It’s being reported that Saddam has been hanged.
He was an evil man and a vile dictator and won’t be missed.
But I’m inclined to agree with Geoffrey Robertson that the biggest problem with the execution is that he never stood trial on the genocide charges which were laid against him. As Robertson argues, this is both contrary to international law, and sets an appalling precedent for the future. For justice to be done, and to be seen to be done, all the matters adduced against Saddam should have been aired in court, and he should have been convicted of genocide against the Kurds, if there was sufficient evidence (and no doubt there was). As it stands, he’s been executed on the first charges brought against him – relating to a massacre of Shi’a villagers in 1982. A greater contribution to stability in Iraq could surely have been made had his oppression of all ethnic and religious elements been proved in court, and had the process been transparently just.
[For some reason I can't find the transcript of the interview with Robertson I saw the other night on the 7.30 Report site.]
Update: Wikipedia links to a number of assessments of the of the trial. Human Rights Watch [link to pdf] comprehensively examines the adequacy of the legal process in Saddam’s trial.
The ABC website has reported that Saddam has been hanged:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1819614.htm
What a travesty this is. The puppet-Bush “government� has acted with indecent haste to end the life of a great patriot who has in effect given his life for his people.
History will assess the contribution of this man to his people. He kept the country governable for many many years in the face of what many would consider insuperable difficulties, through inhuman sanctions, and traitorous behaviour by the Saudis in 1990 in giving the Bushites a platform to invade his country.
He brought together hugely disparate groups to govern as one State, giving at times some necessary tough love to maintain order in the greater interests of his people.
Who can replace him? We may never see his like again. Iraq will now explode into a bloody civil war because some misguided non-Arabs installed a majoritarian “democracy� but in truth aligned to the country’s enemies and the Zionists.
Vale Saddam Hussein.
!!!
Aka genocide.
Iraqi court has given Saddam some tough love too, he has paid the true price for his crimes, good riddance to bad rubbish too.
FMD
There is much to be said for the Romania example of dealing with a falling tyrant. A quick show trail might be a kangaroo court but hanging a genocidal leader for the deaths of only only a small number of his victims after a two year trial is also somewhat of a joke.
It’s a pity they hanged him before he was tried for war crimes against Iran and Kuwait.
It would have been interesting to hear Saddam’s account of his diplomacy in the run-up to and during each of these wars.
Clearly the Shiite-dominated government thought it was sufficient that Saddam had been convicted of killing Shiites.
Thus, although Saddam had been accused of genocide, he was never convicted of genocide.
Saddam was a petty thug who blundered into a poker game where the table stakes were too high for him.
Another milestone!
Where’s this jalopy headed anyway?
“Thus, although Saddam had been accused of genocide, he was never convicted of genocide.”
Yes, accusations are cheap, Katz. But as you say, the majoritarians thought that “it was sufficient that Saddam had been convicted of killing Shiites”. Never mind the injustice of the kangaroo-court process. Sounds like a similar “justice” will eventually be meted out to David Hicks.
Quick, simple and to the point. He deserved it, end of story. Won’t make a jot of difference to what’s happening over there.
Great tab in FF, it says Saddam hanged at Larvatus Prodeo. And those RWDB’s think we’re soft.
Quite so, Tester. The Bush fingerprints were all over the noose. This is not an Iraqi government, it’s just a branch office of the Pentagon. Assertions that it was elected by the Iraqi people are so much Bush/Blair/Howard propaganda. The Iraqis welcome and respect strong government which is why Saddam was so successful for so long. They will not be governed by traitors. Strong government will eventually be restored, but it will take many, many many self-sacrificing martyrs (knowing and unknowing) before this is achieved.
I agree that this is a travesty of justice, but I’m not sure that international law comes in for consideration here – he was convicted by an Iraqi court under Iraqi laws. However, it does seem pretty clear that this was pushed through in order to avoid a genocide trial. For the Americans part, their primary objective vis a vis Saddam was to ensure that he faced a fair trial followed by a first class hanging. A genocide trial would have put off the denouement for a good many years past the use-by date for any domestic political advantage that might be extracted from the execution.
As far as the Iraqi government, I suspect that they wanted to avoid having any kind of court turn up stones that would leave many of its members and officials blinking in the harsh sunlight of a genocide trial.
So, a travesty, yes, but sadly predictable.
Some predictably idiotic commentary from the Huffington Post to go along with Brendan Zar’s.
The Lucky Bastard!!!
He’ll being well into his 72 virgins by now!!!
Tester, I can appreciate him deserving something while at the same time condemning the process that got him there and the sentence that followed. Yes I can cycle and chew gum at the same time.
I know one shouldn’t feed the trols, but Brendan Zar, you seem to have forgotten that it was US interference that boosted Saddam into power in the first place and that Iraq under Saddam WAS a democracy (for those who chose to vote for Saddam). So, why aren’t you rejoicing that America is working tirelessly to bring you more of the same?
Brendan’s no troll. His first contribution to the thread was consciously self-parodic. No other explanation is possible.
“Tough love.” That’s the rape cells, right?
Damn, the “r” word again.
“Thus, although Saddam had been accused of genocide, he was never convicted of genocide.”
Nor were Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin or Pol Pot. Do we doubt it?
Robert Fisk sums it up in this way:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2112555.ece
And BTW Rob re your Huffington Post quote, sarcastic comment there yes, but perhaps you could explain how it’s “idiotic”–are there some scintillating non-idiotic dickless benefits from Chimpco’s Greater Middle Eastern Co-Prospherity Sphere that may have escaped our notice?
So it’s time to celebrate another travesty of justice and revel in the death of someone who has not ( by any reasoning) faced a fair trial, is it ?
I just flicked on the teev to be sickened by the sight of JH pontificating in its usual unctuous tones about this execution being the “cry of the Iraquis for democracy”. What utter bullshit !!!
JH, and the rest of the COW illegally invaded Iraq, upon false pretenses, and have killed in excess of 600000 Iraquis through this process, and executed their leader. who MAY have been somewhat of a bastard (at least according to the MSM, which backed the illegal invasion).
What of the rest of the “bastards”, such as the Burmese generals, or the prime movers in the COW – who have (certainly in the latter’s case) far exceeded the alleged “head count” of Saddam ?
Sorry – Saddam may have been an evil bastard – but there’s no shortage of them to go around, (COW anyone ?) and who gives anyone the right to take away another’s life ?
“Robert Fisk sums it up in this way”.
Yeah, well, he would.
Where’ve you been, Kempy? I’ve missed you.
Now that’s just silly Rob.
Hitler shot himself and was never put on trial for anything.
Stalin and Mao died in bed at the head of a victor power, as may George W. Bush.
Pol Pot died before the completion of a very protracted legal process. Ditto for Pinochet.
The Shah of Iran was never tried for his crimes against humanity either, despite the fact that he was under the control of the US.
Saddam Hussein was fit and in command of his faculties. He could have been tried for some very grave misdeeds that completely eclipse the murder of a number of Shiite villagers.
And yet, the authorities — both the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq and the Bush Clique — clearly didn’t want to look too closely at Saddam’s international war crime record.
In that sense the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein have much in common.
Oh c’mon, Rob, you’re going to have to be more sparkling than that. You’re going to have to be at least as sparkling as Fisk, and he is more sparkling than is good for his health, from what I’ve seen of him.
Onya Tester and Pterosaur. The death penalty diminishes all who decree it, watch it, celebrate it or carry it out.
You’re absolutely right Peter. So is Robert. At heart, a decent bloke. Totally led astray by monstrous fascist warmongers from the Anglosphere who cruelly stripped him of every vestige of his free will over two decades. A wonderful husband and father, a great novelist and one of the truly great innovators of the Tigris school of contemporary palace architecture. Who, now, is left to commission those extraordinary velvet wall tapestries that only real “Tough Love” dictators can appreciate?
We’ve lost more than we can know, I fear.
Katz, the lack of a formal trial does not preclude a universal recognition that they were guilty of genocide. Such has been history’s judgement, and it seems to me to be a fair one.
I have to say I’ve no real problems with the dispatching of Saddam. He was found guilty of sufficient criminality to warrant the death penalty under Iraqi law, and it was better not to let him linger on indefinitely while all the other cases were adjudicated. The legal process seemed to me to be sufficient, though not perfect. But then, whose is?
Yes, quite Mr Fairman. The disgraceful trial brings to mind Messrs Vyshinsky and Freisler.
I think the liquidation of the Ceaucescus was done with far more panache. I just loved the incredulity, first on the balcony (are they cheering, or what? Err I don’t think so Comrade President and Ruler for Life, perhaps we should just the helicopter on the roof… Lenny Bruce, god rest his junkie soul, would have had fun with that one). Then the Madame was upset about the rudeness of the young officers.
Homemade always tastes better. Saddam Hussein should have gone straight out of the hole and out among the good folk of Baghdad. Would have been more satisfying than belting a statue.
Anyhow, Yanques, get out of Iraq, the reason is gone.
We, as in you and me, don’t Rob but all of the above have their apologists (well at least I assume they do, I can’t say I have ever read or heard a defence of Idi Amin).
Having a full genocide trial wont stop most such people, but it will make their jobs a lot harder. Take Hitler for example. One of David Irvings arguments is that Hitler did not know of the Holocaust, an argument which he supports by pointing to the absence of any document signed by Hitler authorising it.
If a trial had have been held such a document may have been turned up, and Hitler may have even confessed (unlikely) thus closing of this line of argument.
Tester, apologies in advance, but don’t be so bloody daft. The man who had tyrannised their people for a generation had just been executed. What do you expect them to do, weep?
But Rob, the formal procedings of a well conducted trial turns opinion into judgement.
The Nuremberg Trials, for example, even though Hitler unfortunately could not attend, provided a wealth of information which served, among many other purposes, as the basis for establishing our international laws and conventions on crimes against humanity.
Time marches on. Circumstances change and develop. Surely it is important to test and to replenish these ideas against fresh and egregious cases like Saddam’s. Think of the opportunity for developing conventions on complicity of third parties, being accessories before and after the fact.
By hanging Saddam with such alacrity, this opportunity has been lost.
Katz: yes, I was going to advance the proceedings before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg myself in response to Chris’ point. The fact is that the head of the SS, Himmler, himself stated that the Nazis were doing things which could never be acknowledged but which nonetheless had to be done (i.e. the Final Solution).
But the circumstances surrounding the IMT were different. Germany had been conquered, occupied, segmented and pacified. There was no nascent resurgence, in any militarily threatening form, of the Nazism that was then on trial.
This is not the present case in Iraq. In my view it was best to dispense with Saddam and move on. I doubt the ordinary people of Iraq would disagree. Eventually, when the millions of documents captured by the COW have been translated and evaluated, history will be in a position to deliver a final verdict.
“By hanging Saddam with such alacrity, this opportunity has been lost.”
This is perfectly correct, Katz, except that for the point that you are making, the timing was all wrong.
As in Romania, it was better to do the bloody deed and move on. At least Saddam got tried for some of his crimes.
One more body to the Iraqi count. Like we really need more.
Saddam’s crimes against humanity should be looked at in the context of a very inhospitable national endowment and regional environment. Any ruler who has the Iraqi nation fall into his lap will find that they are not easy to rule, being cussed beyond all reason and badly in-bred. And over the past generation the Iraqi nation found itself in the middle of various US regional power plays, messing with the Iranis ditching the Saudis etc.
Saddam should have been left alive to act as a mediator with the Suuni/Baathists. They are the ones who are the ones who have nothing to lose.
In the killing fields of Iraq, does one more death matter? Does the outcome of a flawed judicial process matter? Does elevating a thoroughly despicable man to martyrdom matter?
If a rule of law is truly to exist in benighted Iraq, then perhaps the ability of the judicial and governmental process to incarcerate after a properly held trial would be a more powerful act than state sanctioned murder.
And apart from the ethical questions about another killing, what is the strategic advantage? Very little, in fact more than likely, this is as stupid a thing as has happened over the last two years. Opposition, sectarian violence wont melt away because of this. Democracy hasn’t bloomed overnight. Instead, divisions will harden and the prospect of a divided Iraq grows.
Had I lost family to Saddam’s murderous ways, I probably would celebrate, but what is now left for my children would bring me litlle joy.
Bernice, I think you are spot on. But perhaps, more importantly for the future, whom would you (generalised) hate now?
Obvious, isn’t it?
At least the British government has officially used the opportunity to mention their opposition to the death penalty. Something we would never expect from our own little dictator who has joined dubbya in praise of such a fair trial and the death, a further step in the democratic process. Got that …..hanging=democracy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/30/europe/EU_GEN_Saddam_World_View.php?page=1
This is absolutely true Rob. (How agreeable we have become!)
And the mistiming of the stretching of Saddam’s neck added just one more episode to the incredible botch that was is and will be Iraq.
