Saddam Verdict

Saddam Hussein's suspiciously timed trial came to an end today with a guilty verdict and a death sentence. Rand Beers, via email, observes: "Everyone agrees that today’s verdict is a good thing. It was important that Saddam be brought to justice and everyone is united in the hope that it doesn’t lead to an increase in violence. What is equally true, however, is that this changes nothing. America is no safer, Iraq is more dangerous and in chaos." Also in my inbox Harry Reid says "The Iraqis have traded a dictator for chaos. Neither option is acceptable, especially when it is our troops who are caught in the middle."

I'll happily agree with all of that. Ahmed Chalabi says everything would have been fine if Bush had just installed him in power and let him run the country. That seems much less true.

Comments

Who doubted the verdict for a moment? The trial seemed to me to be a vast mistake. S.H. should have been executed, Mussolini style, where he was found. The only reason to hold a human rights trial of a dictator after he's deposed, instead of simply killing him, is to instill a lesson outside the courtroom, to the nation at large - and this the trial signally failed to do.

Posted by roger | November 5, 2006 10:56 AM

S.H. should have been executed, Mussolini style, where he was found.

Mussolini was lynched by a mob, led by Communists IIRC.

I'm not in favor of setting precedents for extradicial execution. No matter how bad the crimes or obvious the guilt, any defendant should have all the protections of Anglo-Saxon law.

Trying Saddam in Iraq was a bad idea. The alternatives would be to try him elsewhere, to execute or detain him arbitrarily, or to let him go into exile. I oppose arbitrary execution as I've said. All the other alternatives are unattractive, and it's hared to say which is least bad.

Posted by David Tomlin | November 5, 2006 11:48 AM

The problem is that Saddam's death will not be universally welcomed, the insurgents are certain to protest. Difficult to keep the peace without troops on the ground, whenever that happens more will be killed by snipers and IEDs.

Of course the Sunni militants are probably not that much invested in Saddam personally and will be only too glad to see the end of a rival for power. They are going to be much happier with a symbolic martyr than a live potential rival.

The Bush Administration has made blunder after blunder in Iraq. The biggest blunder being dismantling the army and "dumping 1.4 million unemployed troops onto a shattered economy".

Executing Saddam means the end of the only remaining potential cohesive force, the only individual who can command the recognition of the Sunnis without demonstrating his military capabilities in a civil war.

The Bushies are idealist nincompoops. If you want a comparison to WWII imagine that the US made a unilateral attack against Russia and the Soviets in 1940, ignoring Hitler. Then attempted to fight both at once.

Posted by Phill | November 5, 2006 12:12 PM

David, I've always been fond of the Italian Communist party. One of the reasons is that they didn't hesitate to dispatch Mussolini. (The other is, of course, that they were the least corrupt and most effective party in Italy all during the Cold War).

What relevance does Anglo Saxon law have to the Iraqis, anyway? Or, in fact, to revolutionary situations? The English executed their King Charles 1 courtroom style, and then had to chase out his family, which came back, fifty years later, in another civil war, the end of which has left bitter memories in Ireland to this day.

So I'll stand by my call: should have strung up the bastard the day he was captured and moved on to other things, rather than putting the farcical procedures of the Iraqi judiciary on show for the last year.

Posted by roger | November 5, 2006 12:59 PM

The trial was a classic show trial.

I think we should have paraded Saddam down Pennsylvania Avenue in a cage, then let him be torn to pieces by a howling mob of Fox News commentators. Also, a triumphal arch should have been constructed.

If we're going to botch the war, let's at least have fun with it.

Posted by MQ | November 5, 2006 12:59 PM

Saddam's trial was a corrupt circus, which mainstram human rights organizations, UN bodies and the UN Secretary General have rightly declined to support. It took place in a war-torn country in an atmosphere of threats, violence and occupation, and with frequent extrajudicial intervention and political manipulation by the government and the occupying power - right up to the final suspicious final delay of the sentencing to two days before the US elections.

The judgment of Saddam should have been refered to a duly constituted international tribunal, where it could have been a model for the prosecution of war crimes and the impartial administration of justice. What we got instead was an absurd show trial reminiscent of Iron Curtain days, with no higher purpose than the implementation of victor's justice. Instead of teaching the lessons of justice, it teaches only the importance of power and force. That the verdict is surely correct does little to mitigate the ugliness of the proceedings, and the stark contrast between the high standards set at Nuremberg and the barbarous parody of justice manufactured in Baghdad can only serve to provide the world with further evidence of the moral and political degeneracy into which the US government has fallen between 1946 and 2006.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 5, 2006 1:03 PM

Mussolini's body was hung up like a side of beef. Not a signal to the world that the barbarism Mussolini represented had been repudiated.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 5, 2006 2:09 PM

"The Iraqis have traded a dictator for chaos?" Excuse me, Harry, but the Iraqis did no such thing--WE did. The Iraqis, who have borne weight of this fiacso in human suffering, had no say in the matter.

Posted by BroD | November 5, 2006 2:13 PM

I've always been fond of the Italian Communist party. . . . they were the least corrupt and most effective party in Italy all during the Cold War.

I'll take corruption over tyranny any day.

What relevance does Anglo Saxon law have to the Iraqis, anyway?

Quite a lot, since they are in the process of creating a new legal system under the supervision of an Anglo-Saxon country.

The English executed their King Charles 1 courtroom style . . .

Not legally, I might argue, but such a discussion would be way off topic.

Posted by David Tomlin | November 5, 2006 4:59 PM

a. The communists were much less tyranous than the Christian democrats (in bed with the mafia) or the Socialists (under the outrageous Craxi, who helped give Italy the worst monopolistic media system in the West). In fact, I wish Italian communists had franchised in the U.S. - so much better than the odious toads in both parties we have running things into the ground today.
b. The U.S. isn't an anglo-saxon country.
c. This rather contradicts the rosy stuff about Anglo-Saxon law, n'est-ce pas? As well as making you a Jacobin. Perhaps it is French law you really prefer, a la Louis XIV.

Posted by roger | November 5, 2006 6:57 PM

I'd absolutely support putting Chalabi in charge, now, then pull out.

He'd probably be dead in short order.

Posted by Jon H | November 5, 2006 9:56 PM