And he’s also on trial because he’s a brutal dictator who murdered thousands of people. Yes, there are murdering dictators running around right now that aren’t in the dock. I take your point that being a brutal murdering dictator is a neccesary condition for being put on trial for crimes against humanity, but not sufficient.
Surely you aren’t arguing for Saddam’s actual innocence are you?
And that is relevant to Clark’s actions . . . how? :dubious:
BTW, does Iraq’s new legal system include the presumption of innocence in criminal trials?
So many words, I don’t know where to begin…
We generally consider it unethical for a lawyer to defend someone he knows is guilty. While one might quibble about whether someone like RC “knows” SH is guilty, that arguement would fall into the category of how do we “know” anything.
Hardly. But even if that were true, I wouldn’t begrudge the Iraqis to have laws against murder.
That’s rather like saying John Gotti went on trial because he was caught. Them’s the breaks.
I don’t consider either Saddam or Musharaff to be legitimate rulers. But Saddam isn’t on trial for being an illegitimate ruler-- he’s on trial for having murdered people.
:dubious: :mad: :mad: :mad: No, “we” don’t, John.
Did you read the post I was responding to?
I was responding to the idea that Saddam was being railroaded, although Elucidator didn’t neccesarily said Saddam was being railroaded.
Yes, if Saddam hadn’t lost the war, he wouldn’t be on trial. Yes, if Saddam hadn’t been captured by US troops he wouldn’t be on trial. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent, does it?
But he’s also a brutal murderer, and I don’t think I’m obligated to wait for a jury to declare him a murderer before I can call him a murderer, any more than I have to wait for a jury to convict Stalin of genocide before I can say he commited genocide, any more than I have to wait until Michael Jackson is convicted before I can call him a pedophile, or Richard Nixon convicted of crookery before I can call him a crook.
Of course, before we allow the state to take action against a murderer we require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged actions actually took place. And if you think I’m mistaken in my belief that Saddam orchestrated the deaths of thousands of people as part of his brutal dictatorship of Iraq, feel free to set me straight.
A fair trial would find Saddam guilty of murder. That isn’t to say that an unfair trial couldn’t find Saddam guilty, or that a trial that finds him guilty is by definition fair. Just that a trial that finds an actual, y’know, murderer, guilty of, y’know, murder, doesn’t seem unfair on its face to me.
Aaaand another nitpick to John Mace. No, it’s not unethical to represent a client that you know is guilty, it’s only unethical if you allow your client to say things that you know are untrue, or if you as a defense attorney say things that are untrue. So you couldn’t ethically say “My client didn’t stab Mrs Fletcher and you should find him innocent” if you knew he did indeed stab Mrs. Fletcher, although you could ethically say “The prosecution hasn’t shown that my client stabbed Mrs. Fletcher and therefore you should find him innocent”.
Really? If the guy you’re defending says “Hey, BG, I really did commit the crime, but I want you to defend my anyway”, we don’t consider that unethical? As much as I respect your thoughts on this subject, I’d like a second opinion, counselor.
That’s at least misleading, if not outright wrong. A better phrasing - a lawyer is under an ethical obligation not to lie to the court by presenting a positive defence to accusations he knows to be true. If Saddam says to the guy before the trial, “Hey, I really did order all those Kurds killed,” the lawyer can’t make a defence that involves the allegation that Saddam did not in fact make such orders.
If a client maintains his / her innocence to the lawyer, that’s the story the lawyer’s got to follow. Alternatively, you could produce any defence other than the positive “I didn’t do it” defence. This guy could say the court had no jurisdiction, that Saddam’s acts fall under sovereign-type immunity, that kinda thing, or of course argue that Saddam did it, but wasn’t quite as bad as they make out.
OK, I stand corrected.
But I think my point is still valid, even under that corrected wording. Perhaps if SH had no legal defense at all, one might admire the lone attorney who stood up and said “I will defend this man”. But that’s not the case. As I said earlier, I wonder about an American who goes out of his way to defend someone like SH. The guy is not lacking in a defense team. RC isn’t some renowned expert on Iraqi law or international law for that matter. So, one wonders. One wonders about the ethics of such an action. I wouldn’t do it because I would feel unethical in doing so.
