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Saddam Hussein Sentenced to Death
indraneil writes "Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death along with his half brother. Three Baath party officials charged with Hussein in the killings of 148 Shiite civilians have been sentenced to 15 years in prison, while a fourth has been cleared.
He is to be hanged inside 30 days from now. Saddam Hussein has been given 10 days to appeal against the decision.
His lawyer has warned to a bloodbath if the sentence is carried out."
... to come out of this. There'll be one less monster in the world.
What do you think the Iraqis believe?
I can only guess, but I imagine it's along the lines of this: If the sentence is justified by how many innocent Iraqis Saddam has killed, maybe he shouldn't be alone on the gallows. Too bad for him that he didn't have the foresight to exempt himself from international law and basic human decency beforehand.
It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created. It was in every sense of the word a kangaroo court. He should have been tried in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. The problem with trying him there is that the US would lose control over the proceedings and would not be able to use the trial for their own political gain.
"The Republicans were always going to vote Republican and the Democrats were always going to vote Democrat."
Only the ones that are so dogmatic and moronic as to never look at a side objectively.
For instance, I believe in the stated ideals of the Republican party more than I do the Dems. The Dems are these happy huggy hippies that want to give money to everyone and do a lot of drugs...which is much like the libretarians, but they don't have any money to give anyone else, and generally aren't smiling.
If every republican had ideals like McCain or Gingrich, I'd be voting for them this time. Its sad, I am a registered republican, and thats how I voted in the primaries, but when it comes down to who is actually going to further my ideals, its none of the republicans I have a choice of voting for.
Republicans don't always vote Republican, and neither do Democrats. I knew one life long Dem that voted for Bush this last time because he thought he should have the chance to fix his mistakes. Idiot. I believe in the idea, but few of them in power have the nutsacks to go against a moronic president and allowing both domestic and foreign policy to be shaped by the hopes of cheap votes and alienating half the populace. Remember the name REPUBLICAN, as opposed to DEMOCRAT. Most people don't even understand what the names mean. A democracy is there is protect the intent of the majority, a republic is there to ensure the rule of the majority while protecting the right of the minority (i.e., the same reason we call the Republicans the Party of Lincoln, we split the country into two in order to protect the rights of a small minority that was enslaved...well that and a number of other ideal). Bush is only about appeasing those that voted for him, and as few rights as possible for those that didn't.
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death for retaliating after an assination attempt. It's interesting that one of Bush's motivations for going to war with Iraq was retaliation for an assassination attempt against Bush's father. Over the course of his reign, Saddam Hussein probably killed more innocent Iraqis in retaliation for assassination attempts than Bush but Bush is catching up fast.
Even if Bush's decision to invade Iraq was not personal retaliation, it's interesting the extent to which the Bush administration games the international law system. One minute they claim that international law is completely irrelevant and negotiate bilateral agreements to avoid coming under the juristiction of the International Criminial Court. The next minute they use some obscure technical arguments in international law to justify their behavior - whether it's killing Saddam Hussein or invading Iraq in the first place (convoluted arguments about Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with ceasefire agreements).
Broadly speaking, the reason Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death was for dealing harshly with people who opposed him and his policies. It is interesting that Bush has also dealt harshly with people who opposed him and his policies. Bush has even used many of the same methods as Saddam Hussein - broad retaliation that has resulted in the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people, torture and degrading treatment (including sexually degrading treatment), and indefinite detentions and broad surveillence techniques to identify "enemies".
Obviously the situations that Saddam and Bush find themselves in are very different. It seems likely history will judge Saddam to have been a much more brutal and oppressive leader than Bush. What is striking though is how harshly the Bush administration condemns Saddam Hussein for using methof like toture when they use those methods themselves.
I find it hard to believe that the judge who was removed for being sympathetic to Saddam was not done so at the behest/pressure of the US government.
So cynical. I'll agree that I think it's better to keep him alive in a cell as an example, but do you do run into a Napolean problem then. Remember Iraq's government isn't the pillar of stability. I'd have to imagine that after the US leaves, it wouldn't be too hard for someone to spring him.
Secondly, he's being tried under Iraqi law. The people judging him are representative of the people who have been oppressed and murdered by him for decades. That might not be fair, but that is the vast majority of the Iraqi population.
And finally, It absolutely shocks me that Democrats are so anti-bush they are trying to make Hussein a sympathetic figure. They should be ashamed.
And just as a little aside to this, your comment made me look back at /. posts from the day. One post from this discussion stands out for me...
I sympathise with your desire for revenge. But please try to bear in mind in the days and weeks to come that revenge against a large group of people will hurt many innocent people. Those responsible for this attack are unspeakably evil individuals, but don't get so caught up in your desire to punish them that you end up hurting yet more innocent people - for example the civilians of another country. God forbid this tragedy should get any worse; that's what will happen if the US seeks revenge against an easy national target such as Palestine or Afghanistan rather than hunting down the individuals responsible for this awful attack. Please don't add your voice to those calling out for blood. Enough blood has been spilled already. Let us find and punish the individuals responsible, but let us not make an easy scapegoat out of innocent civilians, whatever their nationality or religion.