Representative Press Blog

What if they were Jews?

The CIA actively supported the 1963 coup that brought the Ba'ath party to power and the CIA made lists of people it labeled as communists and gave these lists to "the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen". The people on these CIA lists were "jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions."

Many suspected communists were killed outright, these sources said. Darwish told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them. You ask that they get a fair trial? You have to get kidding. This was serious business." US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them ... Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".

What if they were Jews that were rounded up and shot? What if it was Jews whose names we handed over to be killed? Would this be persued? Would there be a call for prosecution of those responsible?
Think you can start to understand the degree of evil perpetrated by US foreign policies? This is just one example. Does substitution "Jews" in place of "Iraqis" or "Communists" help you understand the degree of evil that US policy makers are responsible for? Are you going to do something now to make a call for justice? "Nazi hunters" worked for decades after the initial crimes of the murderers and facilitators of the deaths of Jews. Just because in the above case those murdered were not Jews but Iraqis and the murders were not Nazis party members but Baath party members and the collaborators were Americans and not Europeans, does that mean you sit on your ass right now and do nothing? I think that if you realized someone who was responsible for the deaths of Jews had not be brought to justice you would actually do something about it.