I've been reading up on the trial of Saddam Hussein, not just in the US media which is giving it very superficial coverage, but more extensively through sources in the Middle East and on some blogs which are giving it a lot of excellent coverage.
From this reading there are a few sources I would like to recommend to anyone who wants to know more about the trial and about the true extent of the incredible crimes which Saddam committed against the Iraqi people and against humanity.
For an emotional view of the trial I suggest visiting Iraq the Model which has some excellent first hand reporting of popular reaction to the trial. Much of it comes down to 'why not just put a bullet in his head immediately', but there are also some considered comments and a lot of insight into how Saddam's crimes directly impacted individuals and how they feel now that he's coming to justice.
For in-depth legal analysis of the trial the Case School of Law has put together an extraordinary blog where lawyers and legal experts do a point by point debate of the proceedings and principles involved in the trial. It can get a bit heavy, but most of it is written for general consumption, not just for other lawyers, and there are some really significant viewpoints presented.
There are some things about this trial which most Americans observing it casually from thousands of miles away may not be aware of.
Saddam is not the only person on trial. He is just one of eight defendants being tried in this round of trials, and the others include some of the most heinous figures of his regime, including Awad al-Bandar, the Ba'athist 'judge' who supervised the summary executions and political assassinations of opponents of Saddam's regime. Many in Iraq have as strong or even stronger feelings about him than they do about Saddam himself.
Saddam is not on trial for all of his crimes at this time, only for one particular incedent in which he personally supervised a massacre at the town of Dujail. He will eventually be tried for his various other crimes, but this one was chosen to go first mainly because of the large number of witnesses and the relative magnitude of the crime.
There is considerable international debate over whether the trial should be held at all and especially over the application of the death penalty. There's a conflict between European law which opposes the death penalty and the Geneva convention which supports it in the sense that it authorizes local authorities to apply their own form of justice to war criminals in their custody. Many in the international community are unhappy with the British for not stopping their US allies from turning Saddam over to the Iraqis. They argue that Saddam should be tried for crimes against humanity, rather than the mundane crimes he's charged with and believe that he should have been spirited away to the Hague to stand trial before an international tribunal like Slobodan Milosevic. Not surprisingly this idea is met with derision in Iraq. It does seem bizarrely ironic and rather inappropriate that the penalty for just murdering some people in Iraq is more severe than the penalty for crimes against humanity under UN jurisdiction.
Saddam will probably never get tried at all for most of his crimes, including the worst like the genocide at Anfal. Trying him for his actual crimes against humanity would likely require putting him infront of an international court, and officials at the Hague have made it fairly clear that if they got their hands on him they would be legally obligated not to return him to Iraq if he were under threat of execution for crimes he was convicted of there. That means the Iraqis will never turn him over to international authorities for trial. As for his various other crimes - the thousands of individual tortures, rapes and murders - most of these will likely go untried as well, because the Iraqi conception of justice is rather efficient and when he is convicted in the current trial he will be executed within 30 days.
Contrary to what many on the left have been claiming, there is virtually no US involvement in this trial process. The judges were all part of the judiciary under Saddam, though mostly younger judges, and the legal statutes being used are mostly ones which were in force under Saddam as well, though never applied as they should have been. The main complaint about this seems to be that Iraqi justice can never be fair to Saddam because his crimes were so monstrous and he is so hated. Many think that judges from outside the country should be brought in to essentially create an international court.
The court is now in recess. Defense lawyers requested a 90 day recess to prepare their defense and were given 40 days. So now that we've had a day of trial in which Saddam and the other defendants all plead 'not guilty', we have to wait more than a month for the real proceedings to begin. Very frustrating for the Arab news media who are literally attacking each other to get the best access and coverage of the trial.
Some have been calling the Saddam Hussen trial the 'trial of the century', but I think that's a bit overblown - though not as much as it was when applied to O. J. Simpson. There are some pretty important legal issues at play in this trial, particularly the question of local jurisdiction and local law vs. international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention and which of those takes precedence. But that has more to do with the political circumstances surrounding the trial than it does with the trial itself. Certainly for the media of the Arab world this is the biggest and most exciting court case they've ever covered. Coverage of the law and the courts is usually pretty scanty in the Middle East, but this case is more public than trials in Islamic courts and has attracted a lot more media attention for obvious reasons.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Nancy
The laxity of punishments for heinous crimes is one reason not to give the Hague either jurisdiction or credibility. In any event, the European "community" has no reason to think they should have any say in this: Iraqis suffered, Iraqis should try him & Iraqis should have the satisfaction of killing him first. Anybody else with a beef should take a ticket & get in line.
