Villainous Nutball To Hang!!!
In the face of death, happy sauce-loving, psychotic oddball exhorts his people not to hate the Jews, but nevertheless to unite against them.
The prosecution says, "We should be able to hang him within the next 30 days." The defense says, "They should not be allowed to hang him until 30 days have lapsed." Why is it that the defense and the prosecution cannot agree on what should be a very straightforward legalism? Simple: The ink, if any, hasn't yet dried on that particular clause. Why is it that President Talabani isn't even sure of his role regarding state executions -- whether he must sign off on one, for instance? Simple: There is no rule of law in Iraq.
Remember how Hussein was supposed to swing in time for the mid-term elections -- that is, until White House pollsters found the American people aren't yet half as gullible and are yet twice as cynical as they had previously estimated? Now, why do you suppose the answer to the question "Will he be executed?" has jumped from "yes" to "no" to "yes" again? And why has the proposed date for this strange fruit-viewing picnic jumped all over the place, with various contradictory legal justifications popping up at the oddest moments? Simple: because they're making it all up as they go along.
(Just this morning, one talking head, in response to the flapping of Heidi Collins's iridescent plastic lips, seemed to fault "government interference." In no way is that being vague or deliberately misleading: are we talking about interference by the American government, or Iraq's putative government? If the former, then yes disapprobation is in order. If he means the latter, however, it's as meaningless a phrase as the closer-to-home "judicial activism"; apart from the facts that a government should submit to checks and balances, and that writing and enacting laws is one job of governments, the other job being the judiciary's, to interpret and enforce those laws -- laws, by the way that in some cases have yet to be formulated -- apart from all that, we're talking about an incomplete government, one moreover that's a troop-surge away from collapse, and that exists only at the pleasure of George the Crusader and whatever rickety Shi'ite coalitions they can cobble together at any given time. Granted, our talking head -- analyst, my ass -- did mention how the mostly unnamed architects of the trial were trying to hew closely to international law. Needless to say, he also successfully elided why Hussein's bad noose is not being delivered by the ICC.)
For some reason, a makeshift court is conducting this trial. Were it an actual international court, we wouldn't be privy to half as many horrifyingly embarrassing pratfalls. He'd be at the Hague, doing the Nuremburg Shuffle. Judges wouldn't have to recuse out of fear for their own lives or the lives of their families. We'd know exactly how many appeals the guy's supposed to get, what his rights are and aren't, and in just whose custody he's supposed to be. The bloodthirsty could have their satisfaction, and the rest of us could partake of the edifying spectacle of real justice.
So why doesn't international law have anything to do with this? Yes, there is the American Right's traditional kneejerk animus towards the black helicopters and blue helmets of the New World Order. There are also the exigencies of public relations, which require that any trial not prosecuted by the victims of the accused and not supervised unilaterally by the United States must appear a failure of Bush "policy." But mainly because of one cringe-worthy, ear- and cheek-searing detail: Rumsfeld and anyone else from Reagan's cabinet who abetted Hussein's murderous behavior would be sitting on the defense bench right with him.
jerry ford went early to get him the front-row seats for the apocalypse i suppose
I do not support the death penalty, but I also feel death row itself is a cruel and unusual punishment.
Iraq has invented an elegant system insofar as once the appeal failed, that was that - no matter the ongoing trials.
It would be great for everyone to get closure, all sides heard, all grievances aired, Dozens of trials.
taking decades.
There is nothing remotely unusual about a government killing one of its own citizens, decisively. Death Row is cruel.
Last night, they broke in on 20/20 (what? Just came home from a party and flipped it on) to announce that he had been hanged. Then, they did a whole hour on how hideous and torturous Sadaam and his sons were.
Hey, don't think about the farcical show of justice, the puppetry going on, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. No look over here, check these villains out, look at the atrocities.
It was sickening.
md: you do get my point, tho', right? It's not that Saddam didn't get enough appeals or anything, or that he died, or anything. It's that there is no rule of law over there, and people are just making it up as they go along.
He didn't suffer enough before he died. He should have been forced to watch an Anna Nicole Show marathon or ride in the passenger seat of Nicole Richie's car without a seatbelt.
While the trial itself was slapdash and amateur, the fact that there was a trial at all showed some progress. After they caught him, I expected something more like the Ceausescu treatment where he would be tried and executed within a few days.
totally.
They also have plenty of laws, many of them new, and zero precedent as to how it's all actually DONE.
We have an "American Way" of doing things. Permits, contracts, hoops to jump through, and in the end - Profit! (or a tax writeoff!).
The "Iraqi Way" is not quite established. In the meantime, taking arms against the occupier who killed your brother/father/mother pays pretty well.
Again, I don't support the death penalty, but televised trials for years on end will not help any wounds heal.
I wager we need to wait for the end of this 4-day holiday for the fullest reaction. Wed PM.
teh, you are abso-fuckin'-lutely right. Saddam Hussein's execution had nothing to do with his guilt or with any sense of justice. He butchered thousands of people, and they tried him for the deaths of a few hundred? Why was that again? Because it was the only few hundred murders that didn't clearly reek of U.S. complicity? Shit.
Also, the 'trial' and hanging had nothing to do with making Iraq a better place for Iraqis. It was, as
Josh Marshall says, a cheap political stunt staged by a group of assholes who know how to do nothing more than stage cheap political stunts. Any talk of whether it was 'the right thing to do' or whether 'Saddam had it coming' misses the point by a country mile.
Killing Saddam Hussein won't wipe the Iraqi blood from our hands any more than will a 'surge' of more U.S. troops. Alas, lynching Hussein gives us no discount from our ever-rising karmic tab of apocalyptic whoop-ass.
Yeah, what Church Lady says. If they were to allow him to go on trial for the really big stuff, Rummy and GHWB might have to go on record as character witnesses. Couldn't have that. It was nice that they hung him at daybreak in Iraq though. That gave the news enough time to prepare for the 11pm broadcast...
psst... fish, church secretary is a d00d.
But yeah, you notice he got away with the majority of his crimes.
saddam and pinochet, sitting on a tree,
k-i-s-s-i-n-g-e-r!!caifqtm
Freedom Camp | Blogger Templates by layoutstudios.com and Gecko & Fly.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.
Learn how to Make Money Online at GeckoandFly