As one would expect with a name like that 
, Atticus Finch has correctly stated the ethical position about defending clients, at least as I’ve always understood it. Everyone is entitled to a defence, even if he admits to his lawyer that he committed some of the acts alleged.
John Mace, what part of it feels unethical to you? I’m genuinely curious. Also, as I tried to indicate, I think that in a case like this it’s reasonable to expect a high quality of defence, which I how I see Mr. Clark’s actions. Sure there are other lawyers already on the case, but it’s not as black and white as “he’s got a lawyer, so an American shouldn’t touch it.” American lawyers like Mr. Clark bring a profile and expertise to this type of case that I’d doubt the average Iraqi lawyer could bring, no matter how experienced.
The trouble with such artful insinuations, John, embodied in the phase “I wonder at the motives” is that it is so imprecise. Are you implying that Mr. Ramsey is hoping to realize some long cherished homosexual longing for Saddam? That he is due to be lavishly paid?
Or that his motive is primarily treasonous, part of a life long commitment to undermining and corrupting the land of his birth? In Mr. Clark’s case, I would personally credit the gay angle as more likely.
I think Mr. Clark goes to extremes to prove his point, which, if I understand him correctly, is something like: justice must be seen to be done, as well as done. That is especially true in situations of violent overthrow, and most especially true of invasion by a foreign power. Both motive and opportunity for injustice abound in such situations. We should establish the principle that if a nations claims its invasion was necessitated by such as “war crimes”, then it must be willing to stand by a full, complete, and transparent analysis of those crimes.
Otherwise, we give comfort to potential military adventurists, who might purport of be operating from a moral necessity, when its…not entirely true.
It is vanishingly unlikely that Mr. Clark can manage an acquital, there are no affidavits to his walking on water or raising the dead. But let all see that every effort is made to ensure fairness, and then let Saddam be found guilty.
(Mr. Clark is surprisingly non-partisan, given the circumstances. Come the Revolution, I fully expect he will demand such scrupulous trials for running dog jackals of the ruling class, rather than having them trundled directly to the nearest wall to face people’s justice. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear Justice Chomsky or Justice Moore agree…)
It’s not that, exactly, and I don’t think any of Ramsey Clark’s critics really believe that (or if they do, they’re wrong). But at the same time, I don’t think that Mr. Clark is solely motivated by making sure that Sadaam has a fair trial merely because of the abstract principle that everyone should have fair trials.
I think Mr. Clark has come to believe that US society is corrupt and racist, and that US foreign policy is imperialistic and evil. So he has a kind of sympathy, almost (although that might not be the best word) with those people he sees as victims of US actions, like Saddam or Milosevic, or Mumia, or Peltier, or the PLO. His defense of them is his way of repudating his country’s actions.
Maybe unethical isn’t even the exact sense that I’m getting at. Certainly there are ethics involved in a case like this, and I’d personally have ethical problems defending someone like Saddam. But in the particular case of Ramsey Clark, I suspect that those ethical issues are secondary.
I started off by saying: “One wonders about an American, though, who would rush across the globe to defend a tyrant [such as Saddam]”. Is his interest justice, or does he just want to stick it to the US for advancing a foreign policy he disagrees with? If his motivation is to stick it to the US, which I think there is good reason to suspect, then I don’t find anything admirable in his actions.
And here I thought you were a fan of imprecise phrasing.
Certainly not treasonous. He actively opposes the war, which I think is fine. In fact, I agree with him on that point. But there are good ways and bad ways to oppose the war, and this isn’t a good way.
I’m not convinced that Ramsey Clark is interested in due process, as some here are basically aruging. John Burns of the New York Times was on the News Hour on Monday and said the following:
I consider Burns to be a great reporter. I would be very surprised if he would insert words into Clark’s mouth. (Especially considering how so much crap is known to come out of it in the decades since he left public service.)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec05/iraq_11-28.html
Actually, that’s exactly what I believe.
The man went to Iran in order to help draw up a list of war crimes to accuse the United States of.