If the Bush Clique (and increasingly it looks likely the administration that succeeds the Bush Clique) continues to botch its Iraq commitments, then there will be no redemption.
I would like to know much more about the relative roles of the Iraqi regime and the Bush Clique in the disposition of Saddam Hussein.
It must be recognised that the execution of Saddam cannot but inflame an already violent and ungovernable situation.
Does the Shiite government hope that this will help convince the Americans to bug out? (One of the conditions that Sadr imposed on Maliki for returning to the government coalition was that Saddam had to be executed. And Sadr is very keen to see the back of the Americans.)
Does Bush think that a further twist in the spiral of violence will help to persuade the punters that the US must “stay the course”?
There seems to be very little consensus about how these events wil play in the US.
Does Sadr know more about Americans than Bush? (That’s not a rhetorical question.)
From start to finish the whole charade has been a shambles.
No, Katz, I meant that the timing of not killing him would have been wrong for the present circumstances.
That’s a judgement for the people on the ground. And they seem to have made it.
The disgusting show trial and the hurried execution of Saddam Hussein reveals to us just what sort of a man Bush is. This vacant eyed president is a very seriously, intellectually challenged tool of an evil clique, otherwise known as the “Neo-Cons”. These people are completely out of touch with reality, especially the reality prevailing in the Middle East where America is now universally detested.
The execution of Saddam Hussein will achieve nothing but further cement the opposition of the Sunnis (including the millions of Sunnis in neighbouring countries) to the US’s ludicrous goal of introducing “democracy” to the region.
It will result in yet more avoidable bloodshed and scuttle any chance of a reconciliation between the sectarian rivals. Once again, the Iranians will have advanced their goals for the region courtesy of an amazingly incompetent president.
It is astounding that after all the predictable failures of this botched venture with all its destruction and bloodshed, Bush (read Neo-Cons) is actually proposing to send yet more troops to Iraq. These people seem to have learnt nothing since their similar, ignominious defeat in Vietnam.
Here’s a suggestion for the US to regain some of its lost credibility: impeach Bush immediately (there are more than ample grounds) and then send him to stand trial in the Hague for war crimes. Sadly though, he can be sure the Europeans won’t execute him.
‘Bush is ….. a very seriously, intellectually challenged tool of an evil clique, otherwise known as the “Neo-Consâ€?’.
No, Bodie. The people you’re talking about are …. the Jews.
Tell it like it is, boy.
NOT the Jews …….rather the Zionists
Believe in the death penalty then, Bodie?
But not in democracy, it seems.
You seem to be pining for the old genocidalist who’s just been topped.
I can understand (but not endorse) enemies wanting to execute their vanquished captive, but it’s really pretty dispicable killing him the way they did. He should at least have been given death with honour. A firing squad, or beheading in a military fashion (ceremonial sword say). Hanging is such a degrading way to die, suggesting common criminality.
“But I’m inclined to agree with Geoffrey Robertson that the biggest problem with the execution is that he never stood trial on the genocide charges which were laid against him.
As Robertson argues, this is both contrary to international law, and sets an appalling precedent for the future.
For justice to be done, and to be seen to be done, all the matters adduced against Saddam should have been aired in court…”
This is just ridiculous. If you or Robertson have to come up with weak arguments like this you ought to just admit your psychological problem of sympathy for the devil.
This was a fair trial conducted by the Iraqis. And they had to assume therefore that Saddam could beat the charge no matter how unlikely that might seem to us from where we sit.
Being as that he might beat it, it was therefore important to hold the other crimes in abeyance. Since had he won his case he would have to be set free if all he was fighting his case against all known crimes of his. Which is a pretty unacceptable outcome.
“As Robertson argues, this is both contrary to international law, and sets an appalling precedent for the future.”
I’m going to call bullshit on every aspect of this. That its contrary to international law. That Robertson said this. That its an appalling precedent and any other permutation of the subsets of this statement.
How can it possibly be contrary to international law?
International law has not outlawed the death penalty.
Or in Saddam’s case, as we review his record of barbarism, uncommon criminality.
Thanks for the clarification, Ptero.
Brendan — the guillotine?
Yep, many folks “on the ground” in Iraq have made many decisions.
And they’ve mostly been crap.
I exclude both al Sistani and al Sadr from the above. And if pressed I’d add the ruling elite of Iran, but they’re not, strictly speaking “on the ground”, are they?
My point is, Rob, there were many agendas in play in the despatch of Saddam Hussein. It would appear to me that the person who has most unambiguously got his way is Moqtadr al Sadr.
And al Sadr hasn’t put a foot wrong so far.
I’m pining for no one – least of all Saddam Hussein. I’m simply expressing what will probably be the outcome of this act of vengeance by the mental cripples in the white house.
I happen to live in the middle east and know from daily interaction with plenty of Arab (Sunni and Shia) associates and friends and reading their press that this execution will be seen as another kick in the face for all Arabs from the yanks. You see “GregM” – above all Hussein was one of them and despite all his acts of brutality in the past – to the average Arab man in the street, they are nothing compared to the continuing US atrocities here – in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
and it doesn’t matter what I think about their democracy – the Arabs to a person would tell them to stick it where the sun never shines.
Rob – you sound just like some of my Saudi friends…
“…sight of Iraqi men, women and children dancing in Sydney streets on the TV news a few minutes ago celebrating the violent death of a human being was quite sickening”
Quite so, Tester. It just shows the degradation of these traitors. Better for Iraq they are not there now. The country can do without scum like that.
I do feel for genuine Iraqis. These people had been left a hodge podge of borders drawn on maps by British colonialists who had no idea of the mayhem they were committing (or worse, they did, and deliberately so). Had they not have been involved in Arabia the Middle East would have settled all its religious and territorial squabbles by now and be getting on with life in their own way as they had been for centuries.
As it happened Saddam was at least making a good job of balancing the factions despite the most appalling difficulties.
Disparate peoples like this must have strong government within their own culture. Look at what happened to the former USSR as soon as the weak Gorbachev government took over in response to US meddling. It fell apart rapidly and the capitalist system has produced hundreds of billionaires and many tens of millions of poverty stricken people.
China will end up the same way with the communist party having thrown out its Maoist and Marxist philosophies and sucking up to Western capitalist neo-liberalism in an alarming fashion. The same with India, having decided to ditch its socialist philosophy of government.
Rob’s facetious comments about Jews clouds the real issue of the alien philosophy in the region, namely Zionism. These people must give back their stolen land in Arabia and retire to their ancestral homes in Europe, Russia and other places where their most recent families resided. There can be no peace in Arabia until this happens.
And here’s a nice detail which highlights the dynamics of the grisly little episode of grand guignol:
There is little doubt who was in charge of this operation.
Brendan, what part of Arabia, precisely, are the Jews occupying? Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Oman? The United Arab Emirates? Qatar? Kuwait?
Should not, by your reasoning, the Arabs give back the Christian lands they stole in Egypt, Libya (home to St Augustine of Hippo), Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco,Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and retire to their ancestral homes in Arabia?
Do try to get a grip on basic Middle Eastern history and geography. Arabia is the peninsula, not the whole Middle East.
“…this execution will be seen as another kick in the face for all Arabs from the yanks. ”
They’ll have to get over it, Bodie, just like all of the others. (Thought I’m not sure the Iraqis would agree.)
Brandon:
“These people must give back their stolen land in Arabia and retire to their ancestral homes in Europe, Russia and other places where their most recent families resided. There can be no peace in Arabia until this happens.”
Thanks for clarifying the issues so well.
PS: Ahmadindinnerjacket, rah rah rah!
Sorry, Katz, got other fish to fry.
Katz, what will be interesting as this plays out, as Al Sadr emerges as, at least, an Iraqi king-maker, and the Shia exercise dominance in Iraqi politics, is how the traditional and deep-seated Persian/Arab animosity will affect the course of Iran/Iraq relations. I agree that the Americans have comprehensively botched their occupation of Iraq but I think that there are many chapters in this saga to unfold after the Americans, as they ultimately must, withdraw.
Your views on this?
GregM, Brandon’s talking about Israel. By “Arabia”, he means the dar al islam.
I think.
They (the Jews, zionists or whatever) are not the only ones who have stolen a land – stealing other peoples lands just happened to be a favourite pastime for Europeans from the 15th Century onwards. The jews just happened to do it with the memory of the holocaust fresh in everyone’s minds.
Return to ancestral lands? – you can’t be serious. Even the Arabs know that won’t happen. The only way peace will come to the region will be when Palestinian people are justly compensated for the lands they lost, granted fair borders and when the Israelis are forced to respect the territorial integrity of their neighbours. This would all happen tomorrow if the US and the Europeans made it clear that they are prepared to withhold military support from the Israeli government.
It’s true that there’s a powerful Jewish lobby in the US, but this was not always the case and it can be changed again – but there’s not a hope with the current loonies and their vacant chief.
“stealing other peoples lands just happened to be a favourite pastime for Europeans from the 15th Century onwards.”
Name the most successful imperial power from the 11th century to the 19th. The Islamic, wasn’t it?
Well, if that is the case then, Rob, the Spanish are in diabolical trouble for stealing (back) Al-Andalus, not to mention the Austrians for stealing (back) the Ottoman posessions in the Balkans and the Indians for their audacity in setting up a secular democracy in what was once the Mughal Empire and therefore part of Dar al Islam.
Brendan, tell us it ain’t so.
“Return to ancestral lands? – you can’t be serious.”
The Jews have returned to their ancestral lands. That’s why they’re in Israel.
Condescending prick!
Arabia is an historically generic term that applies to all lands where arabic is spoken. Juat as the term Arab applies to Saudis, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians etc etc.
No GregM Arabia is not as narrow as you portray. It’s a region that covers all Arab lands including Egypt, Mesopotamia, the peninsula, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the land now occupied immorally by Israel since 1948.
“The only way peace will come to the region will be when Palestinian people are justly compensated for the lands they lost, granted fair borders and when the Israelis are forced to respect the territorial integrity of their neighbours.”
You know this can’t happen in reality, Bodie. Israel will have to be forced off the land because there’s no way they’ll go without an almighty fuss. Loss of support from the US and Europe would be a helpful first step. I’m not anti Jewish but they simply must be forced to vacate.
Pavlov’s Cat has said it all and said it right.
Can anyone tell my why executions often happen at dawn? What is the symbolism, or is there a practical reason?
You just cannot seriously expect 3.5 million or so people to pack up and vacate – to where?
The only possible solution is total cessation of support for the zionists (military, financial, moral) from the US and Europe. The country would need to be totally isolated from trade and interaction with the rest of the world. Something like this forced the end of apartheid in South Africa.
If this doesn’t happen I fear the Middle East will see the world’s second nuclear war.
If you knew Middle Eastern and North African history you’d be aware that Arabic was not spoken outside the Arabian peninsula until it was spread by the Islamic conquests. To apply the term Arabia to all the countries where it is now spoken is to apply a linguistic term to a geographical area, which makes as much, and as little, sense as describing the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, as a single geographic entity such as “Anglo-Saxony” because their historical setlement was from the UK and their predominant language is English or to describe Portugal and Brazil as the geographical entity Lusaphonia because Portuguese is the predominant language in both places.
It just so happens that the US, Canada, UK, Australia and NZ are referred to as the “Anglo-Saxon” countries.
And by the way – I am quite well versed with the history of the “Arab” peoples.
Well, here’s a small reading in reality for Brendan and Bodie.
Israel will never go away. It has transcended the Arab states in every way — militarily, politically and technologically. It is a vibrant democracy that extends full legal and political representation to its Arab minority, while the Arab states persecute their own Jewish communities. Its polity is founded in the rule of law, human rights (including for women and gays) and representative democracy — while the Arab states are still crawling out of the swamps of medieval hatred.
It has succeeded as a nation state ringed by enemies where all the Arab states have failed or are failing, even with the vast support afforded them by the old Soviet Union and more latterly the US. It’s not Israel’s fault that the Arabs have failed where the Jews succeeded, that Oslo foundered on the corruption of that darling old terrorist, Arafat, or that Gaza, their tiny statelet — freely given them by Israel which asked nothing in return — turned into a lawless morass governed at the point of a gun. Don’t blame Israel that the experiences of southern Lebanon and Gaza cruelled the Palestinians’ chance of getting the West Bank back — offered by Barak, refused by Arafat, and now even Olmert would scarce be bold enough to offer it again.
Phew, must be the pipes and drums.
Maybe youse should first read the judgement before making judgement;
http://law.case.edu/saddamtrial/dujail/opinion.asp
Rob:
Richard Perle is Jewish?
Imperial China is Arabic?
Bodie et al:
Tunisia is Arabia? Mesopotamia is?
BrenZar of Zardoz:
You’re wierd dude.
