Saddam Says, 'Where's the Crime?'

Those 80,000 Kurds had it coming

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060315/ts_nm/iraq_saddam_testify_dc
from JoeUser Forums
Well, Saddam decided that the court was worth his time after all. Instead of hunger striking, refusing to acknowledge the court's authority over him, or calling for the removal of Americans from his country and reinstating himself as potentate over Iraq, Saddam decided to address his captors from the witness stand!


From Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein formally took the stand in his trial for the first time on Wednesday after earlier acknowledging in court that he gave orders which led to the killing of 148 Shi'ite men in the 1980s.

He called the court a "comedy against Saddam Hussein and his comrades."

The former Iraqi leader and seven co-accused, including former top aides, are charged with the killing of 148 people from the mostly Shi'ite Muslim town of Dujail after a bid to assassinate him there in 1982.

During his last appearance on March 1, Saddam said he had ordered the 148 to be tried but justified the sentences as entirely legal, saying: "Where is the crime?"

He also acknowledged razing farmland around Dujail owned by those alleged to have carried out the attack on him. Prosecutors hope the Dujail case will prove more clear-cut than other, more complex cases involving charges of genocide where Saddam's responsibility may be more difficult to prove.

Oh sure, those guys totally had it coming. I mean, each and every one of those 148 people were completely guilty, as he determined guilt while the canisters of chemical gas were exploding around the criminals...

Yeah, this is gonna be a long but entertaining trial. Hopefully Saddam will see it through, unlike Slobodan Milosevic.
7,047 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
What is funny, and you alluded to it, are all the people clamoring for Saddam to be tried by the World Court.  Yea, they did a real good job with Slobo!
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
When he is convicted of this, carry out the sentence. You don't need to try him on every single charge against him. Unless your having a showboat trial.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Guy:
all the people clamoring for Saddam to be tried by the World Court.

Would he question the authority of that court, too?

Squirrel:
When he is convicted of this, carry out the sentence. You don't need to try him on every single charge against him. Unless your having a showboat trial.

You need to have a trial before sentencing, Squirrel. Unless your mind is already made up! Or don't you believe in due process? (Or the semblance thereof...)
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top

Would he question the authority of that court, too?

Might as well.  He would be dead before they answered his questions.

Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
singrdave:
You need to have a trial before sentencing

Reply By: Secret Squirrel(Anonymous User) Posted: Wednesday, March 15, 2006
When he is convicted of this...


Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think old saddam realizes that they can't just pull together a hundred deaths. They've got thousands waiting in the wings. Then, if the tens of thousands of people he can be tried for falls apart, they can extradite him to Kuwait and let him go on trial for atrocities there.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
isn't it hard to convict him on the killing of 148 shites if they were executed according to the governing law?... would that be considered genocide still?
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think genocide is defined in terms of international law. I nations like Iraq, the leaders can draft any law they like. If what you pose is true, Hussein or any other tyrant could just pass a new law each time they wanted to wipe out a subculture like the Kurds, etc.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
what if the law was established before he tookover ?
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
It is an interesting statement. If you believe in the same classical Hobbesian view of politics that guides the foreign policy of most states he is completely right. As the leviathan he has the ultimate right to do whatever he so pleases, because the monopoly over violence is his alone. So as far as some interpretations of international law are concerned, he was completely justified in his actions and therefore cannot be tried.

Fortunately however he's not being tried by an international court, so he should end up with a punishment as proportionate to his crimes as the undoubtably inventive Iraqis can decide on.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think genocide is defined in terms of international law.

As the leviathan he has the ultimate right to do whatever he so pleases, because the monopoly over violence is his alone.

"If a tree falls in the forest...?"
An international court can try him for "Crimes against humanity", which is a (supposedly) neutral arbiter and maker of human rights law. The court's stance is that there are inalienable human rights that supercede any imposed will of a strongman dictator like Saddam, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Slobodan Milosevic, or Hitler. Rulers can enact whatever laws they will, but when those inalienable human rights are abrogated, the perpetrators are charged with "Crimes against Humanity".
Unfortunately, Saddam's trial is not before an international tribunal, it's a domestic court charging him with individual deaths. Should he be found innocent (for whatever reason), he could hypothetically be moved to the Hague and charged with CAH for gassing the Kurds, the Iran-Iraq war, or the 1990 Gulf War, where, as the provocateur, he killed thousands of people.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Let Saddam stew all he wants, he can't find anyone that will defend him, except the goofy fellow criminals who like him.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
I refuse to let some anonymous troller have the last word.

Saddam is gonna do his best to escape the hangman's noose.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
What I'd like to know is why the GI who found him in the hole didn't kill him as a matter of "self-defense"?
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
As much as I would love that, it's not America way... in least not so far I know of.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top



What I'd like to know is why the GI who found him in the hole didn't kill him as a matter of "self-defense"?


I'd have said "aw shit, lookit that...I sneezed with my finger on the trigger and it done went off and kilt him!".
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top

As much as I would love that, it's not America way... in least not so far I know of.


"You" may think so and that is the way it "should" be. But...if you talk to a spec war operator (army green beret, marine recon ranger or navy seal), they just might tell you a different story.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
.I sneezed with my finger on the trigger and it done went off and kilt him!

Better to let him stew in jail and in court than to let him get off easy with a bullet in the left eye.

"You" may think so....but if you talk to a spec war operator (green beret, recon ranger, navy seal), they just might tell you a different story.

The military boys may have good stories, but I remember the footage of Saddam being extricated from his spider hole... too many soldiers standing around watching the great moment for anyone to try anything stupid.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
The military boys may have good stories, but I remember the footage of Saddam being extricated from his spider hole... too many soldiers standing around watching the great moment for anyone to try anything stupid.


The "only" reason there is footage is that "somebody" had a "big" mouth and started running it. "Hey, looky what we got here boys....it's Saddam hisself". Next thing you know some fool is running a video camera and nothing else could be done. I'll tell you what. I'd be willing to bet a "BUNCH" of money that had a USN seal found him, he'd be dead.