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Anorak News | Tariq Aziz: Shoot The Messenger As A Victorious Warrior Rite

Tariq Aziz: Shoot The Messenger As A Victorious Warrior Rite

by | 27th, October 2010

FORMER Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging by an Iraq Supreme Court.

The sentence was immediately portrayed by some as an act of revenge by the now dominant Shia Islam Iraqi leadership subjected to years of terror and torment by the Sunni Islam regime of Saddam Hussein.

The fact Aziz was a Christian happily working with Saddam should perhaps side-line him and the Shias of Iraq will be quick to distance themselves from the taint of bigotry many seem to believe is tied up with the sentence.

Aziz’s downfall was not the fact he was a politician, it was more as a politician he was an excellent liar.

After the Iraq Gulf War he always claimed he tried to prevent Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

Like many hacks, I am cursed with a long and accurate memory and I remember the shock I felt on the morning of August 2, 1990 as that invasion of Kuwait was taking place. I also am aware of the rare feeling of pure revulsion I had when the then Iraq envoy to France – one Tariq Aziz- was screened on the UK’s news channels and defending the brutal action and crowing. The sum total of those first world-wide broadcasts was;” Yah, Boo, Suckers! What yer gonna do about it?”.

Iraq had the whip hand, literally.

This diplomat was another William Joyce, the Irish-born Nazi sympathiser (Lord Haw Haw of Hitler’s Third Reich) and if there was any justice he very soon he would facing the same fate of a drop through a gallows trap-door. Even in the opening minutes of the news breaking of the rape of Kuwait there was an inevitability about the fact there would be massive repercussions.

It took two invasions and a brutal and bloody commitment to exact that revenge upon the sad-sack then running Iraq and since it is clear the original decision to invade Kuwait has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and changed the world for the worse.

ImageIraqi helicopters over Kuwait City in 1990 – Wikipedia

It is a difficult thing to admit but I was angry with Aziz in 1990 and that anger has remained.

It was not what he was saying which infuriated, it was the fact he was perverting and betraying his undoubted communication skills. It was no surprise he was eventually promoted to Deputy Prime Minister after the original Desert Storm pull back and Saddam – and Aziz – again two-fingered the world in general.

It was alarming that Aziz basically disappeared for several years after handing himself in to the Allied invaders and was then tried and sentenced to 14 years. When others were being executed it seemed a strange move by the Iraqi judiciary. There were worse crimes in the background.

The content and reasons for the latest trial do not particularly interest, the death sentence is what stirs. For many it is long overdue and, as already said, for others it is a tribal issue.

It is not.

This is the ancient invader/victorious warrior rite being enacted in all its true horror…shooting the messenger. There is nothing brave, courageous or enjoyable about a scaffold in an execution shed but that is the inevitable drop Tariq Aziz is going to take. The Oblivion Express has no respect for age or infirmity.

The man was easy to hate and it difficult to have any degree of sympathy – other than it appears once again to be too much and much too late. – AGW



Posted: 27th, October 2010 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink