Simple question to HRW: What heinous crime one should commit to deserve capital punishment? If these people could not answer it, their assertion is ridicule.

However, I can’t say I’m happy with his execution, nor I’m optimistic that Saddam’s death will change much. Out goes the Sunni dictator, in goes the Shia proxy dictator (Sadr). Now it’s the Sunni’s turn to die.

PS: HLVS: You need a translation? You also need a course in statistics, but that one I’ll let ride.

And where was Human Rights Watch during Saddam’s reign? Fools.

Also, it interests me how much you want to write about Hitler and the Nazis so much of late. Why? The Hitler/ Saddam analogy seems so very stale.

Incidentally, I don’t think the Iraqis will have any hand wringing about implementing the death penalty there.

www.thoughttheater.com

What conspiracy theory? Like we would have this much to do with Iraq if it wasn’t in the oil-rich Middle East? I don’t see us spending years, billions, and many lives to knock off some nasty dictator in some remote resource-poor outback. We could say it’s part of the larger war on terror, but any realistic person understands that oil is still at the heart of all this. Still don’t get the Kurz-Saddam analogy.

I can’t help but wonder if he ever thought about what might have been. If he had opened up his country, complied with the UN Resolutions, and just worked to strengthen Iraq’s economy, he and his sons would still be alive, richer and more powerful than ever. Total, the French oil company would have been glad to come in and increase their oil reserves, repair their oil infrastructure, and enrich Saddam beyond his wildest dreams. Was all his striving to be the Saladin of the modern world worth the ignominy of his eventual end on the gallows?

We’ll never know, unless he left some writings for posterity. But I just can’t help but wonder if he had such thoughts.

Oh, any of the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton stories about neo-con cabals spending billions on a war for oil that they could much more cheaply just buy — e.g., your “ivory-oil analogy”.

If we can get beyond simplistic Hollywood story lines, however, it’s certainly true that oil is the underlying reason for the present significance of the Middle East. It’s what gave Bin Laden his wealth, after all, what provided Saddam with what was once the fourth largest military force on earth, and what fuels much of the present islamist global terror campaign. Getting a lever on that is vastly more important than some trite fantasy regarding a personal or even national grab for the resource itself.

As for the “attack for oil” theory, if and when it becomes necessary, I will fully support the western world’s use of force to retain its preeminent position as the world’s best ever example of a successful and compassionate, culture and body politic.

Actually I seem to recall we discussed Eliot (and this poem) earlier this year in the context of Nevil Shute.

Eliot was one of those guys who believed the devolutions of modern life had dessicated man and culture, and that a re-commitment to the elitist principles of a certain strand of Catholicism was called for. I doubt if many conservatives or neo-cons today would agree. Well, maybe Mel Gibson …..

One word: Afghanistan.

So exactly _why_ is the Nazi-Saddam analogy getting “stale?”

Murderous, genocidal fascists on one side, murderous, genocidal fascists on the other. Works for me.

Or is it just that pointing out that Saddam was a Hitler wannabe gets in the way of your attempts to downplay his crimes and portray the Iraq war as aggression by the US?

Using ethnic slurs again, are we?

According to Human Rights Watch, which has a long and honorable history of documenting and challenging the abuses of Hussein’s former government, the execution early Saturday morning followed “a deeply flawed trial” and “marks a significant step away from respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iraq.”

“The test of a government’s commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders,” says Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “History will judge these actions harshly.”

The group notes the trial was fundamentally flawed.

A niney-seven-page report by Human Rights Watch, issued late last month, details the severe problems with the trial. The report, based on close monitoring of the prosecution of the former president, found that:

.”(The) Iraqi High Tribunal was undermined from the outset by Iraqi government actions that threatened the independence and perceived impartiality of the court.”

. The Iraqi administrators, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers lacked sufficient training and expertise “to fairly and effectively try crimes of this magnitude.”

. The government did not protect defense lawyers–three of whom were killed during the trial–or key witnesses.

. “(There were) serious flaws in the trial, including failures to disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants’ right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge’s demonstrations of bias.”

. “Hussein’s defense lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from the November 5 verdict. However, the trial judgment was only made available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond.”

The report did not study the appeals process, But the speed with which the tribunal’s verdict and sentence were confirmed suggests that the Iraqi Appeals Chamber failed to seriously consider the legal arguments advanced by Hussein’s able–if violently harassed–legal team.

“It defies imagination that the Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense’s written arguments in less than three weeks’ time,” said Dicker. “The appeals process appears even more flawed than the trial.”

Human Rights Watch has a long and honorable history of documenting and challenging the abuses of Hussein’s former government.

Chip Gagnon, Assistant Prof., Dept of Politics, Ithaca College

Visiting Research Fellow, Peace Studies Program, Cornell University

Talk given at Teach-in on Iraq, Cornell University, October 22, 2002:

In March 1988, the Financial Times of London reported that Saddam had recently used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja, using US helicopters bought in 1983.

Two months later, an Asst. Secretary of State, US, pushed for more US-Iraq economic cooperation.

In September of that year, Reagan prevented the Senate from putting sanctions on Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons.

The US also voted against a UN Security Council statement condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons.

Chip Gagnon, Assistant Prof., Dept of Politics, Ithaca College:

Forgot to mention: the website where Prof Gagnon documents this, with sources, is: http://www.ithaca.edu/gagnon/talks/us-iraq.htm

“In March 1988, the Financial Times of London reported that Saddam had recently used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja, using US helicopters bought in 1983.

“Two months later, an Asst. Secretary of State, US, pushed for more US-Iraq economic cooperation.

“In September of that year, Reagan prevented the Senate from putting sanctions on Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons.

“The US also voted against a UN Security Council statement condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons.”

Rodney here is repeating a very common theme among lefty critics of the Iraq war, and other aspects of the war on islamists generally: that the US once supported, or at least didn’t oppose, these creatures. Now, a rational response to such a point would be to admit that that was certainly a bad mistake, particularly in hindsight, but that it would surely strengthen, rather than undermine, the justification of the current war. Otherwise we would simply be continuing and compounding our earlier mistake, no? But that’s not the conclusion that the lefties draw. Why not, you might wonder?

It might be tempting to write it off as simply due to their low regard for rationality as such. But we can discover at least a little more coherence behind this oft-repeated meme if we recall just how much the left hates the US in general — for them, in other words, these past mistakes were never really mistakes at all, but rather just aspects of a long-standing (and no doubt eternal) pattern of doing bad things in and to the world. For them, then, current policies are not seen as corrections of previous errors, but simply as continuations of an old evil (lefties are bit squeamish about the word “evil”, I know, but it’s a good shorthand for the virulence of their hostility toward the US, and more generally the West). Thus, despite the fact that current policies are reversals of previous ones, all that the left is ever able to see, wherever it looks, is simply more confirmation of their settled view of American perfidy and wickedness. Which, among other things, indicates just how little coherence remains in the lefty worldview.

(1) “A bad mistake”: When there is a pattern of supporting dictators, it cannot be wished away as just a single bad mistake, can it? The US supported not just Saddam, but a whole slew of opressive dictators): Pinochet in Chile, Videla in Argentina, Suharto in Indonesia, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, … the list goes on and on. Even today, the US continues to support rulers who aren’t exactly democratic: Musharraf in Pakistan, the royal house of Saud, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the president of Uzbekistan, Putin in Russia,… see the point?

(2) “but that it would surely strengthen, rather than undermine, the justification of the current war”: Two points need to be made here: (i) Well, you see, the justification advanced when actually launching the war was that Iraq supposedly had weapons of mass destruction. If the goal really was to bring freedom to Iraq, why was that not mentioned as the goal? (ii) Now that Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and even killed, why is the war still being prosecuted? Iraq is free, no? Leave Iraq to the Iraqis and get out of that country.

Capital punishment stinks of hypocrisy. You either smell it or you don’t.

Simple platitudes are called simple for a reason. You’ll have to do better than that.

absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don’t kill the poor dictator

absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
mourn evil tyrants…
..

1) “a pattern of supporting dictators”. Of course, if the US were to cut off all relations with every country that could be called a dictatorship — much less go to war with them all — I think most people could easily imagine the howls from the left as well. The simple fact is that, as most grown-ups have long since learned, you don’t always get what you want and have to deal with what you have — one of the many lessons the infantile left has missed.

2) He said there were going to be WMDs and there weren’t! (And where have we heard that before?) But:
a) So what? How is that relevant to the point that, in any case, we’re no longer supporting this dictator at least, and why isn’t that a good thing? And
b) If you examine the origins of neo-con foreign policy, you’ll find that it involved the idea of encouraging and spreading democracy as a vital aspect of long-term American security in the world, a theme that was sounded by the Bush Administration on numerous occasions prior to the Iraq invasion — it’s only, once again, the left that has become completely fixated on the “no WMDs” meme.

Oh, and “why is the war still being prosecuted”? To prevent a bloodbath, of course, at considerable cost to ourselves. The wisdom of that decision is open to question, particularly as the prevention becomes increasingly difficult — but the motive is clearly good. Not for the rabid left, though, who I guess imagine that the US is still involved for the sole purpose of killing both Iraqis and their own soldiers.

That is what US should have done in Iraq, too.

Why is that?

death penalty quotes — writers and philosophers

I won’t be surprised if various “human rights” organization received some of this booty themselves…it’s virtually untraceable once the bribe is taken and cashed in.

Might explain most of the crocodile tears being shed for dear old uncle saddam…

How about it guys…you got a donor list?

Or how about a story with the Mother Ship beaming you up to do indelicate things to your reproductive system (since you obviously don’t have brain or nervous system).

What incredible logic, the brilliance is blinding.

Many of the other quotes were of similar quality. Some were worth pondering.

«I am against the death penalty, but the issue of its abolition is not a closed discourse, its a matter which seeks itself, which is still looking for itself.»

Guess who said that? Alright, it’s Derrida. And doesn’t that just perfectly encapsulate the whole pettifogging scam that was “deconstruction”?

Many of the other quotes, as well, might incline a decent death-penalty opponent to reconsider. Still, like neo, I remain opposed to the death penalty, in my case because I do think it exerts a subtle but real brutalizing effect on the society that retains it. I grant that there are certainly crimes and individuals that severely test such a position.

And I think, also like neo, that there are historic and political circumstances that make exceptions to that opposition — the case of Saddam Hussein being one of the most obvious. Not all dictators should be executed, but, even leaving aside the enormity of his crimes, one that’s been pulled out of a rat hole, resistant to the end, and possessed of continual potential to inspire murderous fanatics, is one who should be given a swift trial — to make his atrocities clear — and a swift end. My only criticism is that his trial was unnecessarily prolonged.

As for the US supporting dictators, Kirkpatrick was right and it was a necessary policy to support authoritarian (rightist) regimes,which tend to wither into democracies, while fighting the communist regimes which must collapse to become free. A question I must ask is why is it never mentioned that European and Asian countries did and do the same? Russia (Warsaw Pact)and France were equal to or greater in supplying Iraq and supporting Saddam. I am sure we can find similar circumstances with other dictators. Don’t these countries have intelligence agencies that do dirty work? Were any dictatorial regimes their handiwork? Nah. Of course not.

Situations change, and factions sometimes change sides in the middle of a war, for good reasons. Avoidance of irony is an inadequate basis for foreign policy.

I would also caution you against two other things: the overvaluation of the US role in other nation’s decisions - it’s not all about us; second, UN votes in 1988 aren’t actually telling arguments about anything.

Dictators of this kind are not just persons in flesh and blood; they are idols, and even their portraits have magic powers over their subjects. And to cast down an idol it is not enough just strip it of physical power, you must also desecrate it. Mark Steyn has good point about it:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=116746764