Saddam Hussein was executed following a trial for just one of his mass murders (AKA crime against humanity). I call that a good start.
Posts Tagged Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Executed
Dec 31
Missing the Real Story
Mar 10
One of the things that burns me up about the coverage of Saddam’s trial is that it focuses on the wrong two things and ignores it’s only point. It focuses on what he or his lawyers did in court, but not the testimony. Witnesses come in and describe the horrors he perpetrated – hardly a mention of the contents of their testimony. Saddam stands up and blusters – full coverage. And the other question that consumes the press is Saddam getting a fair trial. Personally, the fact that he’s getting a trial at all is all the fairness he deserves (yes, I’m aware of the proceedural arguments for the need for a “fair” trial) and the whole point of the trial is for the fullness of his crimes to come out and that he be given a chance to answer for them.
But that isn’t what we get. Is this how the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa was covered?
You’re a bloody dictator finally deposed and in the dock for your horrific crimes. So what do you do? Why, you naturally go for the insanity defense: You retain Ramsey Clark as one of your attorneys, you rant and rave in court at every opportunity, and make claims like you won’t show up in court because you think the trial is unfair.”
Yes its a circus, but at the end of it we have the certainty that Saddam will hang, unlike the circus that surrounds Milosevic.
Misplaced Concern
Oct 20
There are times when I read the papers and I think I must be insane. It seems that a lot of people are worried about the fairness of Saddam’s trial. Fairness? Is there really some question of his guilt? This is a guy who started out as a leg breaker for the Baathists, graduated to assassin, took over by killing his rivals and associates, and never hesitated to kill, torture, or maim anyone. He stayed in power not through the ballot box, but throught the overwhelming application of terror and death. He’s ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands people, enough I suppose that for some it’s no longer a crime but a statistic. Having a trial at all is all the fairness this guy deserves. I guess I’ve come to expect delusional arabs quoted in the papers, but when Saddam’s fellow dictators publish self-serving editorials indistinguishable from an editorial run by what was once considered the top newspaper in the US, you have to wonder about your sanity.
Some people haven’t lost it though, as this commentary in al-Adalah shows:
Imagine if justice tried Saddam with the same laws he enacted, such as executing him and asking his family to pay for the bullets, burying him alive in a single or mass grave with a number of his henchmen, cutting off his ear or tongue, throwing him in an acid bath or poisoning him with thallium or poisonous gas. The main lesson of this trial is not a brief show that will end up with the most severe punishment meted out to Saddam. Rather, it will be a trial of a whole black era revealing all the tragedies and disasters perpetrated by the dictatorship.
Exactly, the point of this isn’t Saddam’s long awaited and richly deserved death, but the exposure, exposition, and condemnation of his and his minions evil.
Some of our elite media, like Ted Koppel, have showed their concern for our fighting men by reading the names of the fallen or showing their flag draped coffins. I wish these same organizations, which were mute when Saddam was fertilizing the soil with Iraqi bodies, would starting reading the names of all the Iraqi’s killed by Saddam, and showing their mass graves.
War Status Week 3
Apr 9
I think we’ve reached the beginning of the end of the Iraq campaign. At this point, it sure looks to go down as another smashing US victory. Whatever lingering doubts I had were cleared up by the recent reports of a warehouse full of cardboard boxes with human remains and detailed records of how victims of Saddam were executed; the terrible details of torture in Iraqi prisons, and the revelation of a children’s prison. I know the end doesn’t justify the means, but after the fanatical attacks on coalition forces during the war, it seems to me this government would never have been removed by any means short of war, nor would anything but a worldwide united front have achieved disarmament — and I have my doubts that even that would have succeeded.
Is Saddam dead? I don’t know. But last time we thought we got him, the regime continued to function, although in a strangely passive manner. This time, in less than 24 hours the regime seems to no longer exist — even the police and media minders have dropped from sight. If we did get him this time, it would provide a small amount of personal satisfaction as reportedly he was killed by four BLU-109 JDAM variants (I think that’s what they mean when they say bunker busting GBU-31’s, which can be either Mark 84s or BLU-109s with the JDAM kit) as I happened to have helped out on the aerodynamics on that particular variant.
Do They Love Us or Hate Us?
Mar 28
Donald Sensing at One Hand Clapping points out that hating Saddam isn’t the same as loving America. The question of the moment isn’t whether the Iraqi’s love us or hate us (or fear us), the question is will they tolerate us and help us. And certainly no feeling will be universal; some will hate us and some will love us. All we need is most to work with us.
