President Bush and Saddam Hussein : A Gripping Unfinished Story
In continuation of the post Shia Militias Slaughter Women And Children, my attention has been drawn to today’s top story about Saddam Hussein’s trial.
“The last phase of the turbulent trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity resumed on Monday with a boycott by the deposed Iraqi leader and key members of the defence team.
“The Iraqi high tribunal, which is in charge of trying Saddam and his seven former cohorts, said it would continue to hear the defence’s closing arguments with or without Saddam or his lawyers.
“Saddam and the co-defendants are accused of ordering the killing of 148 Shi’ite villagers in Dujail, north of Baghdad, in 1982 following a botched assassination attempt against the deposed leader.“
A former leader of a nation is being tried because he killed those who were trying to assassinate him when he was in power. What should he have done? Offer his other cheek? Given them a feast?
And this action of Saddam is being described as “crime against humanity”. And pray what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past three years now? A war to promote “love for humanity”?
Who should be the judge? Where is the justice? What is justice? These questions are not easy to answer in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan and would haunt and trouble everyone in coming years.
21 Responses to “President Bush and Saddam Hussein : A Gripping Unfinished Story”
So… you honestly think that Iraqi Security forces, if they fired without provication on civilians, will be getting off scott free?
(Also, Saddam is also being responsible for mass graves involving millions of people, so… a bit harsh of a comparision.)
Is the comparison to harsh? Saddam did all those things you mention and more, but he isn’t on trial for any of them. Why not?
There are worse things happening in Darfur right now, and we (the US specifically, and most of the west collectively) have managed to ignore it this long, so what makes Saddam so special?
I think those are the issues being raised in the post, at least it’s my take-away.
Those 128 Shiite villagers didn’t try to kill him, they were only from the same town as the Shiites who did. They had done nothing to deserve Saddam’s forgiveness or vengeance. They simply were available to be killed, so he had them killed as a lesson to his foes.
War in and of itself isn’t considered a crime against humanity in most circles. The only groups in Afghanistan and Iraq who are regularly commiting crimes against humanity have been and continue to be Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the remnants of Saddam’s Baathist death squads and their Shiite equivalents. None of these represent Afghan government, Iraqi government or Coalition forces.
Largely? Saddam’s not on trial for the other millions of murders because a good 90% of the people in the chain of command between him and the dead bodies are at room temperature. The remaining 10% is hiding in Iran or Syria.
We can’t realistically try him for every single person he was responsible for the death of. He’d be dead before we finished the list of victims, for starters. Nevermind that any lawyer working for him would be able to get at least some of the crimes removed on technicalities, or because his sons were responsible for the deaths… et all.
Like most other criminal proceedings, we just want to hit him with enough to put him in jail for life (or kill him). We don’t need to put him in jail for ten thousand life sentences.
As to Darfur, I’d personally be for sending a few dozen crates of weapons to the folks being killed minimum (I’d prefer a couple thousand Marines). But we can’t get public support for a war there. All of the major media sources have a distinct reason to avoid any war started by Republicans for “humanitarian reasons” – the left can’t afford to have questions come up about the same reasons being around for the war in Iraq, and the right doesn’t want Bush to look like a second Clinton (look up Clinton’s list of ‘police actions’ sometime).
And, well, there’s just the economics of it. We can’t afford to be a perfect world’s policeman. If we go into Darfur, there’s Somalia next. And so on.
Deaths are horrible, particularly genocide like that in Darfur. But America as a whole can’t send in the troops unilaterally to every one, not while other possibilities are being explored.
I don’t know about anyone else but after I catch a chicken I fry the darned thing.
Noone is shedding tears for Saddam Hussain even if his trial is/was a farce.
I say its too damned bad Saddam wasn’t fried in 1991 so we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now over there. And in 1991 if, and I say if, there were WMD’s they would have been found instead of giving the old man 12 years to export and/or hide stuff.
But that’s the bush’s for you..one fucks up first and the other comes behind and compounds it to total FUBAE later.
Good going bushies. As far as presidential material is concerned the combined IQ of those two goodoleboys isn’t as high as a daisy.
The obvious, most ridiculous element of this whole fiasco is that the US is complicit in many of Saddam’s crimes. It’s no secret that he operated off heavy US support even through his worst atrocities. Our leaders should be on trial with him.
Saddam’s trial does look like a farce to me.
But, he was “at war” with those trying to assassinate him and that changes all the rules, as we well know.
Can we, in good conscience try Saddam, for exercising the perogatives of a “unitary executive” at war?
When is Bush’s trial scheduled?
