Meme: Saddam Was Gypped!
By Mitch Berg
I have a new parlor game.
Here’s what you do: When reading a Strib editorial, try to guess which overwrought hamster is doing the writing. Different editorial writers, like different species of deer, leave different clues where they’ve been grazing. The key is to figure out which one dropped this pile…
…in this case, “supporting” the growing meme that Hussein’s execution was unjust because his trial was “unfair”.
Saddam Hussein has been executed. Friday evening, U.S. authorities transfered the fallen dictator to the custody of the Iraqi government, which then hung him. It is an ambiguous moment:
Self-righteous, morally-blind equivocating? That smells like Boyd…
I’d urge the writer to ask the people of Dearborn, or Mosul, or the marshes of southern Iraq, exactly how “ambiguous” the trial was.
• While Saddams crimes against humanity cannot be denied, neither can his trials fundamental unfairness. Numerous international rights groups followed his journey through what passes for an Iraqi court system and found the proceedings deeply flawed. The verdict was just, but in legal affairs, how a verdict is reached matters a lot.
That’s dumb enough to be Kate Perry.
No, there’s a point hidden in there – along with a glob of reeking hypocrisy. It is important for the Iraqis to have a valid court system to build a viable nation; it’s through such a system (and the means to enforce the laws), among other things, that Iraq will finally emerge from its current nightmare.
But the show and tell of an elaborate civil trial was more than Saddam deserved – and there is ample precedent, when dealing with tyrants, for skipping the entire charade. Douglas MacArthur held courts-martial for Japan’s mass-murderers and war criminals – people with, individually, less blood on their hands than Saddam – and excecuted dozens, without harming Japanese society one iota. Ditto Germany, although Nuremberg was slathered with civil-court decorations.
A military court-martial, or a summary court of Iraqis, could have tried and killed Hussein without ceremony, and the world – and Iraq – would have been better off for it. And Iraq’s justice system would have suffered not one jot.
Its the difference between an assassination of a thug and the execution of a war criminal.
When Ed showed me the footage of the blow-dried anchorbot in Orlando calling the execution an “assassination” over the weekend, I thought it was an isolated instance of a dolt in a $1000 suit transposing words under the heat of the set lights.
But I’m wondering if this isnt’ the latest shrieking point issues from loony-left central – that we’re agents of tyranny, ourselves, because Hussein – a mass-murderer – didn’t have the same chance to get off on a technicality or perversion of justice that OJ Simpson did.
To that end, there are longstanding international norms for how charges of crimes against humanity are to be prosecuted.
[Crushing ignorance of history? Could be Nick Coleman]
Yes, there are; military tribunals and quick executions.
To claim otherwise is…
…well, the province of Strib editorial writers.
Saddams trial did not meet those norms. Amnesty Internationals Malcolm Smart had it about right
Perfect is the enemy of good enough.
And while the Strib didnt’ see fit to mention it to their readers (a Jim Boyd hallmark), Amnesty International tends to oppose capital punishment first, and worry about petty moral issues like guilt later.
Amnesty came down on the side of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a killer for whom there is really no defense.
January 4th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
If you can not even correctly name the major players in Iraq’s sectarian war and evince no knowledge of the players on the ground, why should I take you position seriously?
Strawman, and a dumb one to boot. I wasn’t providing an encyclopaedic list of belligerents, merely naming a few.
As to Sadr (and the other Shi’ite extremists); their presence is a problem.
As to taking me seriously – well, it’d only be fair, since I don’t take you especially seriously. But if I need a “picayune nitpicking” consultant, you’re the first name on my list!
January 4th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
“Presence”???? They control most of the country. Did you watch the execution? They are the government.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I’m sorry, did I wander into “Semanatics For The Rhetorical OCD”?
Of course they are the government; they’re 60% of the population, and they’ve got a century-old beef (we could call it a “blood debt”) with the Sunni.
Fairness is something to which everyone – including Iraq – must strive.
Since there was no rational doubt of his guilt (you can tune out now, Doug), the “fairness” of the trial is more or less irrelevant (assuming it was ever an issue, and I do not); his execution was ugly by American standards, but doesn’t violate our own Eighth Amendment (unless you consider hanging cruel and unusual – and it’s still the method of record, IIRC, in some states); taunting is hardly cruel, and in any case it’s Iraq’s thing.