I totally support dismantling Israel and let the Arabs take control. Let’s get rid of only state in the Middle East that treats women, gays, and atheists like they’re human!
Wow, this thread is bringing out a whole new crop of loonies. Thanks for the clarification, Leinad — I was beginning to think someone had spiked my drink.
What a strange and twisted view of the Middle East.
Firstly I have never said Israel should “go away” – I have maintained that it needs to make a political accomodation with the Arabs or eventually there will be no Israel. This tiny country cannot continue to generate hatred among 1 billion muslims forever.
You are right – it has transcended the Arab states in all the ways you mention – it’s certainly been helped along with massive financial and military support from the US and their old nemesis – Germany. No one will deny that Arabia is technically backward – but there is one thing you are ignoring. Some 70% of the world’s oil reserves lie under the sands and seas of Arabia. far from being failed or failing states, the wealth that is flowing into this place is being used to develop an infrastructure that will soon make Israel puny by comparison. It may take a few years but there will come a time in the not too distant future when the Arab states will technically and militarily have the capacity to destroy Israel (nuclear weapons notwithstanding).
Thirdly – I don’t know where you got the strange idea that the Israelis are somehow “fair” to their Arab “citizens”. Beneath the democratic veneer of Israel – it is a religious state – the Arabs who have lived there for generations are treated as second class citizens – who vote? – you must be joking.
And why is Arafat so different from the boys and girls of the Haganah who merrily went about blowing up British soldiers and any Arabs who got in the way of their plans for the takeover of Palestine? also be so kind to inform me why a Palestinian Arab who defends his or her country – often in suicide attacks – in the only way he or she is able to strike back – is a “terrorist” – I would have thought this is heroism.
Pipes and Drums – I think it’s Piper Scotch
Dobie:
Infrastructure!? The Saudis are so corrupt they can’t run a sewer plant in Jeddah, they funnel their oil revenues into lavish palaces for their princes and paying imams not to call for their heads. They’ve been sitting on ridiculous wealth for the better part of fifty years, when is this super-Saudi infrastructure of doom gonna appear?
The Haganah were competent. Suicide bombing, besides being a horrible indiscriminate weapon of slaughter (and isn’t that what we decry Israel for?) hasn’t done anything for Palestine except drown out the legitimate voices. They need good lawyers and sharp negotiators – that’s what ends conflicts, not rockets and grannies with bomb-vests
The pipes and drums I referred to was the Edinbugh Tattoo that was playing on ABC at the time.
Taking your more salient points in turn:
It has survived so far, and there seems no reason it should not continue to do so. The important issue is not for Israel to accommodate the Arab states, but for the Arab states to accept the existence of Israel. Absent that, there will be no peace in the Middle East. And the victims of continuing war will be, as usual, the Palestinians, about the whom the Arab states notoriously care nothing.
You’re wrong about this. Oil revenues are in fact (despite outward appearances) the Arab states’ greatest weakness. While the despots that rule most of them rely on these revenues, they have no need to cede power to the people of their countries. They don’t impose taxes because they don’t need income from the people. The old Boston Tea Party rallying cry was “no taxation without representation”. Well, it works the other way as well, albeit negatively. They are among the strongest forces working against modernisation of the Arab world because they cement existing power structures and carry no imperatives for democratisation.
Of all people, Colonel Qadafi of Libya recently made a similar point. He decried the Arab states’ reliance on oil revenues because, as he said, it made them rich, but not strong. They did not build indigenous infrastructures or a prosperous middle class of entrepreneurs: they imported them from the west. A friend of mine with great experience in the Middle East concurs: he says the Saudis don’t work, they simply import labour and ideas from outside. A very bad basis for nation-building.
Again you are wrong — this time past comprehension. Someone who walks into a Sbarro bar in Jerusalem wired with explosives and kills 17 teenagers along with himself is a terrorist. Is a terrorist, is a terrorist, is a terrorist. The intent is to kill as many civilians as can be accomplished. There is always another way. To think of it as heroism is morally bankrupt.
To the Jew Leinad:
You are as ignorant as you are biased.
For what it’s worth whole new cities are being built in the deserts and coasts of Arabia (I’m not just referring to Saudi Arabia here). These people are building education cities with Universities only – and yes US universities – even Jesuit ones are educating their youth in every field possible – that includes both men and women for those of you with quaint medieval notions of Arabia.
You notion that the Haganah were somehow “justified” in their terrorism because they were “competent” is just too low and contemptuous for a response.
Leinad, the Gulf Arabs have put up some abso-fraggin-lutely amazing giant hotels, particularly in Dubai. In my considered military opinion, we are witnessing the dawn of an era of war which will be dominated by the Intercontinental Ballistic Hotel. And that means, I’m afraid, that Israel is toast.
Apart from that point, though, you’re spot on.
Bodie:
Cheers, bud – Irish-Welsh with a smattering of German and Italian, but hey, why let facts get in the way of some good ol fashioned yid-bashing? While we’re at it, where did I say anything about the Haganah (or the Irgun or the Lehi) being ‘justified’? Oh wait – I didn’t and you you were just reading me into your bigoted stereotypes. Lovely.
Thanks for the new nick!
Leinad the (Honorary? Crypto?) Jew
Rob,
Sorry – I forgot about the tattoo.
I agree with you – there will only be a peace when both sides agree to accommodate the other. Sure – mistakes have been made on both sides. However believe me when I say that the level of hatred against Israel is so entrenched in the Arab psyche that it will erupt into a catastrophe eventually. 3.5 million cannot continue to stave off 100 million in the immediate vicinity, no matter how technically advanced they are. When Hezbollah fighters managed to stem the recent Israeli invasion of southern lebanon the writing for Israel was on the wall.
This may come as a shock to you but the oil money is basically being pumped back into infrastructure projects here that are truly mindboggling. Sure the Saudi Princes piss a lot of it up against the wall but the King of saudi Arabia and the other Shaiks of the Gulf states know that they must develop – and not before the oil runs out (it won’t) but before the west develops enough serious alternatives (which it will). The Saudis – and the rest of the Arab peoples are changing – slowly but perceptibly they are becoming the technicians that are driving their own futures – most of the technical staff in Saudi Aramco and other large conglomerates are now basically young western educated Arabs – not necessarily Saudis but palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians etc. Don’t always take the word of westerners who have lived here too literally – most of them have a biased contempt for Arabs and Arab culture.
Finally to your last point. Why do you think that young person went into the bar and blasted himself and the unfortunate people there to kingdom come? because Israeli soldiers probably bulldozed his family house and may have shot one or more of his defenceless family while they lay helpless on the ground – YES THIS DOES HAPPEN – these incidents have been recorded on film but are NEVER shown in the western media. How would you feel if Israeli jets had just dropped heaps of cluster bombs on a defenceless Arab village – killing scores of innocent women and children – these and plently more acts of Israeli state terrorism occur almost daily – all of which most people in the west are conveniently ignorant of.
In no way do I condone suicide bombings – but I know that the hatred in the Arab psyche will ensure it continues as long as the Israelis continue their state terrorism.
I’ve got no idea what the implications of the first part of that address are, but I don’t like the way it’s worded in the slightest.
Be civil, please, folks.
Btw – Paulus, just out of interest, why are you named after a Nazi General?
Personally I couldn’t give a rat’s arse what you are. I’ll give you and your mate another nick: bigoted western armchair specialists who know F-all about the Middle east.
Kim: perhaps he likes futility?
Bodie, I fear you’ll never get a proper hearing on this site. LP is utterly infested with Jews like Leinad and rabid Jew-sympathisers!
You mentioned earlier that you were in the Middle East. On the assumption that you might not be familiar with the full range of Oz blogs, allow me to suggest one where your views would be much more welcome. It is one of our most popular blogs, and has been a resolute pillar of opposition to Zionist atrocities from day one. Islam and the Arab have no better friend in Australia than Tim Blair, I can assure you. The blog is here:
http://www.timblair.net
I’m surprised you don’t recommend Antony Lowenstein’s joint, Paulus. But I gather it doesn’t have the traffic it used to since he stopped spamming open threads.
Bodie – keep a civil tongue in your head, buddy, or you’ll disappear from here before I can wiggle my nose and snap my fingers.
Just sayin…
Apologies for the Jewish remark.
The guy deliberately mispelt my name in a manner that I felt was insulting.
Presents…
A Tale of Two Bodies
One
and Two
Is Palestinian terrorism justified because of Israeli brutality or are neither? Must one condemn one to condemn the other? Or are they both heroes?
Well, be a bit mature and ask for an apology, then.
Otherwise we’ll all be reinforced in our belief that Doyle was the better one of the duo.
screw the lot of you.
Au revoir, then. You want to talk here, you must play by the rules. I don’t particularly care whether or not you choose to. But if you choose not to, we choose not to give you space.
Oh, sheesh. Just noiced the typo.
Sorry Bodester, didn’t mean to confuse you with Dobie Gillis.
Can we be friends now?
Ah, Kim, you think I’m named after Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, the general whose army got surrounded at Stalingrad, advised his subordinate generals and staff to commit suicide once the position became hopeless, and then disregarded his own advice, waved the while flag, and cheerfully cooperated with the Soviets thereafter.
Well, I’m not! I took Latin for a few years at high school, some friends took to calling me ‘Paulus’ for some reason, and the name stuck. There were several dudes in Roman times named Paulus, as Wiki notes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulus
I would like to emphasise that I am not named after John Paulus, “a gay porn movie actor”.
Stop feeding the troll, please, Leinad. He’s just been placed in moderation, and I’m just going to bed, so it’s unlikely anyone will be around to either allow or disallow any response he might wish to make to you.
Thanks for the clarification, Paulus! I did think you were named after the hapless Field Marshal, and therefore wondered why.
Well, ignoring the Jew Leinad stuff (although it takes a bit of swallowing, and I’m Jewish by matrilineal descent myself):
“However believe me when I say that the level of hatred against Israel is so entrenched in the Arab psyche that it will erupt into a catastrophe eventually. 3.5 million cannot continue to stave off 100 million in the immediate vicinity, no matter how technically advanced they are.”
What is it exactly that the hate-filled states of Arabia actually want Israell to do, Bodie? In order th “stave them off”. (From what, incidentally?)
Give back the territories? They offered that, in 2000. Arafat just walked away.
They’ve got Gaza now. Look what they made of it.
The West Bank? Well. Olmert is still making noises about returning it, though God knows it won’t be popular.
So what is it that you think Israel should do?
Oh, I see I’m too late.
Rob, I’m not prepared to tolerate a commenter who addresses another as “The Jew Leinad”, so I don’t think he’ll be allowed back to respond to your comment unless we get an apology in good faith.
Btw – via Leftwrites, here’s the most bizarre indictment of Saddam’s trial:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/sh-d30_prn.shtml
Link from here:
http://www.leftwrites.net/2006/12/30/saddam-bites-the-dust/
Oh, them snobby Kurdish judges, always puttin’ on airs!
How the roles are reversed! And we were so polite and restrained on our (lengthy) welfare thread, to which the Panelbeater contributed quite a few comments. Go here.
I’ve been modded again.
Read the whole thread now.
That’s absolutely spot on, I think, Rob.
From the same WSWS post:
It’s quite flexible this class analysis, isn’t it? I had rather gained the impression that it was “the defense of the privileges and property” of Hussein and cronies against the Iraqi everyone else that was the point.
Consider yourself (and Christine) unmodded, sl.
Everyone can go back to being a la mode.
Ta, Kim. I never thought I’d see the day when someone pulled an insult like that on LP. I’m a bit stunned actually.
It’s got that way I don’t want to say anything about the Middle East these days… it’s just so damn fissile.
Like I said, sl, I was always more of a fan of Doyle than Bodie.
Anyway, he won’t be back.
Bed time for me!
Night all!
xx
“There is little doubt who was in charge of this operation.”
Kim now do you see what a bad mistake it was for you to wipe my second comment. You’ve just given free reign to all these lunatics.
Yes Katz. There is little doubt who was in control. This was an IRAQI operation.
Now you want to say that it was an American operation. So you are going to keep on talking AS IF it was over and over and over again. You guys are just going to keep saying it and saying it and saying it.
Because thats the way the left works. Its as if you think that a million leftists saying things a million times will cast a spell.
Yes. There is no end to the “interesting times” in store for Iraq.
It’s time to begin to put the American failure in Iraq into some perspective.
Perhaps a more competent US administration may have been capable of implanting democracy in Iraq. But I doubt it. Iraq made Saddam. Saddam only made Iraq more brutal. Without oppression, Iraq flies apart. The Bush Clique committed itself to maintaining a single, though more federal, state of Iraq. There are compelling geopolitical reasons for this policy, notably Turkish refusal to accept a Kurdish state and a desire to prevent the Shiite regions of Iraq falling into the Iranian sphere.
