Wha huh? Gassing thousands of your own people and mass excecutions wouldn’t be considered a crime in your own country? What are you basing your opinion on? They don’t need the Hague, Kofi Annan or the combined wisdom of this web site to prosecute him.
Magiver, the “gassings” (eg. at Halabja in 1988) are not quite so cut-and-dried an issue as you may think (there is a possibility that they may have been unintentional or even Iranian in origin).
As for the mass executions, well, many countries execute an enormous number of people every year:
The issue here is whether these executions were in violation of Iraqi Law, which may indeed not be the case if Saddam altered any constitution by decree.
Like I said, Saddam may be tried for these acts, but what he is eventually convicted of may well be simple specific cases of muder.
This phrase long ago became an empty cliché purely designed to generate misleading emotionally-driven responses.
If you mean by “his own people” Iraqis, then it means nothing to him or them, they were enemies just as much as are/were Americans, or anyone in, say, a civil war. Mainly civilians, but enemies as well.
Seriously, are some folks arguing over the legales of whether or not SH committed crimes against Iragis? Is this Bizarro world or what?
I liked the idea I heard put forth by an Iraqi expatriate in San Diego who suggested that Sadam be put in a cage in Bagdad and spat upon until he drowned.
Gangster Octopus
In the real world(GITMO not being there) people have to be charged and found guilty before punishment.
If the people in charge of Iraq put in place a method such as the one you said you like they’d be no better than Saddam. I betya he thinks he had very good reason to be a cunt to his people. What’s yours?
There’s an implication in that last question which I did not mean. Sorry about that.
No, we are merely asking precisely which acts, and precisely which laws such acts violated, are we talking about here?
There is no question that he was a brutal leader who tortured and executed his subjects without what elsewhere would be called “due process”. There would certainly be scope for him to be tried under international law, were Iraq to be bound by the ICC. But he is to be tried under Iraqi law, of which he has effectively been the sole arbiter for two decades. Is that law simply to be changed so that he can be found guilty of breaking it? This is what appears to be in the pipeline, which brings to mind a certain antipodean marsupial.
yojimbo,
No offense, taken I want him to be tried, of course, but there seems to be a curiosity on this board that there is some sort of legal loophole that Saddam may not have broken any Iraqi laws, which, I find ludicrous. I suppose one may not find anything written into Iraqi law explicitly. But it is obvious to eveyone that Saddam committed murder, torture, he raided the countries wealth for his pronographic palaces, etc. It seems to be so much hair-splitting is all. He may think he has perfectly good reason to do what he did, that hardly makes it legal.
What does “GITMO not being there” mean?
What is illegal to us is of no real relevance to a set of laws that Saddam had full control over for 20 years.
No one is suggesting that Saddam wasn’t a brutal dictator, its more like people are concerned that when he does go to trial, it will be for offences that he can be found guilty for.
Seriously, there are some people here who are so determined to get Saddam that they are ready to assume that anyone who questions the process are making excuses for him.
I wan’t to see Saddam recieve justice, even the justice he denied from his people for so long.
After that, Mugabwe.
I was referring to your statement “that perverse religion”.
A bit of an insult to the vast majority of peaceful law-abiding Moslems…
GITMO, Guantanamo Bay where lots of people have been interned for a long time without charge, trial or legal representation of any real kind. The US should be better than this.
Really? The 5,000 dead civilians killed en masse were his “enemies” in a civil war? I think the survivors would disagree. Let me know when you find one who doesn’t. But I agree with you, wiping out a village with gas probably meant nothing to Saddam. When the Iraqi’s get him back I’m sure they will pin a medal on him. After all, he got 100% of the vote.
:rolleyes:
IIRC, there was an exception to Iraqi law for the (whatever Hussein’s title was). He was not chargeable with any offense.
I’ll link to a translation of Iraqi law later today. I;ve just skmmed through the thing. It may’ve only applied to financial dealings though.
Magiver, did you actually read the link, written by a senior CIA analyst at the time of the gassing?
