Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘saddam hussein’

The verdict is in for the Butcher of Baghdad: death by hanging.

I’m sure that the US administration expected this to be a pivotal moment and a resounding victory. Instead, Saddam’s execution will probably pass as a mere footnote to the ongoing violence in Iraq.

Still, there cannot be a punishment quite bad enough to befit the crimes that Saddam Hussein inflicted in the course of his dictatorship, and there really couldn’t be any other verdict but a death sentence. So, barring an unlikely appeal victory, Saddam Hussein will probably hang by next month, and one less horrible dictator will be alive in the world.

It won’t solve Iraq’s problems. Far from it. But now, that seems almost besides the point.

Believe it or not, other newsworthy things happened in the world yesterday and today. You’d never know it from watching the local news, of course, which has been covering Dawson nonstop since yesterday afternoon. But here are a few things that happened in the world outside our little corner:

• Sadaam’s judge doesn’t think he was a dictator. So what was he, then? A democratically-elected leader? A royal monarch? The winner of the first season of Iraqi Idol?
• The new Palestinian “unity” government appears likely to get its funding back from Europe, though the U.S. isn’t on board.
• Amnesty said Hezbollah committed war crimes, in what Charles Johnson over at LGF dubbed a flying pig moment. I’m shocked too. Amnesty gets so much more money and support when it’s directing its wrath at Israel.
• In a big sign of normalcy returning to the country, Israel’s getting its international soccer games back.
• Germany ordained its first rabbis since 1942. See that big middle finger in the air, you neo-Nazi assholes?
• Speaking of Jews and Europe, Pajamas Media is all over this under-reported story about the defamation trial that just begun in France against three Jewish citizens who questioned the French Channel 2 network for its coverage of the Mohammed Al-Dura affair.
• The Pope has pissed off Muslims, it seems, by making some statements that, regardless of their intent, will surely be taken way out of context. This could be a thing.
• Bibi said that Ahmadinejad is “more dangerous than Hitler”. You’d think such a normally-competent debater would’ve heard of Godwin’s Law, no?
• And in other news, Stephen Colbert’s bridge in Hungary looks like it isn’t going to happen, despite his large margin of victory in the online naming poll, due to the tiny problem of his failing to meet one of the qualifications – being dead. Whoops! (By the way, Budapest rocks!)

Okay, I think that about does it for the ten-second catch-up. Or, as the BUZZ puts it, some “temporary relief from ignorance”.

Saddam’s lawyers keep getting bumped off:

Gunmen killed a second defense lawyer acting in Saddam Hussein’s trial on Tuesday, renewing questions over whether the former president can get a fair trial amid Iraq’s daily violence.

Another defense lawyer was slightly wounded in the attack on their car in Baghdad, police and defense team sources said.

The shooting followed the murder of another defense lawyer who was shot the day after the televised start of proceedings on October 19.

Meanwhile in Germany, it turns out that Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel’s lawyer was disbarred and jailed for – what else? – inciting racial hatred:

Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen ruled that Horst Mahler, a disbarred lawyer associated with the violent far-left Red Army Faction in the 1970s who has since become a supporter of far-right and anti-Semitic ideas, could not be part of the defense team.

He also dismissed Zuendel’s publicly appointed defender Sylvia Stolz on the grounds that Mahler’s ideas were reflected in her written submissions to the court.

Mahler, whose license to practice as a lawyer was withdrawn last year, was sentenced to nine months in prison in January for inciting racial hatred.

One of the cornerstones of a free and fair justice system is the right of everyone – including the most despicable excuses for human beings – to a fair trial and to a competent defense.

Now, Zundel made the decision himself to hire an incompetent defense lawyer, and his trial will surely continue once he has secured new representation. Germany’s legal system has provisions for this, and Zundel will be tried – and likely convicted and punished appropriately.

But Iraq is not Germany, and the notion of an impartial judiciary there is extremely shaky. Saddam’s trial was never going to be anything other than a political circus – but it was also supposed to have important symbolism to the people of Iraq that a judicial system can work. Unfortunately, that’s not working out so well.

I don’t always agree with L. Ian Macdonald, but I generally think he’s fairly intelligent. So that’s why I was so surprised to read, in the midst of an article expressing wonder that Kerry isn’t leading Bush in the polls, a nonsensical statement like this:

There weren’t terrorists in Iraq under Saddam, but there are now under the American occupation.

No terrorists in Iraq under Saddam? Really now? What would you call Saddam’s sons? Saddam himself? Or perhaps systematically gassing his entire Kurdish population doesn’t count as terrorism.

Well, I guess Macdonald is just being a typical Canadian in his dislike for Bush, and is letting that dislike affect his thinking.

