Iraq and Ukraine: when it comes to war crimes, remember those that have never been tried

by Stefano Briganti

A few days ago it was the anniversary of theinvasion of Iraq from the United States: they passed twenty years. In 2003 the so-called “international community” found nothing obscene in this action. It was the period in which the paroxysm of Islamic terrorism made every Muslim to be considered a potential terrorist and a war on states considered “Islamic extremists” was right. It was the time when the United States had launched the crusade to rid the world of terrorism and to “Exporting Democracy” stars and stripes in those “barbarian” countries that professed the Islamic faith. It was the period of vengeful fury made in the USA after the disfigurement of the Twin Towers. But vengeance or a crusade could not be enough to bomb Baghdad with the endorsement of the United Nations. An even greater threat had to be built.

So the leaders of the CIA and the Pentagon, with the OK from the President, set up the big lie: “Saddam Hussein has an arsenal of mass destruction weapons which are a tremendous threat to the whole world and we, the USA, must destroy this threat to protect the world“. This in summary he said Colin Powell in March 2003 in front of the United Nations Security Council showing the infamous test tube with white powder saying it contained anthrax from Iraq. The UN approved the operation and a few hours later American bombers dropped a storm of bombs on Baghdad with “bestial ferocity” while US ships launched missiles on the presidential palace. Unforgettable are the images of the devastation of the secular works of art in the palace at the hands of the marines and tanks, with utter ignorant contempt and a desire to annihilate and humiliate.

Unforgettable are the images made public by Saddam Hussein hanged in 2006 for crimes against humanity for the Dujial massacre where 148 civilians died. The US army remained in Iraq for years, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (between 300,000 and 500,000: the exact number has never been ascertained) including soldiers, women, old people and children. In those years the CIA set up the prison of Abu Ghraib which with the photos published in 2004 proved to be a torture prison and systematic violation of the human rights of Iraqi prisoners. In 2005, faced with evidence that Iraq did not possess chemical weapons, Powell had to publicly admit that on that day in 2003, before the United Nations Security Council, a hoax had been fabricated. Yet no one then stood up to judge such wickedness.

Whenever a court rules on war crimes one should remember those same crimes that were never tried. The pain of those who die and those who survive is the same between Ukrainians and Iraqis. Spilled blood is red for both, and the crime of wanton war is the same no matter who perpetrates it, because the law of a court must be the same for all. Two unprovoked wars. Two disgusting crimes: deportation of one child and 500 thousand people killed – including thousands of children including the Ishaqi massacre – the other. The almost 400,000 documents of the “Iraqi War Logs” made public by WikiLeaks documenting the atrocities committed in six years on civilians by the stars and stripes army. While a thousand pages of documentation collected in Ukraine were enough for Putin to be justly sentenced for war crimes.

One crime is convicted and the other is not. It is evident that the condemnation it depends on who commits the crime and not on the crime itself. For once, just once, let’s leave aside the mantra “aggressor and attacked” or “Putin and Atlanticist”, because both in Iraq and in Ukraine there was a “unjustified” aggression on an attacked sovereign country. Instead, let us be indignant every time the justice it’s not the same for everyone.

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