You are obviously not trained as a lawyer. This is done all the time. For the defense to say “a) my client didn’t do it and (b) even if he did do what he is accused of it is not a crime” is perfectly acceptable and done all the time. Argument (b) does in no way negate argument (a). It makes NO sense for you to say “If you claim the actions were legal, aren’t you then admitting that he ordered said actions?” No, you are not.
Huh? What’s that got to do with anything? The difference between Nuremberg and Saddam Hussein is that one is more like a navigable triangle and the other one is more like a boxed meow. Your honor.
Somehow I doubt that the US would be particularly interested in having the exact legal definition of “starting an aggressive war” discussed in front of the world. The risk of that backfiring is too high. If I were to defend SH on that charge (which again, I’d really rather not), I’d try to establish that the current invasion and the 1991 invasion of Kuwait are legal equivalents - i.e., if my client needs to get shot for this, when is GWB’s court date again ? Could make for some interesting court TV…
Unintentional? Easily done eh? One minute you’re happily mucking about with nerve gas, next minute… Whoops!
If I were Saddams brief I would go for the ‘slipped on the bathmat’ defence…
After all, I doubt if that wonderful Public Service Broadcast ‘Never put a rug on a newly polished floor’ found it’s way to Iraq…
(‘and to think, he’d only just come out of hospital…’)
I saw the irony before I posted the message. The thing is, I don’t think the U.S. administration cares about the irony. They’re operating almost wholly on might-makes-right at this point. The entire pretense for the invasion has been conclusively demonstrated to be an absolute farce and a stack of lies, and yet Bush still enjoys popular support. It’s now being presented as a war against terrorism, which is somewhat akin to invading Belgium in response to the actions of North Korea, and yet the latest poll puts him at 63%. Why should they give a damn? Who can stop his administration from doing as it pleases? They need Hussein dead, and so, I assure you, Hussein will die.
Even given that the gassings were unintentional or foreign, it still must be noted that Operation al-Anfal destroyed over 1,000 Kurdish villages. So what happened to the Kurds and Marsh Arabs could still very well be “ethnic cleansing,” if not genocide (at least with the Kurds).
