Some political thoughts

[xiphias]

First: this article sums up most of how I feel about the Hussein thing.

So.

What, specifically, was the crime for which Saddam Hussein was hanged?

Because I'm still not certain. I know the situation in general -- that a bunch of people from Dujail tried to kill him, so he killed them back, more.

Um.

Okay, yeah, that's bad.

But it was done under the aegis of law. It was brutal, unfair, and unjust law -- but, from what I can see, it should have been very difficult to prove that what was done was, in fact, illegal. It should have been easy to prove that it didn't follow the international norms of law -- but, of all the things Hussein did in his reign, this was probably one of the most defensible.

He was attacked. There was a three-hour firefight. He started investigations, and had a hundred and fifty people in Dujail executed for involvement.

Brutal? Yes. Were the trials of those hundred and fifty people fair? No, certainly not.

But -- what, specifically and precisely made this a hanging crime? The torture of the other Dujailis, who were innocent of wrongdoing? The fact that some of the executed Dujailis were certainly innocent of wrongdoing?

A fair trial would had shown that Hussein's actions were reprehensible and a mockery of justice -- but were not so horrifically outside the bounds of wartime conduct as to be a hanging crime.

We now have a precedent that, in Iraq, jailing and torturing innocent people, and then executing people after show trials is a hanging crime.

Okay. I guess I can live with that.

But. . . it really doesn't seem like a good precedent to set for our American involvement.

Comments

[cheshyre]

FYI, some of the more meaningful links I've been finding (I just don't have the heart to blog about this):

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/30/AR2006123000392_pf.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.htmlhttp://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/
• http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraqis-learn-art-of-legal-workarounds.html
• http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/29/5767
• http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008463.html#008463
• http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2006/12/saddam_hanged_b.htm
• http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/saddam_update.html
• http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/12/was_saddams_exe.html
• http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/12/saddam_spectacl.html
• http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

What you said. The longer it goes on, the more disgusting it becomes.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

I do have deep misgivings about this whole sham. It seemed terribly wrong, and you (and the article) put a finger on why. Thanks for posting that, I feel less alone in my misgivings.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

In my opinion they more or less used a kangaroo court to try him and his co-defendents in what was more or less a revenge trial and not much else. The court neither followed international legal standards nor even Iraqi legal standards from what I've heard.

They should have waited and finished out the other court case that was ongoing, which had to do with his gas attacks on Kurdish villages. From a legal point of view these were attacks that they could have easily convinced people as being more heinous, more criminal (including under international law) and unjustified.

Of course, there are those who suspect that the US didn't want the second trial to continue as it would have revealed far more information about where and who he got the chemical weapons from, and possibly shown some duplicity on the part of agents (sanctioned or rogue) of our own covert activities divisions (aka the CIA).

But, now we'll never know what the truth was, if there was any chance that we would ever learn the truth.

And America has yet another black mark against it's reputation that has been more or less self-inflicted.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

it really doesn't seem like a good precedent to set for our American involvement.

It's rather too late to worry about precedent. It's *been* set. We fucked it up, we continue to fuck it up. This will not change until the current crop of fuckups is replaced by competent people, or we withdraw.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on every count.

The thing is . . . in the past, I've disagreed with you on some of your interpretations of events, because I thought your interpretation was too paranoid.

But, with the Bush administration, any time you've been wrong, it's because you've been not paranoid and cynical enough.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly "until the current crop of fuckups is replaced by competent people, AND we withdraw." Let's face it -- if the current crop of fuckups withdraws, they'll manage to do so in a way to make things even worse.

[redknight.livejournal.com]

My own personal theory regarding the executition is that the ruling government KNOWS things are failing apart they don't want to allow for any possibility that Hussein might escape from/be broken out of prison and resume power (kind of like what Napoleon did following his escape from Elba) when the American forces pull out.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The thing is: I strongly suspect that if a free and open election was held, Hussein would have gotten a plurality of the vote.

[jerrymurray.livejournal.com]

My feelings are, fuck Saddam...hope he rots in hell and fuck Iraq.

You can't put perfume on a pile of shit and expect it to be anything other than a pile of shit.

That's just my .02

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I can't disagree with the first part of what you said. But, well. . . from what I've heard, the urban parts of Iraq, at least, were pretty nice places to live before we came in. It SUCKED to be a Kurd, of course, and a lot of the rural areas were pretty scary -- but the cities were nice. Communities, high-tech jobs, good hospitals, good schools.

The thing is -- Iraq wasn't a pile of shit under Saddam -- or, at least, not all of it was. There were good places in it -- and we broke them.

And, to me, it makes a difference why you hang someone. An example is the OJ Simpson trial. OJ was guilty. But the police framed a guilty man, and, because of that, it was right that he was let off.

This is, in effect, what happened here, except for the final part. This trial framed a guilty man. The trial failed to prove that Saddam was guilty of anything -- and they hanged him anyway. They certainly COULD have proved it, and would have, had they continued the trial. But they didn't, and that makes it a breach of the rule of law and of justice.

Executing someone unjustly is NOT a good response to that person executing people unjustly. Executing that person justly may well be -- but this wasn't justice. It COULD have been justice, if it was done right. But it wasn't, so it isn't, so it's not right.

[sethg]

Saddam Hussein could not have taken over contemporary Iraq. Even if he had been elected President, he would have been assassinated within months if not weeks.

When Saddam took power, there was already a one-party authoritarian central government controlling Iraq; he maneuvered himself to the top of the existing power structure and then made sure that nobody else would be able to displace him in the same way. Right now, any aspiring Iraq dictator would have to create a power structure stable enough to maintain a government, which requires, as the HR folks would say, a different skill set.

Stalin, whom Saddam studied very carefully, pulled off the same trick. First Lenin consolidated one-party rule in the Soviet Union; then Stalin came along and made that party an instrument of his personal power.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

It looked nice, and it might have been nice for the right people for months or years at a time. For the wrong people, it was pretty terrible, and anyone could become the wrong people, at any time.

I don't think it was justice in the legal sense. But it was justice in a more karmic sense. He died exactly as he lived. He killed his way to the top, he killed to stay on top, and when he drew a losing hand, he paid with his life.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The thing is -- when the result of a trial is karmic justice instead of legal justice, and your goal is to stabilize a legal system -- that's a failure.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you've said here.

I'm in no doubt that Saddam was a cruel and capricious dictator. I've no doubt that he killed hundreds or thousands of people of ethnic or religious groups he had a vendetta against. But I don't understand imposing the death penalty at this stage, before the second trial for the much more serious crime.

The first trial seemed farcical - like you said, trumped-up karmic justice instead of legal justice. But the second trial - if they're still going to bother to have it - will be even more farcical. How can you try someone who's already been executed? It's just crazy.

(Btw, when I asked about this once before, it seems that Saddam is his family name and Hussain his first name.)