But it now appears quite clear that you can have a united Iraq or you can have a workable democracy. But you can’t have both.
When the Americans leave how will this dynamic play out? I foresee protracted ethnic cleansing of the Sunni with the active, though relatively covert, assistance of Iran. The Kurdish areas will become vulnerable to Turkish intervention, with unforeseeable consequences.
In the end it’s all about oil, because oil is the most readily available source of money for nation building. And oil is what drives the geopolitics of interest in the Middle East. To claim otherwise, Bush claquers attempted in the early months of the war, is absurd. I take Rob’s intelligent point upthread about the erosive effects of oil on civil society.
Bush has made the American nightmare scenario come true. Ever since US intervention in Iran in the early 1950s US policy has been to ensure that Middle Eastern oil does not flow north into Asia. But this would appear to be the most likely destination for Iraqi oil. Iran is building the relationships, and international consortia, led by China and Russia, are building the infrastructure to fold Iran and Iraq into Russia’s Eurasian distribution and marketing system. This represents a major erosion of US control of the world oil market.
However, there is no guarantee that Iran can administer Iraq’s oil to the satisfaction of Iraqi interests and Iraqi national aspirations. Arab nationalism distrusts and despises the Persians. Is there any reason why Iraqis would like Iranian domination more than American domination?
So GregM. I agree. There are many chapters. Few can even be guessed at. Most are beyond even speculation.
When I said this upthread:
It should have been clear to anyone with a modicum of comprehension that I was talking about al-Sadr, who is indeed Iraqi.
Birdy, when you demonstrate an ability to read for meaning, your comments may have some value.
“In the end it’s all about oil …”
I don’t buy it. The tired old conspiracy-theorist explanation that Bush just went to war to get his grubby hands on the Iraqi oil wells has a few little problems. Allow me to quote from a 2002 article by Peter Beinart:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021007&s=trb100702
“This represents a major erosion of US control of the world oil market.” I cannot understand how anyone who is aware of what OPEC did in 1973 could have any illusions about the US controlling the world oil market. OPEC quadrupled the price, the US suffered its first actual oil shortage since WW2, and almost $100 billion was wiped off the NYSE. Nixon fantasised about invading Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but in the end he had to cop it sweet. So much for the US being in control.
Everybody’s been pretty busy through the early hours on this thread, haven’t they? Early on there was a discussion on the relative merits of Israel and Arabia. Totally irrelevant of course. If Israel ceased to exist there’d be peace eventually because the Sunnis and Shiites will sooner or later come to an arrangement. While Israel exists there’ll be war. Simple as that. Israel must go, by overwhelmimg force if necessary, and the land revert to Palestine. If any Jews stay they must abide by Arab conditions whatever they may be. That is their status would presumably be the same as if they lived in Syria or Saudi Arabia.
Rrrrrriiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhhtttttt
So Sadr is in control of this operation.
Now whats your reasoning again? They hanged him so Sadr is in control?
Well I certainly thought you must have been talking about the Americans. But the post Kim or Mark or whoever wiped was me taunting the posters on this thread more generally for assuming this wasn’t an Iraqi trial.
I can see why they wiped it because of the tone. But it does give reign to the worst nuttiness if you wipe one side like that.
Certainly the Americans or Sadr (ie Iran) can influence matters. But its really pushing it to imply they are in direct control of things.
Its such a terrible thing for Westerners to be talking about our allies and friends as though they were puppets. This is a leftist habit. You won’t ever have allies or friends even in Sydney if you speak about them this way. In this way leftists are like the diplomats from hell.
“While Israel exists there’ll be war. Simple as that. Israel must go, by overwhelmimg force if necessary, and the land revert to Palestine.”
Well, you never know Brendan, some space aliens may descend to help out the Arabs. Flying saucers and death rays would be just the ticket to give the incompetent and decrepit Arab militaries the “overwhelming force” necessary to defeat Israel.
But now that I think about it, why should just Israel go? Let’s deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict from both directions. I favour diasporising the Jews out of Palestine (again) and at the same time reversing the Arab conquest and forcing the Islamics back to Arabia. The Middle East would then revert to an eclectic mix of Zoroastrians and worshippers of a lovely assortment of pagan gods such as Astarte, Baal, and the Egyptian pantheon. This is the only fair solution, I’m telling ya.
This is a serious matter, Paulus. Your being facetious doesn’t help at all. You know I’m right but you just won’t accept the only practical solution.
Paulus, you and Beinart strip the nuance from an argument by interpreting comparative statements as absolute statements.
There are indeed many tired old conspiracy theories concerning the control of oil. If you want to argue against them, then feel free. But please don’t give your straw man my name.
1. The Persian Gulf has since the Carter Doctrine been an area of explicit and unique concern to all US administrations. Is there any reason besides oil for this? Why is there no Doctrine on the Straits of Molacca for example?
2. The Peter Beinart formulation of the issue commits the fallacy of composition. This struggle for control of oil isn’t about national flags fluttering in colonies. Such a notion is ridiculous and insults the intelligence of formulators of geostrategic policy. Of course, Saddam was interested in selling Iraqi oil to the party who he decided offered him the best deal. But what did those deals entail?
a. It is clear that in the unravelling of the Iraqi oil industry post-Saddam, the Iraqi oil industry was a complex web of treaties and agreements. For example, tribes across whose property oil was piped received high rents that nourished the powerful patronage system that made life in Iraq work. These tribal arrangements were Iraq’s social welfare system, and of primary importance to millions of ordinary Iraqis. In other words, Saddam’s control of oil imposed high costs on the oil industry. The first thing the Coalition Provisional Authority did on gaining control of Iraq was to abolish these arrangements. The Bush Clique fixated on these arrangments and wrote constitutional prohibitions against them into their imposed Iraqi constitution.
b. Saddam had demonstrated himself to be an unreliable business partner. Any agreements he made he was prepared to unmake. No business interests happily cope with that kind of insecurity.
3. Contrary to Beinart, there is no monolithic “oil interest”. The majors are certainly capable of riding out long periods of difficulty, like those mentioned above. However, Texas is full of minor interests who have a much narrower time horizon. Bush and Cheney are closely associated with this sector of the oil industry.
4. I never said that the US, at least since WWII, has “controlled” the oil industry. However, since the rise of OPEC the US has used its leverage over Saudi Arabia in particular to manage levels of oil production and prices. This doesn’t add up to complete control, but it has been a significant influence. Russia is fast becoming the new Saudi Arabia. The US has much less leverage over Russia than it has over Saudi Arabia.
Katz, what I’m getting at is the tendency of the Left to cast American strategy in commercial or natural resource terms, usually contrary to what the administration is saying at the time. I suspect this is due to a combination of some residual Marxism coupled with a sense that nothing the White House says should be accepted on face value.
Yes, the Persian Gulf has been an area of concern to the US. But there have been many “areas of concern” to the US over the post-WW2 decades, most of which have had no natural resources of any great significance. In Vietnam, Korea, the former Yugoslavia, and many other countries the US expended blood and treasure without there being any potential commercial payoff from victory.
The US policy was certainly to keep the USSR out of the Gulf. But the USSR is gone now, and Russia and China are not in the same category. Despite somewhat testy relations, they are not declared adversaries of the US.
Furthermore, Russia is fast becoming one of the world’s most significant energy exporters, and surely will have little need for Iraqi/Iranian oil. China will need vast quantities of oil, but continued Chinese growth is an important factor in the health of the global/US economies (everyone just wishes the Chinese would revalue the yuan to make it easier to export to them).
My point is: while oil is not irrelevant to US strategy, I don’t believe it was a crucial factor in the decision to go to war in 2003 — or in policy-making now. I think the decision then was based on a genuine belief in WMD coupled with political factors, and the policy now is simply being driven by a need to give the administration some sort of honourable exit.
Katz: Let’s cut to the chase old boy. Are you suggesting then that the US invaded Iraq because Saddam was destabilising the cartel (OPEC) or that the US wanted to smash the cartel by taking control of the second-largest fields and flooding the market?
No, the Persian Gulf is unique in the absolute and unqualified language of the Carter Doctrine. Just because the US has fought over and in areas of little or no strategic interest is no argument that the US has never done this. Look at its record in and around the Panama Canal.
And the demise of the USSR has not provoked a revision or abandonment of the Carter Doctrine. Quite the opposite.
I don’t believe that oil was the only motive for invasion of Iraq. There were too many hands on the Bush Clique tiller at the time of the decision to say that.
But I do believe that oil was the crucial reason, because it was oil that has patterned US behaviour in the Gulf for more than 50 years.
I admit that this is a semantic point. The Bush administration was a feverish hive of activity over plans to invade Iraq. Many different voices competed over ends and means. There was a savage turf war between the State Dept and Defense. There were heated debates within the military. All of these plans were being funneled to the top. Bush was listening to different people than Cheney. But crucially, Bush listened to Cheney. However, nothing could happen until Bush signed off on the plan to fight a pre-emptive war.
Who knows what was going through Bush’s mind as he flourished his pen? I’ll wager that he doesn’t know. However, all sorts of hopes and dreams swam before his eyes, leading him to make his fatal mark. But these dreams and hopes were all patterned by the latest instalment of a 50-year-old Persian Gulf strategy that was founded on oil.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq was therefore simply traditional ends pursued by novel means.
Sir H
Neither.
For reasons outlined above, Saddam had proven himself to be an expensive and unreliable principal in the iraqi oil business. The Texas oil minors saw an opportunity which could be achieved only if the Saddam regime, with its expensive overheads, could be liquidated. The Constitution of Iraq (Articles 109 and 110) were to be the instrument of liquidation. This constitution was written by the Bush administration.
Why would oilmen want to drive down the price of oil? Their interests are in the maximum profit margin after costs. Iraqi oil could be very cheap oil so long as royalties are kept low. Imagine the profit margins of low-royalty land-based oil selling in a market increasingly dominated by offshore, expensive oil.
When the Bush clique thought about oil, they were thinking of cheap wholesale oil owned by oil companies. They weren’t thinking about cheap retail oil at America’s gas pumps. If the latter happened, well and good. But that was to be an incidental by-product.
Wouldn’t want to post it myself but there is apparently a video of Saddam’s execution available. See this post at little green footballs.
Paulus:
I’m inclined to agree, but ‘political factors’ is a tad vague.
There are solid geostrategic reasons for the US wanting greater control of the ME and better access to the world’s second-largest reserves of petroleum, especially given the precarious position and unreliable dispositions of the House of Saud. Recall that Wolfowitz and co sincerely believed they’d have a stable, compliant Iraq and a reduced US garrison by late 2003 – such an entity would give them much greater leverage over the Saudis and the Iranians (and very nearly did – recall Iran’s overtures to the US in late ‘03? Everything was on the table). In an uncertain, unstable region a loyal Iraqi client state would have been a godsend.
As for genuine belief in WMD, Wolfowitz’s statement of May 29, 2003 is fairly telling. To hear him say it, it was a unifying issue for a whole bunch of groups in the WH/DoD/State Dept. There were multiple agendas and goals for the Iraq War, but WMD was the bureaucratic ’selling point’ – they had to believe it if they wanted to get this thing off the ground.
Robertson’s a bit of a fan of the show trial I believe.
Reading Tyrannicide Brief you are struck by how the polemicist in him (his trade, of course, and I think too his nature) can so glibly dismiss contrary evidence and find so much fault on one side and so much good on another as he describes the execution of Charles I and his son’s restoration to the throne.
Jurisprudentially he’s from the any is better than none school of international law, loosely: it’s a good start if we powerful nations force international law on small countries whenever we have the power, even though this directly conflicts with the concept of rule of law.
He shouldn’t lose endless sleep about the additional show trials that didn’t take place.
He should put his efforts into getting an indictment drawn up for everyone involved in the breach of the erga omnes rule of international law against force.
Then he should light a candle for each of Saddam’s lawyers who was killed in a successful effort to deny him anything approaching a fair trial.
No doubt, so I guess a trial wasn’t really needed.
I know, I agree- in substance he deserved nothing better than death. Perhaps we’d have done less damage though if he just copped a bullet on day 1, rather than all this pretence at a non existent rule of law.
“…should have copped a bullet on day 1″, which is what I suggested two days ago. Now Saddam has had the last word suggesting that this was just an internecine revenge outcome from the Shia (Moqtada). So much for international justice. But it doesn’t matter. People will interpret this variously, including the unfortunate Dobie Gillies (I’m gonna kill that boy) who’d say (if he were allowed) that it was the Israelites in revenge for the scuds on Tel Aviv back in GWI.