As for punishment, there is nothing bad enough to do to some people. Even wiping out every member of their family isn't enough. The problem is, if he's kept alive for any time at all, there's bound to be someone somewhere who wants to rescue him, for whatever reason, be it restoration of his regime, misplaced loyalty, or just to try to get a big ransom. I think they should have offed him when they found him, & then exhibited his carcass like they did with his sons. If I were any of the Iraqis who'd suffered at his hands, I wouldn't be satisfied just seeing him on trial, still mocking me & everyone else.
2 - tommyd
The Saddam Hussein "trial" in an occupied Iraq, occupied illegally by the vengeful Americans no less, reeks of unabounded hypocrisy. It's so absurd and illegitimate. Yea, the judges are Kurds. That's fair.
If Saddam is Hitler reincarnated then why is Saddam's big show trial only concerned about 143 dead guys who tried to assassinate him 23 years ago?
And why is that Saddam's so-called genocides occured while he was still the USA's buddy, yet only now is it grounds for an illegal invasion and sham trial? Why didn't we take action at the time of the so-called genocides?
Where are the WMD's? There was never terrorism in Iraq while Saddam was president. That being so, Saddam was better for Iraq than the current puppet regime under US occupation.
Iraq is a disaster of astounding proportions and has damaged America so badly that it can downright make you cry. America's unprovoked attack on Iraq has hurt America and the American people.
It just wasn't worth it for one supposed man to be overthrown.
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
Heh ... he wears tighty whities.
4 - Dave Nalle
There you have a perfect contrast of the two positions on this issue. I think the more valid position is pretty clear. That tommyd can refer to Saddam's acts as 'so called genocides' shows exactly how out of touch with reality he is. A perfect example of the emotional response of the left overwhelming common sense.
Dave
5 - tommyd
Have any of you shipped out to Iraq lately to join in fighting for the cause that you so cheerily cheerlead from the sidelines of America?
Didn't think so.
As far as the so-called genocides committed by Saddam, those claims come from people who hated him, were exiles from Iraq or people who wanted to kill him. It's no secret that the US backed Saddam 1000% when he was fighting the hated Iranians. The Iranians bomb the Kurds, and Saddam gets the blame today. Yet America knew exactly what was happening then. Why no word then??
Hey, Saddam ruled with an Iron Fist, no doubt. Do you armchair warmongers see WHY now? And if you don't like dictators, when is the US going to invade the vicious dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe? How about America's buddy Islam whatever his name is in Azerbaijan? That guy's in insane. Turkmenistan? How about opposition political parties in China?
You laptop bombadiers out there have no clue about what you're actually cheering for. Just repeat after your Furher, George Bush, and go back to sleep.
America has created a devastating debacle of death in Iraq and it won't stop until America leaves. Executing Saddam definitely won't matter to the insurgents....it will actually embolden them.
See ya.
6 - Dave Nalle
Tommy, have you shipped out to fight for the terrorists yet? You seem to fully support them and deny the monstrous acts which Saddam committed.
If I read your last comment right you're saying that the Iraqi people deserved the murderous rule of an insane dictator because that was the only way to keep them in order. Would you like to silence dissent in the US the same way, with rape rooms and torture chambers?
And BTW, my support is for the people of Iraq and their desire to be free both from Saddam and from the terrorists. It's a pity all you care about is using a tragic situation to support your political hate campaign and are willing to sacrifice them to that end.
Dave
7 - Robert Amatruda
I'd love to see Saddam in the next Calvin underware ad.
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
How does participation in the war have any relevance to views on it?
Several journalists never served, should they shut up and come back and tell us about what accessories Paris Hilton bought her dog?
9 - tommyd
No, Dave, I wouldn't fight for this cause because it's none of my business what happens to Iraqis. Know it sounds harsh, but Iraqi men women and children or Saddam for that matter was a threat to the United States. And furthermore, the rationale for the war was a huge lie in the first place, making America's illegal stomping of Iraq that much more disgraceful.
Democracy is not a cure-all for terrorism. It will NEVER work in Iraq or the Middle East, that's obvious. However, America's killing of innocent people in Iraq only serves the causes of the very small band of Islamist extremists in reinforcing their claims of America's aggression. This war on Iraq doesn't make any of us any safer, that's for sure. It's all about greed, Israel security, and Halliburton....but of course, those things don't sell a war to well.
The difference between you and I is that you buy into the fear propaganda that America's gravest enemies of our freedom lay outside this country. I believe the greatest enemy of America's freedom lives right in DC and if we don't watch them, they will turn this country into a giant police state, ruled by fear.
We'll just have to wait to see who's right in this gruesome fight, Dave. For now, since we ain't changing each other's minds on any of this stuff, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Take care.
