But it’s American soldiers dying in vain, not the fate of Saddam Hussein, that will matter most when voters cast their ballots. And TV scenes showing more Iraqis protesting his sentence than those celebrating it only reinforced the prevailing confusion and disillusionment Americans now feel about launching this war in Iraq.
As for Saddam, the damned dead man walking, he effectively hid his fear of dying behind more of the defiant outbursts that have become the hallmark of his defense. Nonetheless, he seemed more aware than the judge who sentenced him that he’s the feature player in an indispensable American-mandated judicial farce that will guarantee he dies by natural causes before the hangman’s noose goes around his neck!
After all, despite reports to the contrary, with appeals and more trials to face (for other crimes against humanity committed during his dictatorship), Saddam has nothing to fear, but terminal boredom in his prison cell. And, further frustrating matters for his would-be American and Iraqi executioners, the Europeans – most notably British PM Tony Blair – have already declared their opposition to seeing Saddam hanged; ironically, because they would consider this itself a crime against humanity….
But in this previous article, here, entitled Saddam & Slobodan: A tale of two trials and the perfect execution of a dictator’s defense!, I lamented that the Americans and their Iraqi acolytes would rue the day they afforded Saddam this show trial as follows:
This is clearly a farce, but the Americans have only themselves to blame. After all, their Iraqi surrogates pleaded with them to dispense justice for this former dictator under the “Saddamic” law he keeps invoking to defy the court’s authority. Because, if they had heeded those pleas, Saddam would have been executed within days of his capture and his victims would now be free to tell their stories (see SHOAH), without the horrific indignity of this genocidal maniac staring at them.
Moreover, in this one, here, entitled Saddam takes over Iraq’s kangaroo court, I synthesized the antic symmetry between Slobodan and Saddam as follows:
…the Americans are only shooting themselves in the democratic foot with this trial. They should either have sent Saddam off to The Hague to rot in obscurity with former Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic (remember him?) or dispensed summary judgment when they found him in that rat hole. (And, for real PR value, they could have given credit to one of their Iraqi battalions in training for this prized hit! Trust me, the American military has concocted much worse….)
And in another, here, entitled Of Slobodan Milosevic, many have said: “I hope he rots in jail!”, I predicted that the way Milosevic died with a whimper (in his sleep), not with a bang (from the hangman’s gallows), would set a precedent for Saddam.
Ultimately, though, nothing demonstrates the surreal absurdity Saddam on trial has become more than the juxtaoposition of insurgents executing innocent Iraqis and American soldiers with impunity with Saddam being allowed to live on in infamy.
NOTE: To put the above quotes into context, I feel obliged to declare that I oppose the death penalty. I do because I believe it’s barbaric and furthers no redeeming political, social or, God forbid, moral value.
Moreover, I do not advocate summary executions for dictators accused of crimes against humanity…in all cases. After all, I cited the trial of Slobodan Milosevic as not only a precedent but also a paradigm. Because I think it is far more politically prudent and judicially sound to prosecute such cases in the relatively impartial, austere and obscure confines of The Hague.
In this case, however, it is patently obvious that the prosecution of Saddam in Iraq was not motivated by a pursuit of justice. Rather, it stemmed from the fatuous and myopic need of the Americans to pretend there was law and order in a country that was beset by abject lawlessness and spiraling into civil war; And from the misguided and jingoistic need of the Iraqis to exact nationalistic, if not sectarian, retribution upon him. Never mind that following this by hanging him would create a martyr who inspires more killing than Osama bin Laden….
Meanwhile, the criminal procedures and prejudicial conditions under which this show trial was performed offended all notions of justice and fairness – given the routine intimidation of witnesses and the assassination of others involved, including no less than three of Saddam’s lawyers.
ENDNOTE: It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that, even more than Saddam, African dictator Charles Taylor (here) stands to emulate Milosovec’s unheralded death….
Saddam Hussein death penalty
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