I know the disdain with which the smug “the title says it all” message is greeted, but it sort of fits here.
For christs sake, if you don’t demand scrupulous due process, it’s just victor’s justice. (which, of course, it is)
All America is lucky to have Clark out there; who does more to fuck up 'sama?
I say this in light of the snarky remarks from Russert, et al, about how weird it is for so distinguished a man to find himsself defending first Noriega , now Saddam.
I hope every one of those sons of bitches needs a criminal defense lawyer someday, and he gets one who goes into court and lays down and dies on him…
That’s the best lawyers can do? An advocate for mass murderers and other human rights abusers. That is sad.
No, it’s not. It’s heartening-- for I can rest assured that if someone will step up to defend those dirtbags, someone would defend ME if I ever needed it.
You just don’t get it.
Think.
Somehow, you have committed a crime. Could happen.
Now the range of possible outcomes for you extends from dismissal, if you have an real wizard,( Mr. Johnny, for instance) to fifteen months in jail.
Don’t you want your guilty ass covered by someone who will go to the mat for you?
or do you want to pay someone five thousand dollars, watch him go in back with the judge and the prosecutor before they pick a jury, and come back with twelve months and tell you he’s your friend for life.
Now that we’ve deconstructed somewhat the concept of “vigorous advocacy” can I direct your attention to the minor premise–that whatever you think of Saddam, Ramsey makes us look good where George makes us look bad.
I think I get it.
Somehow, I have committed a crime. Could happen. Unknowingly I have been massacring innocents while I sleep walk.
The range of punishments doesn’t really matter because my guilt is so self evident that, despite Mr Clark’s self-serving grandstanding I will receive the sentence I deserve.
I have yet to see any case in which Clark made a useful legal argument but will be happily corrected if this impression is wrong.
And regardless of how bad you or I think GW makes the US look, I can’t see that a man who justifies Saddam’s 1982 massacre of the Shi’ites somehow ameliorates the fact.
[QUOTE=don’t ask]
I think I get it.
Somehow, I have committed a crime. Could happen. Unknowingly I have been massacring innocents while I sleep walk.
The range of punishments doesn’t really matter because my guilt is so self evident that, despite Mr Clark’s self-serving grandstanding I will receive the sentence I deserve.
I have yet to see any case in which Clark made a useful legal argument but will be happily corrected if this impression is wrong.
And regardless of how bad you or I think GW makes the US look, I can’t see that a man who justifies Saddam’s 1982 massacre of the Shi’ites somehow ameliorates the fact.[/QUOTE
they haven’t even gotten there–he’s litigating jurisdiction. I said dismissal was an optionl.
I’m guessing that your are not a lawyer?
I think there are two distinct issues which need to be addressed separately:
The first is clearly false. If you think that everyone deserves legal representation (and you should think this), then you think that someone has to do the dirty work of defending scumbags. End of story.
The second is a separate issue. You can still think that Ramsey Clark is a scumbag–not because he is defending a scumbag, but because he has done other, scummy things (such as argue that SH was justified in massacring Shi’ites in 1982–I am relying on don’t ask’s claim that he did this; I haven’t been following the career of or pronouncements of RC).
Personally, I’m glad that someone will be willing to take the accused’s defense. I feel that anyone who is accused of any crime is entitled to a fair and impartial trial along with competent legal counsel.
And I say this as someone who was falsely accused of a crime and, thanks to the simple fact that the judicial system does work, my legal counsel kept the matter from going to court as said counsel proved to the investigating officer that the charge was false.
that’s what I mean.
trust me–there are fifty guys right now, just as falsely accused, who had lawyers less talented or motivated or capable, who are doing time, or otherwise were coerced into pleading guilty to something they didn’t do out of expediency.
Okay, first off, there’s already a thread on this:
Second off (and please look over the links in that previous thread), I’d be much happier celebrating Ramsey Clark for “demanding scrupulous due process” if he had not:
Traveled to Kosovo in 1999 and praised Serbia for resisting NATO attempts to stop genocide
Traveled to Baghdad in 1999 and praised Saddam Hussein’s human rights record while castigating that of the United States
Made claims that the U.S. killed more people in the invasion of Grenada than it lost in World War Two (which, as I’ve pointed out, would involve shipping 150,000 people to Grenada just to kill them in order to reach that number)
Ramsey Clark is a Stalinist tool who opposes the United States’ government every chance he gets. The fact that what he is doing right now is something decent does not make him less of an anti-American Stalinist tool.