And while Al-Sadr needs to be reined in (or beaten down), frankly if the Sunni want to cast their lot with their late leader, they deserve what they get.
January 4th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Mitch:
Just who is going to rein in Al-Sadr? The Sunnis are now totaly alienated from the Shia, not because of the taunting but because the execution was deliberately carried out on what they (not the Shia) consider the first day of the Eid holy days.
The Kurds just want to be left alone. They certainly are not going to side with the Sunni’s.
The rest of the Shia? To govern w/o Sadr the rest of the Shia would need, the Kurds, and a large group of Sunni, but the execution will keep that from happening (which is probably why Moqtoda demanded it). Moreover, Sistani (the highest Shia religious authority in Iraq) has publicly condemmened any attempt to break Shia unity and ‘rein in’ Sadr.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
RickDFL-
From an open letter Moore wrote on the eve of the iraq war:
It’s at http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0317-09.htm
You need to work on your google skills.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Terry:
I read the Moore quote before I posted. That is why I said “pease do not bother us with trivial instances of cases where they said he is not a large enough threat to justify a premptive invasion.”
Moore said Saddam was not a threat to the life of average Americans. Iraq had not and was not likely to attack average U.S. citizens. That hardly means he was not a threat at all.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:03 am
OK. Now that Michael Moore is sufficiently parsed…
It’s like this, Terry – to RickDFL, no lefty can ever do wrong.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:42 am
That may or may not be true. But in either case, it would not change the fact that Moore did not say what Terry said he did. You do not need to parse anything. It is a simple case words meaning exactly what they say.
I really do not get this hippy logic of words meaning whatever I want them to mean and facts being whatever I want them to be. There is a real world out there with real consequences.
January 5th, 2007 at 10:16 am
There is a real world out there with real consequences.
Which is why I abandoned liberalism in the first place.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:10 am
“Which is why I abandoned liberalism in the first place.”
Liberals face reality. I guess the job got too hard for you. I am sure it is much more pleasent for you in your post-modern fantasyland were words mean whatever you say they mean, facts are whatever you want to believe, and were some mythical force you can not name will ‘rein in’ Moqtoda Al-Sadr.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Liberals face reality. I guess the job got too hard for you.
If your little fantasy world requires you to believe that, then follow your bliss.
You’re wrong, of course – you pretty much always are – but whatever makes you happy.
January 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
“Liberals face reality.”
There is more historical and philosophical ignorance in those three words than there is in a multi-volume PB comment.
January 5th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Mitch:
Then it should not be too hard to outline the coalition of Iraqi forces that will “rein in” the Mahdi Army? I say there is not one, you say there is. I listed the various factions and why they won’t “rein in” Sadr. If you are right there is either some faction I have not listed or some reason why one of the factions I listed will help “rein in” Sadr.
Please let us know.
For bonus points, please explain how Saddam’s execution makes that faction more willing and able to help “rein in” Sadr.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
We’re not all armchair generals, RickDFL.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I guess that is a polite way of saying you don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to iraq. Congrats that is the first step to wisdom.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:09 am
I’m not a polite person, RickDFL. Please try to keep up with me. I meant that little kids shouldn’t pull up their britches and pretend that they’re men. K?
January 6th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Give it up, Terry. Rick may be clueless, but as long as he can snark, he’s invincible.
January 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Funny, in all the John Wayne movies I say the man calmly recited the plain facts while the big talking little boys hurled insults.
January 7th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Terry blathered: “We’re not all armchair generals, RickDFL.”
It’s not as much fun for them anymore, Rick, now that everyone knows they’re losing.
By the way, Terry, “britches” are known as “pants” outside Little House on the Prairie-land, ‘kay? Say hi to Half Pint for me, though!
January 7th, 2007 at 11:44 am
in all the John Wayne movies I say the man calmly recited the plain facts while the big talking little boys hurled insults.
Or inflicted endless picayune sophist parsings of single words of Wayne’s statements on him.
January 7th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
i supose invective is one sure way to avoid factual error.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Oh, invect this: I say we need to “reign in” the Shiites; How? I don’t know. Possibly through diplomacy, possibly through a car bomb, or maybe somewhere in between.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter, because whatever anyone writes, you will respond with a picayune nitpick over some other off-topic nonsense. You’re like plumbing in an old house; patch up one leak, another one will spring.
That’s not invective; it’s criticism.