Really, Kimmark, there is a threadhead waiting to be explored here. And that is the whole issue of oil diplomacy, and oil diplomacy by other means. Plus the associated question begged by Herren Katz und Paulus: so did the Yaquees go into Iraq for the oil or not? They say tomato, I say tomayto, Greg Palast makes a good case for the affirmative in the Armed Madhouse. But it’s now off thread herein and we need a fresh start. We could solve the whole Middle East issue in about 120 blogs.
I am about to have Ledbetter drive me in the Silver Ghost to the estate for some r&r from all this relentless blogging (it’s as jolly addictive as a spot of pink rock, cough, cough) and I am taking Target Iran by Scott Ritter with me, so I’ll be primed up upon my return.
PS Hey, Enemy, can I read All the Shah’s Men after you?
mark says:
He was a bad egg, no doubt. Certainly acted with recklessness, ruthlessness and criminal negligence.
But he ruled a nation that was chockkers with bad eggs and worse. In a neighbourhood that was wrought by rivalry and inept US power plays.
I will miss him because I think he would have been a valuable source of information on how to rule a multi-ethnic nation where the political class is made up of sectarian fanatics, ethno-chauvinists and clan mafia Alpha-males. This information could be useful given that the multiculturalists, given half a chance, will probably lead us in this direction.
Ya know, Sir ‘Enry, ‘ere I am, an ever so ’umble enemy combatant and you, a Knight of va Realm ‘n’ all, bloomin’ political polar opposites, but bohf willin’ to pass around the papyrus in va spirit of Oxbridge scholarship. Takes ya back to ve Ol’ Dart it does, Guv. Gaudeamus bloody igitur. It’s transported traditions like vem wot ‘elps make vis ‘ere lucky country so great. Comin’ ‘ere woz va best ten quid I ever spent.
PS. Consider All The Shah’s Men dispatched.
Can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information contained in the following, but quite a nice overview of Saddam’s career: http://www.bushflash.com/swf/thanks.swf
David Tiley @ Barista:
http://barista.media2.org/?p=2881
Just as well that you say that, Christine. That little tribute to Saddam is so mendaciously filled with untruths and half-truths that I won’t even bother to start detailing them.
Nice song, though, and it’s always good to hear Bing in fine fettle.
Jack Strocchi: Multiculturalism can be handled without advice from Saddam. All one has to do is emulate the actions of Tito & Saddam. Their methods of handling multiculturalism actually worked.
In the abscence of first hand advice from Saddam, we may err on the side of killing or sending to labour camps a few too many believers in multiculturalism, but will that be a problem?
Jack’ll have to find another candidate for his “put Saddam back in as a strongman” project.
I’ll tell you why you are misreading the situation for this one time Jack and no other time that I’ve been witness to.
You are seeing the endless violence against the equation of one billion a week in costs and all that American firepower.
And so to make that equation square your estimate of our Iraqi brothers and sisters is a very harsh one indeed.
But its three years now. And I’ve been trying to get the news out and its never been far from my mind and the message is is that its the neighbours that are simply killing as many civilians as they can because what other strategy do they have?
So your abstract reasoning may be good. But I want you to consider just how vile Saddam was and I’m supposing you aint looked into that. He aint no Pinochet.
And the other thing is the violence is a thing that will happen if the neighbours want it that way.
But I can certainly see where your thinking comes from.
I suspect it comes from just trying to make sense of the violence.
Don’t give up on our Arab brothers and sisters Jack.
I’d see them all beaten down to plastic fork and spoon level for three generations before I’d advocate targeting civilians.
Jack this one time you’re estimate is off.
Kurdish American view from Najmaldin Karim:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/opinion/30karim.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I knew it. The Bird can make perfect sense when he tries.
Don’t any of you take any comfort from perhaps the first time I’ve found myself in substantial disagreement with Jack.
Because you aint up to what I’d do about it.
If I represented the west and not just Australia a hard rain would be falling on most Arab regime leadership as we speak.
And we’d have to hold resolute to the screaming and the crying and the promises that fell on ears that didn’t really care that much.
More Pinochet hero worship from the Dead Parrot. Others disagree:
http://www.slate.com/id/2155242
Also from Slate, does Barack Obama stand a chance in the primaries with such an unfortunate middle name?
http://www.slate.com/id/2155434/?nav=ais
It’s on topic, honestly.
No.
Forget the middle name, “Barack Obama” itself is already more exotic-sounding than even “Cuomo” or “Dukakis.”
Maybe he can change his name to O’Bama, and claim his kinfolk are Scots-Irish out of Alabama.
“I come from Barack O’Bama,
With a banjo on mah knee…”
eh, screw it. Oprah/Buchanan in ‘08!
meanwhile, happy New Year, folks! In one of those spooky, George-Carlinesque quirks of the International Date Line, it’s still one more morning of 2006 here. If you need any legal documents notarized or date-stamped as 2006, better email ‘em to me pronto.
So… what’s the future like in 2007? Are there laser pistols and jet-packs and robot prostitutes, like they promised us in Wired magazine?
Guess I’ll find out in one more day…
There are few things that reflect more powerfully upon the character of a man than his manner of leaving this life.
Saddam’s place in history and in the hearts of too many Iraqis has been guaranteed by the invention of the mobile phone. Sadr’s thugs hoped Saddam would die like a dog. Instead they’ve proved that he died like a man.
My God. What an ugly, brutish affair.
And John Howard says:
Is Saddam’s grisly execution Howard’s idea of due process?
Shame on Howard for his complacent lies and for implicating Australia in a metastasizing fiasco.
As taxpayers in a junior member of the Coalition of the Willing we all own a little bit of that video footage.
Shame on us for not doing enough to stop Howard.
By Klono\’s carbide claws, you terrans are now clumsly breaking the necks of ruthlessly effective warlords instead of offering them the John Negroponte Chair in Applied Counterinsurgency at the School of Americas? You are snapping your own spines now and are truly are ripe, juicy and ready for the picking.
Mark:
Evil as he was, executing Saddam Hussein and especially at a time so significant to all Arabs – to Christians as well as to Moslems – was an unbelievable military and political blunder for which we will all pay very dearly for generations to come. And after the Abu Ghaib scandal, who was the idiot who allowed a mobile phone to slip in for the execution?
There was always a small but acceptable risk that by keeping Saddam Hussein alive, he would be a rallying point for followers; this risk would be gradually minimized by publicizing selected images and text, over the years, of how he was changing since losing power (and No! not in a show trial …. that was unwise at best).
Paulus:
Never made any assumptions at all about your nickname.
j-p-z:
Happy New Year!
Thanks for the offer to backdate documents to 2006; does your service extend to 1973, 1979, 1986 or 1997?
“Sadr’s thugs hoped Saddam would die like a dog. Instead they’ve proved that he died like a man”
Exactly Katz. He cemented his place in history with that last heroic act of fearless defiance, as befitting an innocent man lynched for nothing but Bush-ite aggrandisement.
This hagiographic thead on one of the most evil men ever to have lived shows just how far this blog has descended. I just can’t believe the hero-worshipping going on here. Even Jack Strocchi has joined in, although he does make the reluctant observation that he was a ‘bad egg’. Much like Ned Kelly I suppose Jack – heroic and vilified way beyond his actual perceived (by the evil British colonialists) ‘crimes’. It may even be disclosed one day that Saddam muttered ’such is life’ before the trapdoor was sprung!
BZ, I’d thank you not to enlist me in your apologetic for Saddam Hussein.
Saddam was narrowly competent in the vicious arts of petty tyranny. He was utterly inadequate in every other field of endeavour.
He was encouraged to perfect his evil practice by his promoters who presided over the major capitals of the world.
Proof of Saddam’s utter inadequacy was his inability to understand just how powerless he was beyond the borders of his unfortunate nation.
When Saddam became inconvenient he was corralled and eventually despatched.
My complaint against the COW and Howard is that they have despatched their discarded tool so incompetently. Their capacity for ignorance, arrogance and complacency is evidently inexhaustible.
_________________
Whyisitso, do you know what hagiographic means? The pro-Saddam sentiments expressed by BZ represent a tiny minority of comments on this thread.
Can you really be so dim as to interpret stated concerns about the manner and likely consequences of Saddam’s despatch as being statements in support of anything that Saddam has perpetrated?
Yeah GregM. Best to be fairly circumspect about these things. And it was nice hearing Bing.
Mark on 31 December 2006 at 9:29 pm
Can mark name a multi-ethnic Arabic state that is not ruled by a strongman and that is not in an incipient state of civil war? No, I thought not.
You cannot have it both ways, opposing the post-war regime/denouncing its consequences and opposing the pre-war regime/demouncing its consequences. If you will the idealistic end (regional and national peace) you must will the realistic means (US containment Baathist dictatorship). The alternatives smack of intellectual infantilism or futile utopianism.
Iraq will most likely not be put together again ex ante, with a strongman or not. Its too far gone, politically and epidemiologically. Cross-cultural trust has evaporated.
If and when the US withdraws its forces the civil warring forces will become more cohesive. And probably aided by regional powers Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi. Think Lebanon after the French settlement collapsed or Afghanistan after the USSR withdrew.
Iraq will probably fragment into three or more jurisdictions, depending on the strength of regional, provincial and tribal loyalties. These jurisdictions will be more or less ethnicly cleansed.
Think an Arabic version of the Balkans. Only then will democratic states emerge, and maybe not even then.
steve at the pub on 31 December 2006 at 9:18 pm
Saddam Hussein, in the early part of his career and to the extent he focused on domestic policy, worked to make Iraqis into a unified and modernised nation state. Indeed he was nominally committed to creating a unified and modernised regional state for all Middle Easterners based on Baathist principles of socialist modernism.
There is something to reccommend this idea in principle, since larger political jurisdictions with a modernising agenda are generally better than their opposites. In practice it didnt work out because Arabs are incredibly tribalist and clan-based, perhaps due to the practice of consanguinary marriage.
Multi-ethnic states, where ethnic groups are significantly different and take their identities seriously, cannot become stable multicultural democracies. To get an idea of the intellectual Decline of the Wets we see that Mill, godfather of the Wets, knew this from first principles.
[organised as such]
But for steve at the pub and mark hope always triumphs over experience.
Multiethnic states composed of ethnicly identified and organised national groups can be made to work well enough after a fashion by dictatorships. This is what Saddam and Tito (both socialist modernists) did on good days, when they werent ruthlessly putting down uprisings or meddling in other nations affairs.
Democratic polity is the icing on the cake of a free and equal society. Dont put the cart before the horse.
steve at the pub says:
Steve at the pub might be embarassed to discover that the term “multiculturalism” was coined by Kondrad Heinlein. This Nazi cultural theorist and activist encouraged Sudeten Germans to institutionalise their ethnic identity in the Czech state. His brand of multiculturalits were not averse to “killing or sending to labour camps” those who disagreed with this policy.
Of course contemporary democratic multiculturalists are all far sighted and responsible people who know exactly what they are doing and mean the best for all. As we can see by how well things are working out with ethnic identity politics in Iraq and closer to home.
Helen Clark is a dictator then? Always thought so.
Since the United Kingdom has been multi-ethnic since 1289 (Wales) with Scotland added on (1707) then Ireland (1801) by your hypothesis it is either a dictatorship or doesn’t work very well.
Then there is India, a total kaleidoscope of ethnically identified and organised national groups. How does it fit your hypothesis?
And Belgium. It seems to hang together as a democracy though riven by the Flemish/Walloon divide.
Not to mention Spain with its Castilians, Catalans, Andalusians and Basques, all ethnically identified and organised.
Some of you guys, surprisingly including Jack, need to be aware of the company you’re keeping and the voices you’re starting to resemble.
Indeed.
Though I don’t know why you’re surprised about Jack, Rob. His call for Saddam to be reinstated has been around for quite some time.
Mark on 1 January 2007 at 5:24 pm
Come on mark. There was a strong element of my tongue in cheek in this. The link to war nerd should have activated irony alerts.
But I do not retract my opposition to Saddam’s hanging, or anyones hanging for that matter. Or my hunch that he would have been a useful advisor or mediator in trying to negotiate some sort of settlement between civil warring ethnic groups. Or my somewhat nostalgic assertion that, under conditions of multi-ethnic sectarian identity politics, a contained modernising Baathist dictatorship is preferable to an expansionist de-modernising Islamist democracy.
Fair enough, Jack, I didn’t look at the link.
I’m also opposed to his hanging because I oppose capital punishment even in limit cases. But I don’t resile from my characterisation of him in the post.
Umm, Jack, I am not “embarrassed” by whoever you say coined the term “multiculturalism”. Why would I be?
Your post is most interesting, although we are beginning to digress somewhat from Saddam’s necktie party.
Is the dancing continuing in Auburn?
GregM on 1 January 2007 at 4:45 pm
New Zealand is not a typical multi-ethnic democracy, at least in terms of standard social theory. So the ethnic identity v stable democracy rule does not apply here.