I would be surprised if the prosecution attempts specific cases because it avoids the larger issue. The trial will be public and the evidence will be ugly.
And your point regarding Iraqi law belies the fact that Saddam WAS the law in Iraq. If you assume the atrocities are true, there couldn’t be any law justifying them. A leader can’t just declare rape and murder legal acts and hire goons to carry them out.
The only problem I can see is whether they will rely on the laws prior to military coup or are they going to use the laws that are newly created? I think a lot of the dissenting discussion here revolves around people who don’t think Saddam did anything wrong.
Who are these people?
Im getting way off the OP here… but I’ve got a vague memory of the Spanish executing a GRAPO terrorist who was severely brain damaged. There was a lot of controversy at the time about it, I’m not sure if the sentence was carried out.
Anyone remember?
Personally I believe SH was an evil SOB but I believe he is entitled to a fair trial and I am afraid he may not get it. Those who say “we know what he did and we can dispense with the formalities” are, in my eyes, as good as him. Barbarians.
I find it hard to believe Saddam may receive a fair trial. I am more inclined to believe it wll be a kanguroo court which would make Judge Roy Bean proud. After all he did come from the Texas school of expeditive law, which the current US prez so much admires.
So let us see. Saddam Hussein is accused of using poison gas. Well, yes. He probably did. And the USA knows it well because the USA aided him directly in doing so. Not in a generic, indirect, way but with intelligence directly necessary for each act. The fact that SH has to be found guilty of this while those who aided him cannot even be question makes the exercise a mockery. Or is there any chance we may see some Americans accused with him?
Saddam Hussein imprisoned people without due process. Hmmm, where’s Gitmo again? If it’s legal in the USA I can’t see how I has to be illegal in Iraq.
Saddam Hussein killed many innocent civilian Iraqis. And so have American forces and so do American forces continue to do. SH had his reasons and the US has its own reasons. I do not accpt either of them but to have the USA accusing SH in this case seems somewhat ironic.
I cannot see an impartial trial taking place. Whether he is judged by the USA or by the Iraqi puppet government it will most probably be a charade which will end in revenge, not justice. I say “probably” because I leave room for the unexpected but I expect the result will not be closure but more tension between sunnis and shiites. Revenge does not bring closure and healing and Iraq needs them desperately.
I believe the place where SH could have got impartial justice would have been the The Hague but neither the USA nor the Iraqi enemies of SH would take the chance. The USA could not possible accept handing Saddam Hussein to an international, impartial, tribunal.
I want everyone to understand, before reading this post, that it is an intellectual exercise and does not really represent any lust for retribution or revenge that I may have; I’m also acutely aware that the idea poses a number of grave moral and ethical concerns…
However, I would like to discuss the possibility of performing lobotomies (or something like that) on criminals convicted of such gross and terrible acts as those of which Saddam Hussein is accused.
Killing such a man might make him a martyr, imprisoning him might make him the focus of a rescue attempt or a bargaining piece for terrorist actions involving hostages.
Rendering him a drooling, utterly incapacitated vegetable and maintaining him alive makes rescue pointless; he isn’t dead to become a martyr, nor is he an object worthy of reverence or hero worship anymore. It may also satisfy those who wish to see him suffer (even if, in fact, he is beyond experiencing suffering)
I kind of shocked myself that I could even intellectually contemplate such a punishment and from a moral/ethical POV, I would find the idea reprehensible. I positively welcome your harsh criticism and comment.
Well, both after WWII and after the GDR was integrated into West Germany, people who had previously commited atrocities were put on trial and the excuse “What was legal yesterday cannot be illegal today.” didn’t count. In that light, I could see a justification for a trial in Iraq by Iraquies (sp?).
Sailor’s concerns about Saddam not getting a fair trial seem a definite possibility though, especially considering how many people here would like to discard justice in favour of retribution already.
What is this legal occupying authority of Iraq, that you speak of? Winning a war of aggression doesn’t make the troops Bush sent, the legal occupying authority. Cut the word “legal” and you may have a case.