The man went to Rwanda to defend genocidal maniacs, not because of some Atticus Finch-like honor that all deserve their day in court, but because he believed that the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal was a vestige of European Imperialism.
In 1998, the man attended a human rights convention in Baghdad in which he attacked the “economic, social and cultural rights” of the United States while holding up Hussein’s Iraq as a model country.
He went to Belgrade in 1999 to receive an honorary degree, and stated “It will be a great struggle, but a glorious victory. You can be victorious.” to a country that was currently involved in fighting NATO.
He advised Bernard Coard, the leader of Grenada when we invaded in 1983.
I’m sorry, but if a man vilifies the United States and embraces totalitarian dictators who oppose the U.S. - genocidal Rwandans, genocidal Yugoslavians, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba - and that man works for and with organizations run by avowed Communists who want to destroy the U.S. government - then it’s not some horrible jump to wonder whether that man might be motivated by a desire to run down the United States.
Endorsing Castro and Hussein as great humans is not part of ‘working for peace’. One can work to ensure that war criminals have a fair day in court without actively supporting their war against NATO, and without declaring their trial an “illegal… extension of colonial power”.
And BG, Clark is a tool. He’s a tool being used by groups like WWP that want to blame all evils of the modern world directly upon the United States and its “colonial” foreign policy.
Let’s see, about 80% of the Iraqi population is Shi’a or Kurd, and approximately 90% of them, from your own quote, think that Iraq is better without Saddam.
Looks like Sam Stone is right, and Elvis’s positing otherwise seems disingenous, at best.
It must be pointed out that he did so in 1980, when the hostage crisis was ongoing. The hostages in the embassy there were almost daily threatened with death for the alleged crimes of America in Iran.
The last thing those poor people needed was ol’ Ramsey Clark arriving to make a case against them.
An argument could be made that this behavior verged on the treasonous. It is an argument I don’t need to make, really. This action speaks for itself.
Like John Mace, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something stinks about Clark being on the defense team. It’s not an ethics problem, I agree, and I’ll avoid the cheap shot about defense lawyers and ethics. It’s more of motivation issue, I think. I sense a game being played here… a long game.
Clark’s against this war. He supports the impeachment of the president. It’s highly unlikely any impeachment effort would ever get beyond square one if our policies succeed in Iraq. Success in Iraq depends greatly upon incorporating the Sunni into Iraq’s new government.
One good way to undermine any chance for mollifying Sunni strife in Iraq would be to demonstrate for them, once and for all, that America is untrustworthy, corrupt and ultimately anti-Sunni. What better time and place to show American corruption than during the trial of the Fearless Leader?
Saddam will be convicted. Clark knows that. If the trial were all Iraqi, all the time, from judge to counsel to court reporter, the street would accept the conviction, would deal with it and eventually get over it. With an American on the defense team, I don’t know.
Something stinks.
And, no, I don’t have a cite.
You’re absolutely right about the way stupid notions are bandied about around here. For example, the conspiracy theory that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were transported to Syria before the war began in order to embarss Bush and the “fact” that the moon landings were faked is totally outrageous, especially for a site that claims to “fight ignorance” is a disgrace! John Mace, I couldn’t agree with you more.
This kind of technicalities might not apply under Iraki law, though…
'Struth, I haven’t paid much attention to Mr. Clark in some years. Like I said, the fury of the right’s loathing of him is not balanced by any devotion on the left. He is what he is, and I don’t much care.
At least some of that anger is from Mr. Clark’s insistence on reminding us of our own history, quite a bit of which was written at the expense of the poor, the weak, and the defenseless. We have quite forgotten Trujillo, Batista, Pinochet, Aguarte, Samoza, Reza Pahlavi…millions have not.
As far as the pathetic military masturbation that was Grenada…we will learn the truth about that when we can pry it from cold, dead Republican hands. It had all the elements of a comic operetta, the farce spoiled by the dreary fact of corpses. And to this day we know almost nothing about it.
If he is undertaking this on the basis of the lofty principles I’ve outlined, then he’s right. If he’s doing because he admires and respects Saddam, then he’s nuts. Either way, he’s small potatoes. The only people who much care what he does are the people who hate him.