Typically, indigenous or native ethnics are usually considered a seperate category to settler or adoptive ethnics. Certainly this is true in legal terms, as can be seen by special constitutional provisions for indigenous ethnics in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
New Zealand is more or less 75% Anglo/Euro. Most of the ethnic groups, whether Anglo-Euro and non-Anglo/Euro, do not vote as organized ethnic groups. Their vote is predictable by class-economic, rather than clan-ethnic, lines. So they pass Mills test.
Some Maoris have organized themselves into seperate ethnic identity political movements. Others hotly oppose this move. To the extent that New Zealand politics Balkanises along indigenous/settler partisan lines it will not make for a stable democratic polity.
Greg M says:
And Belgium. It seems to hang together as a democracy though riven by the Flemish/Walloon divide.
Not to mention Spain with its Castilians, Catalans, Andalusians and Basques, all ethnically identified and organised.
If GregM believes that shopping list of diversity celebrants is going to convince anyone (sans himself in a solipsistic episode) to go long on multicultural democracies then he will believe anything.
One thing to note about GregM’s list is that they almost all are drawn from European history, and post EEC history at that. Europeans actually have a fair bit of ethnic unity, an inheritance of the Roman Empire which harnessed Christian religions and constitutional regencies to the Caucasian race. They did not call the Holy Roman Empire Christendom for nothing.
Even so, Europeans found plenty of ethnic differences to quarrel over in the past century, a time when democracy was spreading over Europe. Now GregM is not going to tell me, with a straight face, that the extension of democracy to the “multicultural” Austro-Hungarian empire went smooth as clockwork, will he?
In the post-EEC era European ethnic quarrels have died down. But this is mostly as a result of Europeans rejecting their inherited ethnic identity in race and religion.
This may be a good thing. But it is certainly not an example of thriving multicultural identity politics on the part of the hegemonial ethnic group.
The European ethnic conflicts mentioned in GregM’s list have almost all sputtered out because both sides of those ethnic divides have dissipated their racial(eg Germany) and religious (eg England) identity. Or subordinated their identity to the common European project.
GregM would be aware that this makes all the difference to my thesis if he went back and carefully read what I said. Or was a little more candid in his quotations. I left myself a fair and reasonable bit of wiggle room on the tolerable strength of ethnic identity politics in democracies by my qualified construction [emphasis added]:
Of course just as Euro native ethnics were rejecting their ethnic identity some of them were encouraging non-Euro adoptive ethnics to embrace their ethnic identity. This absurd bit of circle-squaring politics has caused more instability in the democratic polity.
GregM says:
India is a somewhat stable democratic polity with a fair bit of ethnic diversity. One reason for Indians democratic stability is its legal and lingual inheritance from the British Empire. This provides a unifying factor for ethnicly diverse peoples. Not very multicultural, in that respect.
India’s ethnic diversity seems to be organized vertically, down stratified castes. Rather than horizontally, between segregated states. This form of social interaction seems to curb the electorate from aligning itself along ethnic partisan lines.
Where the multi-ethnic differences were signficant, and organised horizontally there were tears. Ditto Sri Lanka. Those bits of multicultural democracy did not turn out alright, did they?
“GregM would be aware that this makes all the difference to my thesis if he went back and carefully read what I said.”
Why would he bother, Jack? Why would anybody?
Well I went looking for footage of swinging Saddam and all I found was some grainy video of TISM topping Walter Matthau. Yeah sure Grumpier Old Men was crap but I do think that’s taking film criticism a bit too far. And it’s not like TISM have made any good long form movies themselves.
And Rob you gotta remember Jack’s droning lectures aren’t meant to be read only written by Jack for Jack.
And speaking of the Middle East, it’s worth remembering that only Egypt and Iran existed as nations prior to WW1. So the overwhelming majority of countries there are Western inventions only a few generations old.
Whyisitso:
What hagiography? I think most people around here have a good idea of just what sort of a monster Saddam Hussein really was. But hanging him made no military or political sense whatsoever …. and the timing of his execution was helpful to The West’s enemies as well as being provocative and insulting to the majority of Arabs.
Here’s a quote for you, Graham:
You and Dyab Abou Jajah should get right along.
It’s just propaganda, and you’re swallowing it.
How humiliating the Allies made the Nazi leaders swing. How unsympathetic to the legitimate aspirations of the German people, cruelly distorted as they might have been by their sadly misled leaders (who were misled, of course, by Western promises, betrayed by the West’s intemperate war plans and their genocidal conquests). How dreadful to shame an innocent people by singling out the leader who for all his crimes wished nothing but the best for them.
Bollocks, then and now. Listen to the song you’re singing — it’s the chorus from Daily Kos and uruk.net and every Islamofascist website in the world –”maybe he was a bad man, but still we love him, cos he stuck it up the Yanks”. Welcome to your new allies, Graham.
The real message from the execution, as Mohmmed at Iraq the Model and others are well aware, is this: the Iraqi government so little feared Saddam that it killed him by due process in the clear light of a dawn sacred to Islam, in full view of the Iraqi people whom he had killed in their hundreds of thousands, and threw his corpse onto the Arab street to say “Here’s one tyrant who didn’t get away with it”.
Unlike some others who still seem afraid of him.
Rob, do you really regard the trial as embodying “due process” – the comparison to the Nuremberg Trials is surely instructive…
I’ve got no idea what Daily Kos and other sites you mention are saying but I see no problem with holding that Saddam was a vile dictator and maintaining that the trial was legally flawed and that (as I argued in the post) it was unfortunate indeed that other crimes of which he was no doubt guilty were not assayed in court.
It seems to me you’re being rather too broad brushed with your comments. If you believe that some people on this thread hold views you disagree with, you might do better to argue against them rather than just assimilate them to those of others. I certainly disagree most vehemently with both Brendan Zar and with Jack Strocchi on their views of Saddam’s merits, for instance.
It’s clear as day though that this trial was political, and that its timing had political implications, and will have political consequences. Pointing that out doesn’t appear to me to be either controversial or worthy of censure.
Oh sorry, perhaps you’re saying that the execution was by “due process”. Well, maybe, but I don’t know that sectarian taunts from participants did anything positive.
And I’m not sure what you mean by “in full view” – or that his corpse was “thrown onto the … street”. You seem to be in full rhetorical flight here.
Rob:
You are way off the mark …. and kindly refrain from falsifying my position and from making associations that don’t exist.
Thousands and thousands of Nazi war criminals should have been stuck in prison never to be released and should have been made to atone every day for their monsterous crimes. Instead, a tiny handful were hanged, hundreds more spent some time behind bars and one token Nazi boss was kept as a curiosity in Spandau Prison for decades. The rest escaped justice and went on to lead fairly normal lives – because they were useful to the occupying powers.
The booby prize for recycling war criminals has to be for the Japanese Commandant of 731 Unit in Manchuria; no doubt his expertise in chemical and biological warfare as well as in subjecting human beings to extreme stresses was useful to someone.
Alive – Saddam Hussein was useful to The West.
Dead – he is very useful to The West’s enemies.
That’s not nice …. but it is a harsh military and political reality …. and as such it has b*gger-all to do with singing along with any faction.
I really do wish people would refrain from stereotyping others’ views – Rob’s penultimate comment could be read as suggesting that Daily Kos is an “Islamofascist” site which it plainly isn’t, whatever it is. Although I can understand that people might have strong feelings on this issue, I’d ask everyone to please keep it civil.
Yes, I do think it was due process. And the comparison with the IMT at Nuremberg is instructive, as you suggest. It had long been regarded as unacceptable under the rules of war for the victors to sit in judgment on the vanquished. This caused immense heartache among the Allies at the time. But they came to the conclusion that on this occasion the enormity of the crimes of the Nazi regime were such as to justify setting aside that well-established legal principle.
Of course the trial was political. It could not have been otherwise. That does not invalidate its findings, its sentence or the execution itself.
The best words I’ve read on this come from Iraq the Model — a model, in this case, of the moral clarity that seems to have deserted some on this thread:
Mark — yes, by using the word “message” I reserved to myself the right of rhetorical usage.
Graham – -I think you should examine your last comment with a critical eye and ask yourself how hard it is to unscramble a conceptual egg and then go look for a logical fork.
The Nuremberg Trials established norms of international law which indeed set aside well-established legal principles, and for the good. However, the trial of Saddam was a tragically missed opportunity to either further develop such principles or indeed embody the basic legal requirement of natural justice. It would have been much more appropriate for an international tribunal to try Saddam under international law for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As it is, he was tried only for one incident of mass murder in a trial distinguished by frequent cessations and resumptions timed according to political requirements, the replacement of judges who wouldn’t conduct the trial as desired by the government, and other flaws.
Any judicial process has to be independent of the executive government for it to meet minimum standards of justice.
Mark — In an ideal world, maybe. Present day Iraq isn’t, nor does it bear comparison with occupied Germany.
For now, the question is — did the judgment and its execution meet the wishes and expectations of the Iraqi people, other than Ba’athists, criminals, terrorists and sectarians (which still leaves most of them). I think it did. It wasn’t a flawless process but as I’ve said before, what legal process is? It was as good as could be reasonably expected.
Just deserts. Move on.
Iraq certainly isn’t an ideal anything, Rob, at the moment, but the whole point is that “crimes against humanity” should be judged by a process which is international.
I cant agree with that. It should be the task of the national legal system to deal with crimes against the national people. Only if it fails should international law been invoked (Pinochet is a case in point).
It did not fail in the case of Saddam.
… and I don’t agree either than ‘crimes against humanity’ are by definition extra-national and requiring the application of international law.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they’re not normally defined in domestic law. In addition, I believe Hussein was charged with crimes involving the war with Iran which were not “against his people”.
It seems to me a good principle that if “humanity” is defined as it should be then such matters should be dealt with at international law. Particularly if they are crimes committed by a sovereign – that Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq when the crimes were committed was not disputed. The precedent would allow any regime that overthrows another to put people on trial under their own domestic law and that is undesirable. In addition, the process seems largely to have been designed to try Saddam and that’s undesirable as well.
If any of the things which marred the trial had happened in a court of law when he was President, there would (rightly) have been an uproar. Imagine if Saddam’s regime had captured US soldiers, or people opposed to his regime, and tried them in such a fashion.
Would you be happy for Pol Pot and his associates to have been tried by Cambodian courts? If not, where’s the difference? Or for some of the war criminals of the former Yugoslavia to be tried domestically (you could argue, for instance, that the Bosnian or Croatian legal system should do the job, and you surely should, if you’re to be consistent).
I would say “yes” to hose examples. Only if the national courts failed to consider or deliver justice — and that by some demonstrable empirical criterion, not a political one — should an international tribunal become involved, probably only at the behest of one of the parties to the process that had failed.
Who are those parties, Rob?
Do you really believe that it meets the standards for a fair trial to try domestically a former head of state on criminal charges?
But whyever not? Was not Pinochet looking at exactly that? Was Nixon not impeached [etc.]?
“Who are those parties, Rob?”
The prosecution, or the plaintiffs. Conceivably, even aggrieved witnesses, if they could demonstrate they had failed to gain justice.
Impeachment is a political process. You might recall some of the arguments made at the time of Clinton’s impeachment. Nixon wasn’t accused of “crimes against humanity” though there was an attempt to impeach him on matters relating to Cambodia which failed in the House of Representatives.
There are two principles involved. The first is that people should be tried in a fair manner free of political influence. Clearly, when someone has been the head of state, that’s going to be almost impossible. So I don’t think Pinochet should have been tried in Chile. The second is that the precedents established at Nuremberg were that crimes such as genocide or crimes against humanity (which are directed against an entire segment of a population or a population) affect humanity as a whole and ought to be resolved by internationally constituted tribunals.
The irony of course is that Saddam’s crimes would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court had Saddam’s Iraq not voted against accession to the treaty in 1998:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute
Interesting company Iraq kept in 1998, incidentally:
Israel and Yemen later reversed their stand. Clinton did too in his last year of office, but Bush returned matters to the status quo ante.
But your question related to criminal charges, not crimes against humanity. I see no reason why a head of state or former head of state in any country with a robust system of law should not be tried internally on either count.
“Clearly, when someone has been the head of state, that’s going to be almost impossible. ”
I don’t accept that’s true. Don’t forget we got rid of one head of state in Australia who had not been guilty of anything other than a putative indiscretion,and that without any legal process.
I think the firm principle should be that the nation gets the first hack. Only if that fails, and signally and evidently fails, should the nation surrender its sovereignty in matters judicial to an extra-national court (apart from such specialised tribunals constituted to adjudicate unavoidably transnational issues such as The Law of the Sea).
But Saddam’s legal team several times attempted to have the trial removed from the Iraqi jurisdiction for what appear to be good reasons.
