Predictably, HRW is distressed at the unfair trial of the monster. Let me state my concerns at the get-go: the biggest mistake in this trial was its very existence. Hussein should have been summarily executed right in the hidey-hole where he was discovered.
And just to make sure it was “fair,” an Iraqi volunteer should have had the honor. A call for one would’ve produced thousands, if not millions of grieving citizens willing to pull the trigger, toss in the gas, and seal over the hole with rocks - whatever it took for a “fair” and just response to this monster’s crimes.
Putting him in a court docket wasn’t fair, it was a disgusting waste of lives, time, and money. Saddam Hussein had long since crossed the line where justice is called for in the decades prior to American boots landing in his bloodied and bowed country. He is evil on a world scale; much the same as his hero, Stalin - though he didn’t have the same amount of human resources to degrade.
And Human Rights Watch’s fisking of the trial proceedings is not only unjust, it’s trivial. If there was to be a trial in the first place, a good prosecution would simply to have put up pictures, frame by frame, of all those he tortured, gassed, massacred, raped, etc. They could have shown the personal video tape collection Saddam himself kept of these killings so he could play them back for his own entertainment.- - - - - - - - - -
No words need have been spoken. The pictures would have been enough. Given the sheer numbers of people he killed, it would have taken several months to show all his victims. Then, the just, merciful thing to do would have been to shoot him where he sat.
And while we’re on the subject of self-righteous watchdogs, where are the greenies? Why haven’t they come forth at this trial to complain about Saddam’s ruining of the wetlands in the north? It was a project he undertook to drive out the Kurds, but what about the senseless harm he brought to vast numbers of wildlife?
And where are the women’s groups? Why weren’t they at the trial to protest Saddam’s treatment of women, who could be - and were - grabbed off the streets for his evening’s entertainment?
Instead, the report complains about things like the frequent changes of judges (it never mentions the constant threats the judges were subjected to by Saddam’s cohorts), it complains about the demeanor of the judges toward the defendants. Here’s one exchange HRW shows as proof of poor judicial deportment:
On June 12, 2006, the judge entered into an exchange of insults with defendant Barzan al-Tikriti before ordering the latter’s removal from the chamber. Al-Tikriti had complained that witnesses for him were scared to come forward to testify:
Judge: Afraid of Whom? Ghosts?
Al-Tikriti: Afraid of the terrifying court.
Judge: You’re terrifying!
Al-Tikriti: No, you’re terrifying!
Judge: Why do you always have to be the hero? Get him out of here.
The injustice! The unfairness! The disgrace!
Two questions:
- why was there a trial at all? This is war and we are in the middle of it. Saddam was/is the enemy, deserving summary execution, not a judicial proceeding.
- Why didn’t Saddam take Hitler’s way out? The “Hitler-as-ultimate-evil” shark has truly been jumped when something he did compares favorably to Saddam’s craven behavior.
The Human Rights Watch report on Saddam’s trial is a sick joke. It is simply one more proof that Western civilization is hell-bent on a suicide mission. These people are but one contingent of the Kamikaze Kids, carrying on in behalf of Saint Karl Marx.
I’m sure you could name a dozen other groups, all intelligent but woefully - and especially willfully - ignorant of the malignant evil of those they propose to protect. Such groups actually serve to increase the evil present on this planet, and they do so in the name of Justice.
I’m sure that lady has long since removed her blindfold by now. She is sitting in the gutter, sobbing into her handkerchief. Who needs a blindfold when groups such as these seek to poke your eyes out and make a mockery of your name?
The time cannot come too soon when we will be able to speak of this evil man in the past tense.
10 comments:
There's a passage, I think in Romans, which says 'Vengeance is mine. I shall repay.' I wouldn't like to be in his shoes. One second of pain then an eternity in hell.
Not a very nice way to lead into this but Happy Thanksgiving to both of you.
Apparently Dymphna, Saddam was found in his rat-hole clutching a pistol. Were he posessed of a single ounce of self-respect at all and not a snivelling coward, he would have dispatched himself to the afterlife, saving the world from yet another glimpse of Ramsey Clark.
