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6 November, 2006
Saddam's execution

An Iraqi court has convicted Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death.

The USA's status has been tied to that of Iraq for many years. That nation has had its hands in Iraq for as long as some people can remember. Speculation on the true relation between the two nations is wide and extreme. Some say the American government uses Iraq as a boogeyman puppet to manipulate Americans. Others say only Iraq's oil motivates American action in Iraq.

The two nations do now, however, have one thing undeniably in common: capital punishment. Coincidence?

The court that tried, convicted, and sentenced Saddam is not American. Yet it has made the same extreme decision that American courts can make, a decision that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the European Union, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour all disagree with, and on which Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay refused to comment.

Does this sentence mean the USA is successfully creating a new Iraq in its own image? Such a perception may insult Iraq, but it still haunts me. What other American examples will Iraq follow? Will Iraq become an another remote American state, like Alaska and Hawai'i? Will Iraqi policies—domestic and foreign—continue to mirror American ones?

American President George Bush called the sentence "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," saying "It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government."

Is the irony in that statement an elephant among us that nobody wants to acknowledge? It seems odd to see a government putting someone to death as "replacing the rule of a tyrant". To be blunt, is executing someone not tyrannical?

When one person orders the denial of another's rights, it's called tyranny. When several people do it, it's called oligarchy. When many do it, it's called mob rule. When the majority does it, it's called tyranny of the majority. Do you see the circle completing itself here?

But the irony continues. Can an execution order really be an action of a democratic, constitutional government? How do we know it's truly the will of the people? Do constitutions not protect people's rights, as opposed to ordering their deaths?

Some may say this is all semantics, a frivolous and academic argument over mere words. What is truly at stake here is righteousness. Saddam murdered hundreds of thousands of people, right? But words determine righteousness. What some call sin, others call freedom. Where some see victory, others see barbarism. What some call murder, others call justice.

War is fought because of beliefs. Beliefs are based on information. Information is contained in words. Did you know that the US defense department just set up a new unit to better fight what Donald Rumsfeld, US secretary of Defense, calls the propaganda war? Is this not fighting fire with fire?

In George Orwell's novel 1984, the government bombs its own cities and blames enemy nations. The Ministry of Truth removes words from the official language, abducts users of banned words, and controls all public information.

In Orwell's Animal Farm, farm animals revolt and oust the man who owns the farm. The pigs, being the most intelligent, take over. Eventually, their rule is as tyrannical as the one the animals overthrew.

Both these classic stories mirror today's USA. We need to hear governments' use of words such as freedom, justice, and tyrant with our brains, not our hearts. If we don't, we risk becoming the very thing we convince ourselves we're fighting.

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