I suggest you read the Wikipedia account of the trial. Incidentally, one of the judges resigned because he believed that the Iraqi government’s interference in the trail was unconscionable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein
According to Amnesty International, the trial was unconstitutional according to Iraqi law.
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE140372006
The Wikipedia article links to a wide range of legal sources critical of the conduct and legitimacy of the trial. It’s late but I’m unable to find any defence by jurists of it, just political sloganeering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein#External_links
He was an evil man and a vile dictator but the interests of justice have not been served through the manner in which he was tried, and what he has not been tried on.
It’s late Rob.
No doubt they did. So would I have done in their place — it would have been an obvious ploy. But where does the judgment fail in terms of the crimes levelled against the accused and the decision rendered? That’s the point. As I said, you need to establish a signal and evident failure to deliver justice before you can abrogate the sovereignty of a national system.
Like I said, I suggest you read some of the critiques of it by jurists. I’ve provided the links for you. The process was initiated by the “Coalition Provisional Authority” anyway, not a sovereign government, as you’d know if you informed yourself.
It’s not clear from the link that they said any such thing.
They said:
“In practice, it has been a shabby affair, marred by serious flaws that call into question the capacity of the tribunal, as currently established, to administer justice fairly, in conformity with international standards.”
Which is the kind of stupid thing that AI is always saying when trying to cement its undeserved reputation as some kind of moral super-court that answers to no national entity, only to itself.
Note- AI’s view as cited is merely an opinion, not a legal judgement.
I’m too tired to summarise what the other articles by lawyers, legal scholars and jurists say, but I’d again urge you, and anyone else seriously interested in the issue of the justice of the trial and how these crimes ought to be dealt with, as opposed to scoring points, to read them or at least some of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein#External_links
OK, I’m going by a press release. But consider:
“..serious flaws that call into question the capacity of the tribunal..”
What serious flaws? How precisely did they operate and to what specific effect did they prejudice the conduct or the outcome of the trial of Saddam Hussein? AI does not say. The argument outlined in the article is empirically and jurisprudentially worthless.
It’s just AI big-noting itself as usual.
You’re being quite disingenous, Rob. You want flaws? Try the Human Rights Watch report. It’s a pdf.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/20_11_06hrwiraqreport.pdf
more coverage on the Saddam execution along with full video footage and the Letter from Saddam Hussein to the People of Iraq>
http://www.crusade-media.com/news40.html
And there’s your problem Rob. You are laughably tolerant of utter incompetence on the part of the Bush Clique. For the roots of this last fiasco are deep within the unfolding and ramifying fiasco that began with the arrogance of Bush’s initial plans for pre-emptive war. A comparison with the post-wr treatment of Germany is very instructive. It demonstrates just how stupid Bush is.
1. In a properly working national justice system an accused serial killer is tried for all his/her murders. The state thereby acknowledges that all victims and their loved ones deserve to have their hurt acknowledged. For you to say that Saddam’s many victims did not merit this is a tacit acknowledgement that justice was not done.
2. The majority of Iraqis voted for openly and self-confessedly violent sectarian parties. Ony a small minority voted for parties with a commitment to a secular or even tolerant Iraq. The Kurds voted for parties that are working for the end of Iraq. This was no environment for the meting out of any disinterested justice.
3. The outcome was therefore “as good as could be expected” i.e., not nearly good enough given the fact that the US is sinking 1 billion dollars a week into this failed enterprise.
In the real world, as opposed to the imaginary world of Rightist romantics who seem to imagine that given the chance the rest of humanity would think just like them, the Nuremberg Trials took place only after Germany had been pacified. The Victor Powers decided when the time was right for a vast majority of German citizens to accept the validity of any verdict that the IMT might pass down, even though those citizens might disagree with the actual verdict in one or more individual cases. Note, Rob, this is the definition of legitimacy, as opposed to actual judiciousness.
Now it is well known that Saddam was actually in the custody of the United States throughout the trial process, He was turned over to Iraqi authorities only on the day of the execution. This entire proceeding was therefore possible only with the consent and participation of the United States. It was therefore up to the Bush Clique to decide whether and if these proceedings should start and continue.
Therefore, Rob, why should we accept that the Bush Clique got the timing of these proceedings so moronically wrong? Why should we accept a much lower standard of competency from the Bush Clique that from the authorities who timed and ran the proceedings of the IMT?
Why is a small nation like Iraq (approx 25 million pop.) so much more difficult to administer than a major nation like post WWII Germany (approx 60 million pop.)
Can Rob really be serious when he says that the outcome of the utterly botched despatch of Saddam “was as good as could be reasonably expected”?
Rob’s complacency is risible.
“In a properly working national justice system an accused serial killer is tried for all his/her murders”
It’s quite common in Australia for people to be tried and convicted on one or a few out of many crimes committed by serial offenders, depending on what evidence is available. Prosecutors tend not to look beyond counts that are more difficult to prove if there are easily provable ones available. I certainly know of no “all or nothing” principle in Western law. Particularly if the jail term is likely to be concurrent in any case.
“Why is a small nation like Iraq (approx 25 million pop.) so much more difficult to administer than a major nation like post WWII Germany (approx 60 million pop.)”
Well for one thing in Germany (and Japan) there was nothing like the religious and ethnic tensions in Iraq where the historic hatreds between the three major groups are worse than the splits in most other countries. Surely you’re not suggesting that the relative difficulty of governing a country is proportional to its population. If that were so China would be totally ungovernable and The Solomon Islands a breeze!
Katz, not for the first time, you’re letting Bush Derangement Syndrome get the better of you.
1. Prosecutors try every murder case for which there is a prima facie case. Sometimes insufficient evidence exists. Do you think there is insufficient evidence of the means by which Saddam got hold of the chemical weapons and military intelligence he used against the Kurds and Iran?
2.
Are you suggesting that the US had no idea of this before they waged pre-emptive war against Iraq? If so, you have indicted the United States of breathtaking stupidity.
Moreover, having blundered into Iraq, the Bush Clique has demonstrated enormous moral cowardice in denying its own principles by allowing this situation to develop. In contrast, after WWII the US demonstrated enormous moral courage in carfeully nurturing democracy in Germany and Japan, even over the objections of the British, French and Russians.
I might agree that I had Bush Derangement Syndrome if I had a list of the symptoms and proof that I exhibited them.
Until then, I’ll just regard Rob’s reference to them as a lame substitute for honest debate.
Quite happy to debate with you, Katz — it’s just that I couldn’t find a coherent point in your 6:13 am post to actually debate.
Try these:
1. The circumstances of the IMT were quite different from those of Saddam’s trial in that Germans accepted legitimacy, whereas a huge number of Iraqis did not.
2. The legitimacy of the IMT was carefully prepared, whereas the Bush administration neglected that task in relation to saddam’s trial.
3. The failure of the Bush administration in this regard was mostly a result of their own negligence and perhaps bad faith in regard to the administration of Iraq.
4. This negligence and perhaps bad faith are characteristic of the entire Iraq mission.
That’s funny; I was grateful for that post, as a particularly lucid summary of a complex situation. Perhaps Rob could find nothing to debate because none of it — except for Whyisitso’s point about relative population size and manageability — was debatable.
Perhaps Rob could debate the points made in the Human Rights Watch report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/20_11_06hrwiraqreport.pdf
[pdf]
Katz, forgive my impertinence but IMO you should have left it at your excellent first comment.
The rest of your subsequent stoush looks less like BDS than CLAWS (Currency Lad Argument Withdrawal Syndrome). Though he puts in a valiant effort – particularly when the Zionist juices are a-pumpin’ – Robertone doesn’t quite compare as a scratching post.
Yes, Saddam could have been found even guiltier of even more crimes by a definitively more just court under a vastly more competent administration but, the Bushocracy being the den of cack-handed arsemongers it is, the result was always going to be a FUBAR clusterfuck.
Although current medical technology only allows us to kill the bastard the one time, I’m glad the result was correct. Hooray for small mercies and just desserts (or deserts).
Oh, and Happy New Year everyone.
Ah yes, Human Rights Watch, which famously can’t see a propaganda hoax even when staring straight at it. When I’ve got an hour or two, Mark.
Hoax?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20976291-401,00.html
The Dodd article is a piece of spin that Tim Blair among others trashed ages (days) ago.
That may or may not be the case, Rob, but it’s irrelevant.
If you feel happy dismissing pages of tightly argued legal and jurisprudential analysis because of a controversy over another issue to do with that organisation, that’s your right. But it’s a waste of time countering your assertions about the trial when you won’t even go to the trouble of informing yourself about the criticisms made of its conduct.
And happy new year to you, Fyodor!
Katz — thanks for your clarification.
However, the IMT was set up only because of the unusual fact that Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. In other words, they abrogated the normal process of a negotiated surrender, under which terms and conditions favourable to the defeated side could have been brokered.
It’s one of the reasons it can’t be seen as a parallel to the IHT process in Iraq.
As to your point 3, the Iraqis wanted to try Saddam themselves, and from everything I’ve seen on the liberal Iraqi blogs, they are pretty happy with the result.
So that’s your standard of justice, is it, Rob? People are “happy with the result”? I can easily see why you don’t believe that politicisation of justice is a problem now.
From todays Australian
And Rob Human Rights Watch are apparently not the only ones who can’t see a propaganda hoax even when its staring at them straight from some unattributed website.
Rob, you are much mistaken.
There was no negotiated surrender in Iraq. The COW set up the CPA. The COW even gave the “New Iraq” a new flag. (I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I like reminding Bush apologists just how far the Iraq project has decayed since those heady days of “Mission Accomplished”.)
Thus, the victor powers were in a position to dispose as they liked, within the framework of international law (now there’s a joke!), the personnel and assets of the defeated regime.
If Rob has any other reasons why the Nuremberg process was irrelevant to the Iraq situation, I’d be pleased to discuss them.
Fyodor, you mentioned the lamentable CL. While I did enjoy witnessing the fervent little flagellant spiral into a liturgy of obsessive-compulsive ejaculations, his behaviour did not inspire respect.
On the other hand I do respect Rob as a good-faith discussant.
Tim Blair has trashed nothing. The Israeli Government said that while they don’t target ambulances accident’s can happen in a warzone. The fact is we are probably never going to know the truth about that ambulance, and no amount of sneering from Mr Blair can change the fact that the Israeli Government has sensibly acknowledged this.
Chris, that’s the same story Mark linked. All it says is that the IDF don’t know what happened to the ambulances but are being careful not to rule out an accidental strike. Which is what they said from day 1.
Katz — fair point, although WWII was much more of a “conventional” war that pitted nation-states (including their peoples) against each other. I suppose what makes the COW’s campaign in Iraq rather unique is that it was (putatively) launched on behalf of the Iraqi people against the regime that governed them. Whatever one thinks of that, it seems logical that the outcome should be that the people, through its new government and courts, should try the representatives of the old regime.
Mark — I’ve read through most of the HRW report and it demonstrates the trial was flawed. I never said it wasn’t. I said it was conducted as well as could be expected in the prevailing circumstances of Iraq.
This from the article Chris linked is interesting:
“A senior Iraqi official said the US ambassador tried to persuade Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not to rush into hanging the former president just four days after his appeal was turned down, urging the government to wait another two weeks.”
So much for the timing being a US clusterf*ck.
And Chris — HRW thinks it does know what happened to the ambulances, and made fools of themselves in the process.
Rob. I know that is what it says. That’s my position on the incident as well. Some, including the zombietime website, Tim Blair, Alexander Downer and your good self in this very thread say it definantly was a hoax, that is to say you are ruling out an accidental strike. Hence the IDF’s position contradicts yours.
Incorrect, at least as far as the US was concerned. The Truman administration moved heaven and earth to ensure that there would be no collective punishment of Japanese, German, or Italian citizens.
Forgetting the appalling consequences of the Versailles Treaty, even the British Government wanted to slap reparations on German taxpayers.
The Americans got their way on this issue. It was a triumph for humanitarianism and wisdom based on a proper understanding of past failures, notably Versailles.
This was one of my complaints against the outcome of GWI. The sanctions regime was a form of collective punishment which was eventually mitigated by the utterly flawed and self-interested Oil-for-Food Program.
Rob. Quite right. Human Rights Watch are wrong. But so is Zombietime and co.
As to the question of an interntaional trial for Saddam another point in its favour is that it would most certainly not have ended in an inflamatory sectarian spectacle in the way the Iraqi trial has.
Katz, the prosecution of the war did involve the civilian populations, though. That was the definition of “total war”. And the US’ magnanimity after the war had as much to do with wanting both Germany and Japan to serve as bulwarks against Communist expansion as anything else.
Chris — yes, not for the first time the IDF is being more cautious than they need to be.
Which is why it ought not to have been conducted under those circumstances, Rob.
Unhappily, the Iraqi government did not agree with that position.