And BTW, Dymphna, the wetlands draining project was undertaken in the south against the rebellious Shiites in the days immediately following the end of the Gulf War. The 'marsh arabs' as they were known, used the area as a refuge from Saddam's Republican Guard during their brutal retribution for the uprising in the south. The draining was accomplished over a number of years in an effort dubbed 'The Third River Project', financed, in part, by Oil-For-Food dollars.
d calderalo--
my bad...I conflated them with the Kurds to the north. I've studied the map, trying to figure out where various factions are, but obviously blew that one.
I've been researching the Assyrian Christian places in Iraq and get conflicting answers...think I may have to go directly to the source and ask Mr. Joseph.
Thanks for your correction. I understand that the marshes were a top priority once Saddam was toppled. Last I read, they were making a comeback.
Saddam was put in the dock because the left demanded he stand trial amongst his own people. However, once it turned out that the trial might actually go ahead and, worse, actually convict him, they backpeddaled and demanded he stand trial in the Hague instead.
Eejits the lot of em. Now they're spinnint the line that the trial is a sham, a show-trial put on by puppets of the US "regime" to convict an innocent and peaceful leader of men. It's a terrible lie, but when you compare it with the lies about cambodia, vietnam, the USSR and now Mugabe (who is apparently righting economic imbalances brought about by British colonialism, rather than stripping land from its rightful owners and turning his country in to a desert) it doesn't seem so... well it's par for the course.
I just hope the Iraqis hurry up and execute him. The way things are going, if Baker, Kissinger, and the "realists" wrest control of U.S. foreign policy, he might end up back in power. Who else could better tamp down the sectarian violence, after all?
/no, I don't really think it will happen. I'm just feeling mighty cynical lately.
Personally, I wouldn't have minded if the soldier that found Saddam cowering in his rat-hole also saw the pistol he was holding and administered a burst of 5.56mm justice on the spot.
The idea of "moral equivalence" should not even be employed here, yet here they are according Saddam the right to a fair trial - because he is human, his life is just as valuable as any other individual's.
Yet those who fear that the persecution of Saddam by dispatching him in that foxhole with a bullet through his thick-headed skull would lack legitimacy in the eyes of the world community - somehow it escapes them that legitimacy should be conferred by the Iraqis themselves: they were the ones who were systematically tortured, tormented and utterly dehumanised under Saddam's diabolically repressive reign.
Would Iraqis bother themselves with such cosmopolitan concepts as international legitimacy and law when their political culture resonates more of a parochial state that is struggling with the imposition of alien, unfamiliar liberal democratic principles? No.
Justice needed to be served, swift and unforgiving. And the international community made a farce out of the trial, compromising the Iraqis' faith in the intentions of foreigners who would accord someone as inhuman as Saddam a legitimate right to defend himself. Did those Iraqis who died have a chance to defend themselves? Saddam betrayed his own citizens and deprived them of their individual sovereignty.
Great, let's just summarily execute people because it's so obvious that they are guilty, so who needs a fair trial?
when you've essentially declared war on one person and those who help him, I think it's valid to kill not just the people who help him, but him as well.
If the war was against Iraq, you'd have a point.
I believe HRW is criticizing the Iraqi court because it didn't do a better job of exposing Saddams crimes for posterity, rather than bleating about his rights. HRW doesn't cast any doubt on Saddams guilt, they do cast doubt on the competence of the court.
They do complain about the death penalty, but then they always do that.
HRW has a wierd 'editorial' slant sometimes, but the reports seem accurate and carefully researched. Furthermore, it is one of the few big NGOs that was not founded by avowed socialists.
The really sad thing is that Saddam will be pushing-up daisys at some time in the near future while terrorists that we've caught and convicted on these shores have either been spared the "death penalty" or will likely die of old age long before their endless appeals run out.
Sadly, we seem to have lost the "guts" to unappologetically execute these creatures, as was done with Nazi infiltrators who were caught attempting to sabotage the American war effort during WWII.
The only thing that can be done with a rabid dog is to destroy it as soon as it is determined to have rabies.
Period.
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