10 - Mark Schannon
It's unfortunate that Tommyd is so extreme in his positions, not to mention not even responding to your post half the time. He's too easy a target for you, Dave.
Whether the Mesopotamia is justified or not (with a tip o' the hat to John Stewart's "Daily Show), why we picked him as opposed to all the other lunatic dictators slaughtering their citizens, and whether we supported Saddam in the past--it's important but irrelevant to what's being asked.
I'm opposed to capital punishment for lots of reasons--one of them is that when you kill someone, that's it. Even if you torture them, at some point, their pain is over. Life imprisonment in total seclusion seems to me a far more harsh penalty--let him sit by himself for the next 20 or 30 years while the memory of what he's lost slowly eats away at what's left of his brain.
As for Nancy's idea of wiping out every member of someone's family, all I can say is that I'm glad she's not in charge of an legal system. Let's see, whack the little babies because their grandfather was a murderous thug. Don't stop there...go after cousins & aunts and uncles. Hell, just kill anyone whose ever met him.
11 - tommyd
One correction in my post above...I meant to say that "Iraqi men women and children, nor Saddam for that matter, were NO threat to America's security"....furthermore....
I also should make clear that I wouldn't fight in this war because I don't support it. If you really support what America is doing in Iraq, you should sign up, back up your warrior stance, and ship out to Iraq. If you're cheering the war and not willing to fight in it, and condemn those who don't support it as "traitors", then what does that make you??
The National Guard is accepting recruits up to 39 years old. So get out from behind your keyboards and go kick some haji ass!! Ooooohaaaaa!
12 - Justin Berry
I am a veteran with several combat action ribbons. I would be more than happy to go to Iraq or anywhere else I can be of help to oppressed people.
I recieved two combat action ribbons under a draft-dodger, and his husband hillary wouldnt even let me wear my uniform in the white house unless I was a waiter and then I wasnt allowd to speak unless I said "may i help you?"
I am envious of those who serve today because they can actually see the fruits of their labor.Has anyone looked at Haiti or Somalia lately? oh well tommyd you welcome anyway.
Ive done my duty now its your turn.
13 - Dave Nalle
>>I also should make clear that I wouldn't fight in this war because I don't support it. If you really support what America is doing in Iraq, you should sign up, back up your warrior stance, and ship out to Iraq. If you're cheering the war and not willing to fight in it, and condemn those who don't support it as "traitors", then what does that make you??<<
What warrior stance? I don't support war in Iraq, I support the building of peace there. And those who don't support the effort in Iraq aren't traitors. At best they are fools and at worst they are somewhat self-centered and inhumane. The only ones who are traitors are those whose understanding of our free society and the social contract is so poor that they think you need to serve in the military to have an opinion about foreign policy or the use of the military. Those are the ones dumb enough to end up supporting a totalitarian state sometime down the road.
Dave
14 - Dave Nalle
>>I'm opposed to capital punishment for lots of reasons--one of them is that when you kill someone, that's it. Even if you torture them, at some point, their pain is over. Life imprisonment in total seclusion seems to me a far more harsh penalty--let him sit by himself for the next 20 or 30 years while the memory of what he's lost slowly eats away at what's left of his brain.<<
It's a very valid point that this case does highlight a shortcoming of capital punishment. If they execute Saddam 30 days after the end of the first trial, then it deprives all the other victims of their day in court. Given what Saddam has done in his horrific career there's probably 10 years worth of trials to go through - if he lives long enough - during which the survivors can get their stories heard. I think that's probably worth keeping him alive for.
Dave
15 - Victor Lana
How long has MIlosevic been on trial? It seems like forever. I believe Nuremberg gave a much swifter and more satisfactory result than that.
This trial with Hussein could become a joke if it continues in this way. Sad indeed for the families he destroyed.
16 - Larry A. Sakin
The United States falls in and out of love with various tyrants at various times. We will support some as long as they have something we want and have to get through trade or diplomacy, for whatever reason. The US rarely questions the human rights records of tyrants they support until they've done something to piss the US off.
Such is the case with Saddam Hussein. Hussein wanted a larger role in controlling oil production in the Middle East and in the late eighties and early nineties, he rallied a number of allies to his cause. This was no a happy occurence for the US, which took the position that the deeply embedded oil under the shifting sands of the Middle East was their's alone to deal. Hence, our friend Hussein, whom we generously supplied with arms in his fight against Iran just a few years before, became another firebreathing Hitler.
I suspect that Hussein was an embarrassment to the US because of his invasion of Kuwait. He forced the US to choose between the two countries, and the US decided to protect the country with the larger American interests attached. After Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War, he was an expedient political target who could be pulled out for the masses to scare them, much like Qhaddafi during the Reagan years.