Well, not everyone is cheering the news of Saddam’s capture. The Palestinians are devastated by the news (via LGF):

For many ordinary Palestinians, the TV footage of a disheveled Saddam obediently submitting to a medical exam by his U.S. captors was painful to watch: it sealed the defeat of the one Arab leader they felt always stood by them.

Saddam should have put up a fight or committed suicide, they said, and his surrender is a stain on Arab honor. “It is a big defeat for all Arabs and Muslims,” said Raji Hassan, 29, watching TV with friends in a Gaza City coffee shop.

It’s tempting to write this off as the reaction of a people opposed to freedom in any form. But if the Bush administration is smart, they won’t ignore the reaction of the Palestinians… because an awful lot of the Arab world has the same kind of mixed feelings: they hate Saddam but they hate “outsiders” and particularly the US a lot more.

They got Saddam. They won the war. Now the peace must be won, and it’s a long hard road ahead.

US military forces caught the Ace of Spades yesterday, hiding in a foxhole under a farmhouse, “like a rat in a hole”.

“The former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions,” President Bush said in a short televised address from the White House. “For the Baathist holdouts responsible for the violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held.

“This afternoon I have a message for the Iraqi people: This is further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever. You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.”

Iraqis are celebrating in the streets. The German and French leadership is “congratulating” US forces for Saddam’s capture. There’s a spirit of optimism in the air that hasn’t been seen since April 9th, 2003.

Of course, everyone – including Bush – knows that this optimism is temporary. They’ve got Saddam, they’ll put him on trial and bring him to “justice”… but Iraq isn’t going to emerge as a free, peaceful democracy overnight.

What this does present is a window of opportunity for the US to internationalize the rebuilding efforts. (And it also gives Bush’s election campaign a big boost… but that’s another story.) So we’ll have to wait and see what the Bush administration chooses to do with this.

This is good for a chuckle or two. Look closely. (Hat tip: Tom).

Well, Saddam’s sons are dead, but the world seems to be getting back to normal in other areas: the Expos suck again.

No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Oh yeah?

U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq’s Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, an embedded reporter told Fox News Thursday.

[ . . . ]

So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have found 14 buildings that have high levels of radiation, Prine reported Thursday.

His report noted that some of the tests have found nuclear residue too deadly for human contact.

The Marine radiation detectors go “off the charts” a few hundred meters outside the nuclear compound, where locals say “missile water” is stored in enormous caverns, reported Prine, who is embedded with the U.S. 1st Marine Division.

If this does turn out to be a nuclear weapons facility, then the situation was even worse than most people imagined. It was assumed that Saddam had an abundance of biological and chemical weapons, but nobody thought he was actually nearing nuclear capability (though not for lack of trying), since the Israelis destroyed the Osirak reactor in 1981.

Was this strike to outst Saddam just in time? (Via LGF).

The Iraqis may have been dancing in the streets, but to the Palestinians this was a crushing blow. Most supported Saddam; many believed that his forces would fight and resist fiercely against American and coalition forces.

“This is a sad day for all the Arabs and Muslims, particularly the Palestinians,” Nael al-Am, a Ramallah grocer who keeps a poster of Saddam Hussein in his shop, told the Jerusalem Post.

“I invested a lot of money in buying a satellite dish and a new TV set because I wanted to watch the day the battle for Baghdad begins. I was sure this was going to be one of the great battles of the century, where an Arab army would inflict heavy losses on the invading crusaders. I feel as if a dagger has been stuck in my heart when I see American soldiers strolling in the heart of Baghdad.”

This was hardly the jubilant scenes that were filmed yesterday in Baghdad. And no wonder. The Palestinians haven’t had to live under Saddam’s brutal rule. Instead, the Iraqi regime has been funding Palestinian terror against Israel. To most Palestinians, Saddam Hussein was a symbol of Muslim resistance against Americans. And watching him fall – especially after swallowing the big talk and lies from their local media telling them that Saddam’s victory was assured – was a brutal disappointment.

Anyone who thinks that something good is bound to come of this within Palestinian society is, unfortunately, delusional. To the Palestinians, this is yet one latest in a long string of letdowns from lofty promises that they believed from various leaders. Many saw Arafat as their path to peace, glory, and a Palestinian state on all of Israel’s territory. When that didn’t materialize, many turned to other leaders – such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad – all promising spoils. And these same people were cruelly misled by Saddam Hussein’s big talk of being able to defend Iraq and simultaneously help the Palestinian people fight Israel.

It’s a shame, because the Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve leaders who will tell them the truth, not lie to them while using them as pawns on a chessboard.