world already bristling at perceived Western insensitivity, analysts have warned.
Even the West’s leading Middle East allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, publicly spoke out against the choice of the first day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice to put Saddam to death.
The ousted strongman was executed in Baghdad at dawn on Saturday as Muslims began celebrating the Eid al-Adha in which a sheep is traditionally slaughtered in memory of Abraham, who according to the Koran, was about to sacrifice his son Ismail on God’s orders, but was sent a sheep instead.
Grainy footage of a grey-bearded and calm-looking Saddam being prepared for the gallows was aired on Iraqi state television and re-broadcast across the Arab world.
“Saddam was being dragged away like he was the sheep waiting to be slaughtered,” said Emad Gad, researcher with the Cairo-based Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies.
“The main issue here is that the execution took place on the morning of the Eid al-Adha,” Gad told AFP. “This will stir anger and humiliation in people, whether they supported him or not.
“Generally in the region, people’s emotions are already anti-US, and these images will add to that feeling,” he warned.
The executive editor of the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel, Nabil Khatib, agreed.
“The pictures will re-create the anger and frustration among a large part of the Arab masses,” Khatib told AFP.
“Once more, ordinary Arabs felt that there is a conspiracy against their symbols.”
The newsman said the impression was all the greater because Saddam was not the demon to Arab public opinion that he had become in the West.
The ousted Iraqi president had successfully projected himself among ordinary Arabs as the one leader in the region “who confronted external threats on behalf of the Arabs … who fought Iran and launched missiles at Israel,” Khatib said.
Samer Hamzeh, news consultant for state-run Dubai Media Incorporated which groups Dubai Television and three other channels, warned that the graphic footage of the erstwhile Arab hero being led to the gallows risked sparking a violent backlash….
Egypt, the biggest recipient of US aid after Iraq and Israel, openly criticised the choice of execution date and voiced concern it might stoke further violence inside Iraq.
“Egypt regrets the fact that the Iraqi authorities carried out the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and that it took place on the first day of Eid al-Adha,” foreign ministry spokesman Alaa al-Hadidi told the official MENA agency.
The timing of the execution “did not take into consideration the feelings of Muslims and the sanctity of this day which represents amnesty and forgiveness,” Hadidi said. …
The Saudi official media voiced similar criticism.
“There has been a feeling of surprise and dismay that the implementation of the (death) sentence (against the former Iraqi president) came … on the first day of Eid al-Adha during which… Muslims come together,” said a commentary carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

One wonders about the haste, of course. But then, we also learned that the official tally of U.S. military dead in Iraq reached 2998 just before the execution. When the number hits 3000, Bush and Co. need a distraction. The death of Saddam can be that distraction. Nevertheless, the indecent haste suggests a schedule is driving them. And a schedule suggests “more in store.”

The Black Bull died today
By Mirza Yawar Baig
They did it. They gave this Ummah a sacrifice on the day of Eid ul Adha. What an unforgettable Eid!! A human sacrifice. Not a sheep or goat. What a message!! Wow!! What a powerful message that I am sure has shaken all the thrones of the puppets who are watching the events. Poor puppets!!

Saddam Hussain, they say, is dead. The news reporting is one good example of the pimp press in full swing. If anyone who is not suffering from amnesia can recall, ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was a phrase coined by American foreign policy experts to lie to their own nation and the world and justify their invasion of Iraq. Then their lie was exposed but by then their objective of looting Iraq’s oil had also been accomplished. They had control of the oil fields. And in the process a few hundred thousand Iraqis died at the hands of Americans; well that is inevitable – collateral damage. As they say Weapons of Mass Deception – which of course the pimp press is responsible for and continues to perpetrate on the world.

Death is not the “item” in the news. It is the death of the myth of American justice and freedom. So now we can all breathe freely as we see the true nature of the animal before us. Even those who continued to insist on living in doubt can deny it no longer. But watch out!! This news item and a million like it, floating on the net or shouting themselves hoarse on the TV are all focused on trying to make you and me distracted from the reality of what we are seeing here. So they talk about how brutal Saddam was and how many people he killed and how he ‘started’ the Iraq-Iran war.

The issue of course is none of those things. If these were in fact issues, then we would see Bush and all his cronies and most of their puppets sitting on thrones in their gilded prisons, swinging from the gallows long before Saddam came anywhere near them. The issue is America’s right to invade a sovereign nation. Any country’s right to invade and occupy another sovereign nation and loot its wealth. That is the issue. Are we, the people of the world saying that it is the right of America or anyone with the power to do so, to take by force what they want from whoever they want? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the rapist to rape? Are we, the people of the world, saying that it is the right of the bandit or the highway robber to hold you up and take from you what he wishes by force? Because in my opinion, by remaining silent, that is exactly what we will be saying. You decide what you want to do. I have already made my decision….
I am reminded of the Arabic legend of the White Bull: At Thawr il Abyadh

Once upon a time three bulls lived in the forest. One white, one brown and one black. They were brothers and lived together in harmony. In that forest also lived a tiger who had his eye on the bulls. But every time he attacked one of them the others came to his aid and together they drove the tiger away.

