printSaddam’s sentencing must be seen in the context of an Iraq that has been decimated by an illegal and immoral invasion and is awash with blood spilled by hundreds of mini-tyrants who’ve replaced the secular Saddam. These fulltime, rather than occasional, murderers are exacting their revenge upon their neighbors. Remove one Saddam, who kept a lid on the cauldron of crime and corruption that is Iraq, and there’ll be another waiting to take his place—and another and another. Just like a shark’s teeth.
The trial, in which every requirement of the 6th Amendment was flouted, did not even qualify as a show-trial. At the rate at which trial attorneys were being eliminated, the proceedings had to be clandestine and were thoroughly corrupted.
The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution is a better metaphor for justice coming out of terror-riddled Iraq; the Revolutionary Assembly better approximates the Iraqi court. Terror during the French Revolution was, after all, executed by popular demand.
So we should do… what? Let him go and say we’re sorry?
The Nuremburg trials were criticized by some legal scholars for the ex post facto nature of the charges and dismissed as “victors’ justice” by some. Unfortunately true – but then it’s hard to get justice from the losers.
Good points. I missed the prior post that you link too.
I think that the French Terror is a very apt anology.