I’m guessing that you’re not a lawyer either…
Well if that is the content of modern legal argument who needs more?
Fifty? Closer to fifty thousand, I’d wager.
–Cliffy
Now it begins to make sense. You can be proud to be a lawyer because if one lawyer defends a despot it offsets 50 - 50,000 prisoners who were railroaded by incompetents.
I agree that Saddam is entitled to a defense, and a competent one at that.
But Ramsey Clark has already gone far beyond what a reasonable lawyer in his position should do: he has argued before the press to the effect that any world leader would have done what Saddam (allegedly) did in Dujail: cite. It’s hard to believe that a competent lawyer would basis his defense on a tu quoque.
What’s more, there still remain questions whether Clark actually does a good job at defending despots in court. He’s made bizarre claims, like that various war criminals would face the death penalty if extradicted to the UN’s tribunal on Rwanda. Cite. I’d be interested to know if any Clark supporters could name a significant legal victory that Clark is responsible for?
Personally, I wouldn’t want a lawyer to defend me if he didn’t even know through simple common knowledge that UN special tribunals do not have the ability to sentence a person to death. If Clark is so spectacularly wrong about this basic fact, why anyone would trust him to assist in one’s legal defense is beyond me.
There are only two reasons why Clark has signed up to this case, and neither motive is pure. One, Ramsey Clark is looking out for Ramsey Clark. God forbid a big international trial go on without him sticking his nose in it. Second, it is an excuse to bash the United States. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing else.
I wish someone who ascribes noble motives of Clark in defending heinous world leaders would address one question: If Dick Cheney were brought before the International Criminal Court on charges of supporting torture, do any of you believe that Ramsey Clark would rush to his defense? Isn’t the reviled Dick Cheney entitled to the "expertise"of someone with so many international tribunals under his belt?
And, before someone argues this, it matters not whether Cheney would want Clark to assist in his defense. Milosevic did not want Clark as his attorney, and Clark hung around him for a long time, too, until the spotlight went elsewhere. Clark might claim that he helped defend Milosevic, but hey: his trial is still going on, and where is Clark? Not in the Hague! Nope, the spotlight has moved elsewhere, and so has Clark. That doesn’t speak well for being dedicated to a person’s defense, if Clark is so willing to abandon his “client” when the news media moves elsewhere. Respectable lawyers should be ashamed to have this nutjob in their ranks.
Your earlier arguments are quite persuasive, but this is a strawman. Sure, Clark is taking Hussein’s case because it gives him the spotlight to say things about the U.S. and the current Administration that he feels need to be said. But I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing, and you haven’t made the case.
–Cliffy
Okay, here’s the case:
Clark is given to lies/mis-statements (see above mentioned Grenada statistics), statements of support and devotion to people/topics considered not merely wrong but actually evil (genocide in Rwanda and Yugoslavia), and making grandiose claims about every administration that has ever served (previous thread has links to Ramsey’s War Crime ‘indictments’ of the Clinton administration for Kosovo, as well as his ‘indictments’ of the G. H. W. Bush administration for Gulf War I).
Clark is, therefore, not credible as an advocate. By having him as an advocate, a cause runs the risk of having the moderate mainstream go, “Yeah, that’s obviously an insane course of action” in the same way that Pat Robertson endorsing something would.
By accepting him as a spokesman, then, any cause runs the risk of being sidelined; even worse, if they embrace him as a spokesman, which the anti-war movements seems to have done through ANSWER, that risk becomes a near certainty. No matter how important the message may be, the message is subverted by the sins of the messenger.
Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky are saying that this administration is committing war crimes and vast evils in order to line the pockets of corporate fat cats. But you know what? They’ve said that about Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, and Carter. Therefore, no matter what evidence they have, I’m not going to take them seriously, any more than you would take seriously a Bush or Cheney claim that Iran or Syria is storing WMD.