Commentary
Popcorn and champagne: The Trial of Tareq Aziz
By Gabriele Zamparini
Online Journal Guest Writer


May 6, 2008, 00:10

Getcha popcorn ready! The Green Zone Puppet Theatre in Baghdad is putting on a new show, The Trial of Tareq Aziz.

The charges against the former deputy premier of Iraq -- when Iraq was still free and a country -- are related to the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants in 1992. At the time Iraq was under the genocidal embargo imposed by the United States and its British vassal through the United Nations.

The New York Times reported on 5 August 1992:

But the final straw came when the Iraqi authorities, facing mounting public anger at rising food prices brought about by the devaluation, arrested some 500 merchants on charges of speculation and profiteering and then executed 42 of them in an effort to force prices lower.

It�s difficult to understand what the responsibilities of a deputy prime minister could be in such a case, but if the bloodthirsty puppets wanted to find the responsible they wouldn�t need to look further than their Washington and London�s puppeteers.

Tareq Aziz has been held hostage by the illegal, foreign Occupation of his country for five years; he�s not been charged, tried or investigated so far. But the new amnesty law states that anyone held for a year without being referred to court must be released. The puppets and the puppeteers can�t allow that to happen to Aziz who not only refused to testify against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but also praised Saddam defiantly when he was called as a witness: "I had the honour to work with the former regime and with the hero Saddam Hussein. He is the hero behind the unity of Iraq and its sovereignty. This is an honour to me."

In April 1980 Tareq Aziz -- then foreign and deputy prime minister of Iraq -- survived an Iranian-backed assassination attempt carried out by members of the Islamic Dawa Party (the party of Prime Puppet Maliki). In the attack, members of Islamic Dawa Party threw a grenade at Aziz in central Baghdad. The attack killed several people. This terrorist act was among the casus belli of the Iran-Iraq War.

Aziz is a Chaldean Catholic; how many Christian countries have a Muslim serving as foreign or deputy prime minister? Washington and London have put much effort in depicting pre-occupation Iraq as a sectarian country ruled by a minority. This propaganda, aiming to demonize Iraq and instrumental for the invasion and occupation (Iraqi freedom, remember?), have been spread not only by the War Party and its many lackeys in the state-corporate media but also -- and much more disgracefully -- by many leftists and alternative news outlets. The result is New Iraq, a place -- not even a country anymore -- torn into pieces by Saddam Hussein�s enemies, a bunch of terrorists and warlords installed and supported by the great puppeteers, the United States and Iran. Credits for the precious assistance must of course be given to Nostalgic Britain, a former empire which still didn�t get it�s become a colony, Holy Israel, the 51st (or 1st -- it depends where one starts to count) of the United States of Amnesia and the never missing International Community of hyenas and vultures.

The Green Zone Puppet Theatre�s Show, The Trial of Tareq Aziz, will star Kurdish �Judge� Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, who also presided in the last stages of Saddam Hussein�s lynching in 2006, after his predecessor, Kurdish Judge Rizgar Amin, resigned over fear for his life after being criticized by the sectarian quisling government for being �soft� on Saddam in court. At the time, Moqtada al-Sadr played a big role in that show, which also included the kidnapping, torture and killing of a few defense lawyers.

Out of curiosity, just a few days before Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was assassinated, Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman fled Iraq and applied for political asylum in Britain with his family.

Now he�s back on the stage, the show must go on after all! The last time, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations gave that show very bad reviews. But who cares for the reviews? The few spectators are already athirst to open a new bottle of champagne!