The tiger decided that he needed to change his strategy. So one day when the Black Bull was away, he went to the other two and said, “You know, the Black Bull is black and dirty and evil. Why do you keep him with you? His is a disgrace to you. You are beautiful and noble. If the Black Bull is no longer there, you will have all the grazing to yourself. He takes away your food and adds no value to you.” The two bulls listened to the tiger’s spiel and said, “Well, you know, he is our brother. What can we do?”

“You need not do anything at all,” said the tiger. “I am your friend. I will do what needs to be done. Just don’t come to the aid of the Black Bull when he calls you.” The others agreed.

The next day, they heard the voice of the Black Bull calling for help in anguish and fear. They listened to him and went back to their grazing. Gradually the calls stopped. The two brothers could not look each other in the eye but then, nice green grass wipes away memories and after a little while it was as if the Black Bull never existed.

Then one day the tiger came to the White Bull when he was alone and said, “So are you happy with the advise I gave you? Didn’t I advise you well? Now here is another advise. You are the real king of the forest. You are White and clean and pure and holy and beautiful. You are wise and good. You deserve to live in solitary splendor like a king. Not with some dirty brown trash who you have to share your food with. Why do you need him? He is a liability and an embarrassment to you.”

“Well, what should I do?”

“You know the score. Nothing at all. I am there to take care of everything for you. Just relax.”

Next day, the White Bull heard the dying screams of the Brown Bull and closed his ears and went back to his grazing.
The White Bull lived for a few days all by himself, grazing where he wanted and drinking from the clean streams of the forest. Then one morning the tiger came again. From the look in his eyes, the White Bull knew that this visit was different. All his life flashed before his eyes. He recalled the time when the three brothers stood together, shoulder to shoulder. Then he recalled all the incidents since then. As the tiger sat before him, not in any hurry, knowing that the result was pre-determined, the White Bull said to him, “I have one last wish. Will you grant it to me?”
“Anything at all my friend”, said the tiger.
The White Bull then climbed a hill and when he got to the top of it, he called out to the people of the forest, “O! People, I do not die today. I died the day the Black Bull died.”

There are many who think that the real Saddam Hussein, friend of many American Administration officials, was spirited to safety before the fall of Baghdad and a double substituted to play the role for the kangaroo court. The few reports that slipped out suggesting such a ruse were quickly buried and the farce went on – whether with the real Saddam or a double, who knows?

It really doesn’t even matter if it was the real Saddam, a fake Saddam, a real hanging, or a fake hanging. What matters is that this “fact” has been propagated and will now become the mask for a new false flag operation – or even a REAL Muslim Terrorist attack! How about a couple of mini-nukes in the U.S. that will then be blamed on the supporters of Saddam – or Moslems with vengeance in their hearts in general – and used as an excuse to slam the door shut on the U.S., U.K., and wherever else there were members of the “coalition of the bought and paid for”? Whether they are real terrorists or fake terrorists won’t matter.

After all, if Bush and gang know that their pillaging and fleecing of the American people can no longer be covered up, that the economic crash is set to happen like right away, how better to cover that up with some real, dire, national emergencies? Who cares if the stock market crashes, the dollar tanks, or interest rates go up if there are terrorists around every corner?

Heck, the domino effect from this one act could lead us right into a REAL terrorist attack after which martial law would be declared, all elections in the U.S. would be suspended and Bush would become “president for life,” curfews imposed, dissidents arrested and sent to the “Halliburton Holiday Camps”; you just can’t tell, but it could be the spark that ignites the conflagration – the beginning of the end.

I have a really bad feeling about this. Consider the following:

Haj pilgrims start stoning ritual
By Souhail Karam
MENA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – More than two million Muslim pilgrims began a symbolic devil-stoning ritual on Saturday…
The rites were overshadowed by the news that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a hero to some Sunni Arabs because of his anti-U.S. stance, had been executed by the U.S.-backed Shi’ite government. …
Eid al-Adha, the most important day in the Islamic calendar, marks the beginning of the three-day stoning ritual at the Jamarat Bridge when pilgrims symbolically cast out sin. …
Saudi government-backed clerics have encouraged pilgrims to stone throughout the day, challenging hardliners who insist on the afternoon and thus risk a surge of pilgrims at one time.
Pilgrims, mostly moving on foot, cover a 44 km (28 miles) circuit around Mecca during the gruelling 5-day ritual. They must repeat the stoning twice more on Sunday and Monday.
Saudi officials said on Saturday that 2.4 million pilgrims were performing haj. But with hundreds of thousands of local residents sneaking into Mecca without official permits, the total number could be closer to 3 million.

Just imagine the effect of two million people throwing stones while holding the image of the Evil Satan, the U.S., in their hearts?

Originally Published 2006_12_31