JesusA (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:09 pm
Silencing Saddam
By Robert Scheer
Posted on Dec 29, 2006
It is a very frightening precedent that the United States can invade a country on false pretenses, depose its leader and summarily execute him without an international trial or appeals process. This is about vengeance, not justice, for if it were the latter the existing international norms would have been observed. The trial should have been overseen by the World Court, in a country that could have guaranteed the safety of defense lawyers, who, in this case, were killed or otherwise intimidated.
The irony here is that the crimes for which Saddam Hussein was convicted occurred before the United States, in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, embraced him. Those crimes were well known to have occurred 15 months before Rumsfeld visited Iraq to usher in an alliance between the United States and Saddam to defeat Iran.
The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.
At Nuremberg in the wake of World War II the U.S. set the bar very high by declaring that even the Nazis, who had committed the most heinous of crimes, should have a fair trial. The U.S. and allies insisted on this not to serve those charged, but to educate the public through a believable accounting. In the case of Saddam, the bar was lowered to the mud, with the proceedings turned into a political circus reminiscent of Stalin’s show trials.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200 ... _executed/
Jesus,
I want to go on record as disagreeing with you and the gentleman who wrote the story that you quoted.
In fact,
...The death penalty was suspended by the US when it took control of Iraq 2003. The nation's new government, however, reinstated it two years later, stating that the death penalty will be a deterrent to criminals in Iraq...
That quote may be found here... (
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0413-02.htm)
It is confirmed in this quote...
...It is uncertain, however, where experienced foreign advisers and supervisors will come from if the court statute includes the possibility of the death penalty. The death penalty is suspended in Iraq, by order of Mr. Bremer, but it is overwhelmingly popular among both ordinary Iraqis and their political leaders, and would almost certainly be reinstated by an elected Iraqi government...
...in this (
http://www.santegidio.org/pdm/news2003/07_11_03_c.htm) article from the Christian Science Monitor.
In this 2003 article (
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/ ... index.html) the Prime Minister of Australia supported the death penalty if it were imposed on Saddam.
Britain and Australia -- both members of the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Saddam -- maintained that it was for the Iraqis to determine his fate.
"I want him tried in circumstances where he will receive the justice he denied the other people," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
Asked in a television interview if he would support the death penalty, he said: "If it were imposed, absolutely."
It is a fact that Iraq’s death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it Saddam was ousted in 2003. However the new soverign Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.
Saddam himself used executions and killing without the chance for a trial as a tool of political enforcement to eliminate political opponents, real or imagined, and to maintain his 'reign" by terror in Iraq.
Remember this!
there is a lot of difference between a death penalty imposed after a trial by Iraqi law and Saddam’s obscene murders.
You ALL have agreed that WE should not interfere with the government of Iraq and how it handles its internal affairs.
Do you still BELIEVE what you all have said?
Saddam was EXECUTED by the Iraqis and their justice system. Not by the U.S. military, George W. Bush, or anybody else.
Remember that...
Furthermore, he would have received NO BETTER penalty by the Shites in Iraq, who are in the majority if they had ruled Iraq exclusively.
...I suppose that the 'wise' Europeans would exile him like they did Napoleon Bonaparte (
http://members.tripod.com/~mhkerekes/napoleontl.htm), just to have him return and start more wars?
Where would you have imprisoned or exiled Saddam where he would not try to return and start more trouble in Iraq?
He had his chance for exile before the invasion and he chose to stay.
Surely Australia would not take him like they did Napoleon. (
http://www.napoleonguide.com/sthelen.htm)
Try not to be so ignorant of history. We all know that there could be only on fate for Saddam after he did not flee Iraq...it does no good to bitch about it...
...and quit trying to make George W. and George H.W. Bush the bad guys in all of this.
...you don't see me busting the chops of former Presidents over their alleged misdeeds. All that does is that it furthers the disrespect that the world has for America already that pre-dated the Bush administration by at least 100 years...
. Inital reports were wrong.
