Editor,
Like Pilate delivered Jesus to the Jews, President Bush handed Saddam Hussein over to the Shiite puppet rulers of Iraq. Like Pilate, Bush was hoping to appease Shiite Iraq into compliance with this gesture, away from Iranian influence. Like Jesus, Hussein was mocked, ridiculed and taunted in his final moments. Like Jesus, Hussein died with words of prayers in his mouth.
Palestine was occupied by the Roman Empire. Iraq is occupied by the American empire. Now that the world has seen and heard of the ugly scenes of the hangings of Hussein and his two lieutenants - his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and the former chief judge of his revolutionary court, Awad Hamad al-Bandar - Bush and the puppet leaders of his Shiite satellite state are trying to wash the blood of shame and embarrassment off their guilty hands.
The similarity between the fate of these two men who cannot be more unlike each other - Jesus Christ and Saddam Hussein - is truly remarkable. The U.S. has made the impossible possible. Yet, with this feat, another impossibility has become possible. Together with one of the world's most vicious villains, justice herself was executed.
No one deserves injustice, not even a criminal. The point of justice is to promote justice and not to make anyone exempt from it. Even laypeople understand that justice was violated in the rushed trial of Hussein. His death can serve no one except those who use it to wash themselves clean. Yet, the blood of others has never done the job of cleansing.
The hanging of Hussein has become a metaphor for America's perversion of justice. The rope, the noose, the severed head, the bruised corpse packed in ice and the smiling faces next to the naked, tortured and abused body have become the symbols of American justice.
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What has this country accomplished with this war besides unimaginable bloodshed, arbitrary detention, torture, debt and destruction? We have exported America's lawless Wild West culture to the lands of the Middle East.
This country and its leaders keep lying and embracing the illusion of goodness and democracy. As long as Bush and his cohorts remain in the White House, this delusion will not go away. The U.S. is captive to its idolatry of patriotism. Liberty must smash the altar of militarism to pieces. Nationalism is an idol that has misled this country since its foundation. Where are freedom and democracy if not in the courage to seek peace through justice for all?
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM faculty