In the end, the US needed to vanquish Hussein not because of his long standing atrocities but because the US needed to get ahold of cheap oil very quickly. He was also vanquished because America's blood was running high over the 9/11 attacks. Searching the mountainous regions of Waziristan for Osama bin Laden wouldn't make for interesting TV. But oh, how people love to watch bombs bursting in air in Iraq.
The trial is just a dog and pony show for the victors. If the US was really concerned about the thousands Hussein killed in his tenure, we'd have also shown concern for the thousands disappeared and murdered by Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua and countless other dictators we supported in the past and continue to.
17 - MCH
Justin;
"I received two combat action ribbons under a draft dodger...I would be more than happy to go to Iraq..."
- Justin Berry
I understand your disdain for the draft-dodger, Bill Clinton. How do you feel about GW Bush's desertion from the Guards from 1972-74?
MCH, USN '70-74
18 - Dave Nalle
And how do you feel about MCH using his service as carte blanche to excuse every hateful and intolerant idea he supports?
Dave
19 - Dave Nalle
Larry, you can hardly compare Saddam to Somoza or Pinochet. They may have had harsh governments with a few political prisoners, but nothing even vaguely on the scale of Saddam. They didn't commit genocide and all the murders attributed to their regimes add up to less than Saddam killed in one year on average.
Yes the US has a record of supporting questionable regimes in the belief that the alternative would be worse - to stop communist takeovers in the cold war, or to fight Iran with Saddam. That's practical foreign policy. Clearly with Saddam we backed the wrong horse, but Iran had attacked us directly. Thankfully we had an opportunity to correct our error, however belatedly.
Dave
20 - MCH
Dave (I had other priorities during Desert Storm) Nalle;
It doesn't surprise me that a chickenhawk like yourself condones GW's desertion.
21 - R.C
Tommyd, what did you mean by kurdish judges. Kurdish people have a right to be mad and have rage for what Saddam did to them and everybody else.
22 - Dave Nalle
MCH, I didn't say one word about Bush or his military activities. If he had deserted I'd have expected him to be punished. Anyone with half a brain knows he didn't desert, but keep the dream alive.
Dave
23 - Dave Nalle
>>Tommyd, what did you mean by kurdish judges. Kurdish people have a right to be mad and have rage for what Saddam did to them and everybody else.<<
No kidding. They've got more mass graves than anyone in Iraq.
Tommyd and MCH and anyone else who wants to go on supporting the terrorists ought to visit massgraves.info and get their heads straightened out.
Dave
24 - Zbyszek
Dave wrote:
>>Tommyd, what did you mean by kurdish judges. Kurdish people have a right to be mad and have rage for what Saddam did to them and everybody else.<<
No kidding. They've got more mass graves than anyone in Iraq.
Tommyd and MCH and anyone else who wants to go on supporting the terrorists ought to visit massgraves.info and get their heads straightened out.
Dave, I recommend that you go to Falluja
one of the biggest massgraves in Iraq. Who did it? Islamic terrorist?
Tommy is absolutely right that:
"The difference between you and I is that you buy into the fear propaganda that America's gravest enemies of our freedom lay outside this country. I believe the greatest enemy of America's freedom lives right in DC and if we don't watch them, they will turn this country into a giant police state, ruled by fear."
Zbyszek
25 - Dave Nalle
>>Dave, I recommend that you go to Falluja
one of the biggest massgraves in Iraq. Who did it? Islamic terrorist?<<
Give me a break. The total casualties in Falluja were fewer than the number of people Saddam killed in an average month during his rule. Plus most of those killed were insurgents or civilians killed by insurgents or being used as human shields. The coalition made every effort to evacuate the city and give the civilian population full warning to get out. The only reason any stayed was that the terrorists there held them at gunpoint to use as human shields.
>>Tommy is absolutely right that:
"The difference between you and I is that you buy into the fear propaganda that America's gravest enemies of our freedom lay outside this country. I believe the greatest enemy of America's freedom lives right in DC and if we don't watch them, they will turn this country into a giant police state, ruled by fear."<<
I didn't disagree with this. I challenge you to find one statement from me anywhere supporting the Patriot Act or any of the unnecessary mechanisms of potential oppression here in the US. The fact that the government has an inclination to do stupid things in the face of threats doesn't mean that the threats aren't real. But my main fear is the economic and bureaucratic oppression which comes from washington - the excessive spending and the outrageous taxatiion which it will bring, as well as the meddling social agendas of extremists on the left and right. They're a bigger threat than the paranoid legislation passed in response to terrorism.
Dave