However, I’ll concede that if the shortcomings of the trial were as bad as HRW asserts (if they were — and I’d want to see that confirmed from other sources, HRW being what it is), and did of themselves constitute a signal and evident failure of legal process, the trial in Iraq should have been aborted and moved to another jurisdiction.
Never say I’m not prepared to modify my position.
Nice to know, Rob
As I point outed above, and have now linked to in the post, there are a range of reports on the adequacy of the trial accessible via Wikipedia.
wiki links to this thoughtful piece by Greg Kehoe, US Department of Justice Regime Crimes Liaison to the Iraqi Special Tribunal in Baghdad
Seems reasonable to me.
Worth reading the whole thing.
Au contraire, Rob, the Atlantic Charter and many pronouncements of FDR throughout the War emphasised America’s eschewing a punitive peace. These pronouncements predated any major concern about the postwar spread of Soviet Communism.
The destruction of civilians and their property was always couched in terms of collateral damage. The US never targeted civilians. This was precisely the Israeli rationale recently in the Lebanon.
On a broader matter. Of course, the Bush Clique can choose whatever means it wants to prosecute the war in Iraq. No one is powerful enough to stop them from trying whatever they want.
But when the Bush Clique goes out of its way to make unnecessary enemies, the likelihood of success dwindles. The treatment of Saddam would appear to be one among many of these American provocations.
Thus they can try whatever they like, but they won’t always succeed.
And you’d think that a great democracy, served as it is by the most learned institutions of liberal education, would have more ready access to the free, but precious, lessons of history.
Sadly, this has proven not to be the case.
Silly old Chimpo.
Let’s not forget he’s employed by the mob that co-organised the trial.
The points about reconciliation etc. would be stronger if the points made by HRW about information and outreach were taken into account. And indeed if all the matters were heard – I’m sure there are a lot of Kurds who’d like to have had his crimes against their people brought to justice. The point HRW made about the importance of creating a historical record which can be analysed to dissect how such crimes are perpetrated struck me as well as a very strong one.
Katz — Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki? And for the Brits, Dresden? Perhs not a punitive peace, but surely a punitive war.
Mark — that does not invalidate his arguments, however. And another point is that the process is far from over: I imagine there will be many other defendants and many other trials.
Chris, did you read Zombietimes analysis of the ambulance ‘hoax’?
link
Difficult to comment on ‘and co’
Rob on 1 January 2007 at 8:52 pm
[GregM] bother, Jack? Why would anybody?
I dunno. Why dont you ask mark, he evidently does.
Nabakov on 1 January 2007 at 9:18 pm
You gotta remember that Nabakov’s onanistic interjections aren’t meant to be taken seriously by those fastidious about intellectual standards. Only lapped up by Nabakov for Nabakov’s self-gratification.
Perhaps one day there may be a way of explaining human behaviour that does not rise above gossip-mongering, falsehood-spreading and nit-picking. And if that day comes then Nabakov will be the first man I will turn to.
Not it doesn’t, Rob. But his arguments are nevertheless open to criticism – which is why I mentioned some.
As to other defendants and trials, no doubt there will be. But given that Saddam was the head of the odious regime, surely reconciliation would have been best served by exposing, documenting and arraigning his crimes.
I doubt that his execution will bring that process to an end. It did not with Hitler, and he never even stood trial. From his demeanour in the dock, I don’t think Saddam himself would have added much, no matter how the trial had been conducted. His interrogation records wold be of interest if they are ever released.
Mark [at 12:38an 2Jan]:
That is something that would have worried me too.
The killing of captured service personnel, military contractors and civilians (such as the beheading of a Korean man, seen on the internet) was seen for exactly what it was: cold-blooded murder, with or without a political, religious, military or criminal purpose.
The execution of prisoners-of-war or of civilian dissidents following a form of legal process, no matter how flawed and grossly unjust that process, would be an entirely different matter.
(As I write this, I am watching TV news of Saddam Hussein’s followers and their angry grief).
Rob, again I refer to the points made in the section of the HRW report I’m discussing. There’s probably not much interest in what Saddam does or doesn’t say (it’s most likely to be rants) but there’s enormous value in the process of gathering evidence and testing it as to how a dictatorship functions. It really isn’t the case that there’s just one nasty fella at the top.
What Mark said.
The internal functioning of dictatorships is very interesting and often very weird. And one of the best sources of information is the evidence gathered in the course of a trial by the prosecutors (and maybe also the rebuttal evidence tendered by defence lawyers).
Saddam was no longer a figurehead — not even, I think, for Sunni insurgents — so what was the need to dispatch him quickly?
Also, given that Saddam had committed international crimes (eg against Iranians and Kuwaitis) he deserved an international trial where all his victim groups could testify if they wished.
My other reason for wishing Saddam had got a properly-run international trial is that the conspiracy theorists will be telling us forever more that Saddam was just put to death because there was some big secret regarding the Americans — how he was just a puppet dancing on CIA strings — which had to be hushed up.
Is that the proper business of a trial, though (though I suppose it worked that way with the IMT).
Jeez, just saw the footage. Looked more like a Shi’a lynch mob than a State execution.
That bodes ill all round.
I don’t support execution in principle. I would’ve preferred to see Saddam jailed for life in a third country. Jailing him in Iraq would have been a bad idea, given the escalating civil war and the liklihood that some Sunnis would try to make heroes of themselves by “liberating” him.
Mark says:
“For justice to be done, and to be seen to be done, all the matters adduced against Saddam should have been aired in court, and he should have been convicted of genocide against the Kurds, if there was sufficient evidence (and no doubt there was).”
I disagree. We need to be realistic. Saddam’s crimes were too numerous. He would die of old age before he could be held to account for each of them. Moreover people involved in Saddam’s trial including, judges and lawyers and their immediate families, would be prisoners themselves while the trial dragged on. This is beacuse, as you are probably aware, involvement in Saddam’s trial constituted a serious health hazard.
Oh yes Lefty E – not quite the closure everyone was quite expecting. As I mentioned earlier on this thread, it looked like a TISM videoclip. No doubt You Tube will soon be full of parodies and mashups of that footage. Which is good in one way. Dancing on a dictator’s grave and mocking his life is always life affirming as Mel Brooks worked out.
But while I have no problems with Saddam swinging, as many here have pointed out in different ways, it’s not a execution that’s gonna make things better for the poor bloody Iraqis on the ground.
Eg: “My other reason for wishing Saddam had got a properly-run international trial is that the conspiracy theorists will be telling us forever more that Saddam was just put to death because there was some big secret regarding the Americans.”
As Paulus sorta suggests there, a proper and transperant trial is not just about establishing and punishing guilt but also about creating a credible record of events that we can learn from and that can’t be easily hijacked for various agendas down the track.
You wouldn’t have thought it possible to turn Saddam into a martyr but his half-arsed trial and totally-arsed execution could well do that among misguided and evil folks in a frothing cauldron of anti-Western sentiment sitting over one of the largest pools of a natural resource we all really need.
To restate my overall take on the whole Mesopotamian caper, I have no problems with the most sensible overall objectives as released for public consumption (ie: promoting secular democracy in the ME and cheaper oil). It’s the utter boneheaded incompetence in how it’s being carried out.
And Saddam was judged and topped in a way almost eeriely designed to make things worse. I’m no RWDB but I can’t help agreeing with some of then that a grenade chucked into his spider hole in the heat of battle would have worked out better in the long run.
Jack — sorry, my snarky comment was uncalled for.
Hitchens on the hanging:
http://www.slate.com/id/2156776
It looked like it was basically a coup by Sadr’s goons.
I mean the guy was always going to hang. But Sadr’s goons took him away in the middle of the trial.
I thought that perhaps these people had undue influence. But this would be like me knowing someone was getting the death penalty and just up and killing him myself.
The Prime Minister was supposed to sign the death warrant. So now this thing is diminished and looks like just another non-judicial killing by Sadrs goons. I may somewhat have the wrong end of the stick on this.
But anyway. Katz was right and I was wrong.
It happens sometimes.
SADDAM: VICTIM OR SCAPEGOAT?
by Uli Schmetzer
http://www.uli-schmetzer.com
Shortly after the attack on the Twin Towers the neo-cons peddled the message we must go to war in Iraq to safe the Western-Christian world from jihadi terrorism. Today the same spin doctors are peddling the message we cannot leave Iraq because if we do we will all be at the mercy of terrorism. Doesn’t all this sound familiar to those who remember Vietnam? If one substitutes terrorism for communism the equation comes out the same.
The same spin doctors must be given credit for the latest bungle: The hanging of Saddam Hussein. Being executed to the taunts of Shiite fanatics converted the tyrant into a martyr. Millions of his fellow Sunni Moslems and Arabs in the Middle East today see Saddam as a hero martyred by the will of the new Christian crusaders. His execution assured America and its dwindling Alliance of the Willing an additional portion of hatred. Skeptics might deduce it is more hatred and more violence that generates the neon-con argument the Alliance can not leave Iraq in the mess it is in (even though this mess was created by the very Alliance.)
Isn’t this a macabre plan?
Even before the scaffold’s trapdoor opened for Saddam terrorist experts, including the CIA, had already concurred that today the threat of jihadi terrorism is many times higher then it was before the Iraqi war in 2003. Of course we do not know if this is also true (lying to the public is a common official malaise these days) or if it is just another ruse to retch up the security industry which has enjoyed a boom since the Iraqi War and give another boost to the multiple secret services, moribund since the end of the Cold War but now resurrected and nurtured as never before. More gadgets for the airports, for corporate entrances, more delays, more checking, more invasion of privacy, allowing the State ever more power over the individual with the excuse of protecting us against a terrorism whose activities have fallen well short of the doomsday predictions of our leaders.
In financial terms all this is worth hundreds of billions of dollars in business. Don’t forget the ‘expensive’ destruction of Iraq by sophisticated weaponry is accompanied by a nearly equally expensive service industry to look after our brave combatants and eventually, if things cool down, the fabulously expensive reconstruction of the country, often by the very same companies and corporations whose products destroyed Iraq in the first place.
Then there is all that Iraqi oil to be milked by the very dynasties who called for the war loudest.
What a sweetheart deal!
One of these days someone may ask the Bush-Blair tandem and their business partners why they really went to war in Iraq. Their justification ‘to liberate Iraq’ has long ago evaporated in the exodus of three million Iraqis who preferred to be refugees then liberated citizen under the ‘occupation.’ Right now 100,000 Iraqis leave their country every month and 90 per cent of Iraqis say their country’s situation before the ‘invasion’ was better, according to a just released study by the Iraqi Center for Research and Strategic Studies.
(Words like ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation’ have been banned by the American media which also calls the war frequently ‘a conflict’ and has been debating for weeks whether the murderous massacres between Sunnis and Moslems could be called a ‘civil war.’ A study by three British universities, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, found 80 per cent of the media ‘unerringly’ followed the government line on Iraq and only 12 per cent challenged the wisdom of the ‘conflict’ (‘conflict’ being one of the media’s verbal camouflages for the trail of blood in Iraq.)
In the meantime for those of us whose brains have not yet oxidized or been re-programmed by the propagandists Saddam’s hanging was an act of colonial-style vengeance. It was a smokescreen for a war already lost. Worse, the hanging was an act of abject hypocrisy.
Forget the orchestrated show trial, a legal process the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch defined as ‘a farce.’ Forget the fact not a single mention of gassing of Kurds and Iranians during the trial since this would have inevitably led to the origin of the components of the gas, the West. Forget the fact the accused, a dictator who sent to death tens of thousands, was a loyal ally of America and the West when he committed his worst crimes including the chemical gas attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja. Forget we eked him on to attack Iran, a war that cost 1.5 million lives. Forget he never was told clearly to lay off Kuwait, a booty he considered as his legitimate reward for keeping the Iranian revolution within its border. Forget the West never censored his gassings – just as the European Union never protested Saddam’s execution even though the Union officially deplores capital punishment.
One can also forget our reasons to go to war against Saddam – the presence of weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaida – reasons that proved false and fabricated but were still being touted as late as last year by such stalwarts of the Alliance as Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer.
What we can NOT and MUST NOT forget is that under these flimsy excuses we deprived a nation for years of essential goods. Debilitated, we then bombed this nation cruelly with bombs of depleted uranium (leaving horrid effects for future generations) laser guided missiles and phosphorous and bunker-busting bombs at Fallujah and Najat. We then committed violations of human rights and abuses on captured Iraqis as bad as those committed by Saddam’s regime.
In our much vaunted effort to bring peace to Iraq we left half a million Iraqi civilians dead or maimed, precipitated a civil war between ethnic and religious factions and claimed we were doing all this for the good of the Iraqis and as our duty to humanity.
Finally, after committing all these crimes against humanity, we hang Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity.
If that is not the ultimate hypocrisy what is?