Again, those 128 villagers weren’t trying to assassinate him. They were just defenseless and available to be made into an example.
bush is somewhere going like “GOTCHA B*TCH!!!” (c) dave chapelle
The Dujail plot against Saddam was orchestrated by the Dawa Party from Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war. The 148 or however many people were not immediately executed – they were imprisoned for something like a year, interrogated, perhaps harshly, then a trial was held. Perhaps their trial was unfair but we’ll never know because its proceedings were not admitted into evidence in Saddam’s trial. The defense was unable to get the IST court to even consider this, which appears to be central to the Dujail case.
The special tribunal is illegimate because it resulted from an illegal invasion. Even if the invasion were authorized by the UN (and the great weight of legal opinion around the world was that it was not – Russia China and France, 3 of 5 security council members, immediately denounced the invasion as illegal) – even so, it was illegal for the victors to put the defeated government on trial.
The entire process was an outrage against international law that has irreparably damaged efforts to create an international system of justice.
We have posted the motion challenging the legality of the court, and other motions the defense tried to introduce, at http://www.international-lawyers.org
BrianOfAtlanta;
Sure, the 128 weren’t necessarily the perpetrators of an assassination attempt. Sure, Saddam killed them and how many thousands/millions of others. Sure he’s a bad guy who violated the rights of his people. Sure he tortured them (waterboarding). Sure he imprisoned them without charges. Sure he spied on them.
My point is, if Saddam felt he was “at war” with those people, he was in the same position of power as our president (a unitary executive at war).
If Saddam deserves to be tried for crimes against humanity, why does our Incompetent-In-Chief get a free pass?
Swaraaj, you are just a little bit too peacable for reality. Notwithstanding, it would not take much for me to buy into the whole pacifist ideology. However, I must point out that Mahatma Ghandi was assainated. It would really be nice to live in a world you promote and indeed that is the purpose of progreesive law.
Unfortunatly at somepoint we must meet the barbaric hordes with lethal force in order to protect our own innocent, or they will be killed and you know it.
I would also like to point out that India, including Hindus, do not have such a peaceful history either. So there is no way that you speak from a position of authority. So don’t try to sell me the Meditation world remedy crap.
The difference between what Saddam did and what Bush has done is that while Saddam may have felt he was at war with those people, he was not at war in any internationally recognized sense. America has been at war with Iraq legally ever since Congress passed the authorization for use of force.
Iraq was regularly shooting missiles at our planes enforcing the No Fly Zone, which was an act of war in any book. Our planes had the right to patrol that zone by an agreement Iraq signed. Iraq then fired upon them, which was an act of war. Then Congress authorized force, which is the legal equivalent of a declaration of war, at least according to senator Biden. See? All nice and legal.
Bush and the neocons made one big FUBAR of Iraq. We toppled Saddams statue and put him on trial. Now we have Muqtada al-Sadr in a position of power. I wonder how many people his militia has slaughtered. Maybe Haliburton will put up a statue of Muqtada al-Sadr before we leave.
BrianInAtlanta;
First, Congress did not declare “War.” There is a difference between that and authorizing the use of force.
At first, that seems like a mere philosophical distinction. But, consider Webster’s two definitions of the word “war”:
Congress (and Bush) declared “a state of hostilitis” with accompanying force, since, by definition, terrorism cannot be “hostilities between nations”.
Our Incompetent-In-Chief used that declaration to invoke “War Powers” in the Constitutional sense of the word.
He has, since, used those powers to:
I suppose mention of Warrantless Wiretaps, fear-mongering, public lies are too well know to make special points.
So, BrianInAtlanta, tell me, how are Bush’s actions different than Saddams
Brian and Gattsuru-
Your points are well taken. When I read the blogs at work, I run the risk of posting without fully thinking things through.
My Bad
I am no fan of GW but give me a break, Saddam killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds, some by poison gas. The number of Shiites killed is estimated at 300,000 or more. Over one million Iranians and Iraqis killed in that war. To say that GW is the equivalent of Saddam would mean that you would equate Hitler with Truman. I also notice that when Saddam was doing all of this killing the noble anti war liberals of the US and the west said and did nothing.
Scott_api :
Your questions were and are quite valid ones. In a perfect world, we’d be holding Saddam responsible for every crime he commited, and ever country that allowed people to massacre its own people as a matter of policy would be made peacable. Even if you know why we can’t, they are questions that should still be asked.
Paul “Wolf” :
A trial can not be made illegitimate due to the cause of capture. This was true as far back as World War II’s capture of Nazi Officers (an earlier treaty had made ALL wars illegal).
grognard
Thats exactly what he is doing, “equating Hitler with Truman”. He should try Indian historical figurheads and leave our leaders for us to judge.
Eclectic Floridian
You would be wrong, there. What, you didn’t believe what I said about Biden’s thoughts on the matter? Here’s a link for you, and here’s the money quote from that link:
gattsuru
In a “Perfect World” Bush would have long since been impeached and imprisoned.