VOA News – Rights Group: Saddam Did Not Get Fair Trial — This is rich. Think of the money saved if Saddam was shot inside the “spider hole.” But I guess that wasn’t possible, was it? That situation looked as staged as anything.
A U.S.-based rights group says former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein did not get a fair trial and therefore should not be executed.
New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a report released Monday, says the former Iraqi leader’s trial was plagued with procedural flaws.
Among other things, H.R.W. says the court failed to give defense lawyers important documents in advance, lost track of paperwork and kept no written transcript. The report says statements of 29 prosecution witnesses were read into the record without them being available for cross-examination.
Cripes! I’m trying, ain’t I?
oh dear…procedural flaws or not, the guy is guilty and everyone knows it. just hang him already.
It’s not that he doesn’t deserve to be executed. Let’s take that as a given.
It’s just that if he’s exectuted, we have to remember that there are people who will pick up on any trace of evidence of any irregularity or anything that can be called “unfair”, and will use that as ammunition.
If we go ahead with it, we just have to bear that in mind.
I’m not qualified to judge whether his trial was fair or not, but executing a person without a fair trial is descending to his level. As I understand it (I haven’t followed the trial closely), this is one of the crimes he’s been accused of.
I think most people would agree that Saddam was given the most open and fairest trial in modern Iraqi History. Many of his political rivals simply disappeared without a trace.
May as well hang Saddam from a tree in Mississippi. Show the world how great we are. Madeline Albright said killing half a million Iraqi babies was a price Americans were willing to pay for peace. Barely made the news. Apparently AIPAC’s money was well spent.
He didn’t want a trial he didn’t even respect the trial, if he were here in America and did the stuff he this kind of stuff he would be in contempt, he wont testify nor try to defend himself so therefore he is found guilty, the trial was just fine, this is crazy talk.
One line only: capital punishment is barbaric.
One line only: capital punishment is necessary when dealing with barbarians.
I think the just/unjust argument is missing the point; Saddam was tried by the Iraqi courts and Saddam’s trial was no doubt reviewed scrupulously by other people besides HRW.
Given the circumstances, I can’t imagine the Iraqi courts doing a much better job than they did. I’d also be very careful about doing anything to make Saddam look unnecessarily sympathetic if it could be avoided, and in this instance, HRW is going to be a bellwether as much as anything.
This will probably not result in abu-ghraib class blowback, but the coincidence of sentencing and the elections here probably isn’t going to help our buds in the Iraqi National Assembly, either. A lot of people seem to think that we have much more control in their affairs than we do; more so, if we did, that would put us in a substantially worse place than we’re in. We’ve been trying to take focus off of US involvement since Bremer bailed in the dead of night so long ago. Six months to clean up the insurgency, twelve to eighteen to fill out the Iraqi Army (what kind of face do you suppose Rummy made when Maliki handed out that time frame?).
But I’d even take that with a grain of salt. When Bush is quoting Kissenger telling him that Iraq is a test of will and Kissenger is saying it ain’t fixable, there’s more than a few fundamental disconnects sill going on.
Whadya suppose Kissenger’s telling Olmert?
“They tell me Brooklyn is really nice in spring…”
I suspect HRW will say anything to denounce capital punishment, regardless of the crime. HRW is projecting a Western perspective on this situation and ignoring its context. This isn’t a trial in America, rather it’s a trial in a country on the brink of total anarchy with a very non-Western culture. Their perspective is simply unrealistic in Iraq. This man is a monster. I believe that someone who commits cruel and unusual crimes should lose the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment. If we could kill him once for each victims, and make him mourn as did each member of each of his victims’ families, we could perhaps begin to find a punishment suitable for him.
#7 – In case you’re curious, there is a reason people like you don’t run anything.
Some people do deserve to die.
While I am no defender of Saddam…
He was found guilty and will be executed for defending himself from a coup attempt.
More or less the exact same reaction the USA has had in response to 9/11…. Which was a coup attempt of sorts, if not for the dead people in Pennsylvania.
Saddam killed about a 100,000 Iraqis during his tenure, all during coup attempts. People named George Bush have killed AT LEAST TWO MILLION Iraqis, in the single most profound and calculated genocide since the end of world war 2. People named George Bush are the ones that labeled Saddam the bad guy.
I would call it ironic, and think it funny, if not for the two million (and growing) dead people.
#12 – #7 – In case you’re curious, there is a reason people like you don’t run anything.
Some people do deserve to die.
Comment by James Hill — 11/20/2006 @ 7:58 am
Well, actually, people like him run most of the Western world. Capital punishment is immoral and most of the civilized world knows this except barbarian holdouts like American conservatives who can’t get it through their thick sloped foreheads.
I agree – some people deserve to die. It’s just that none of you have the moral authority to do a damn thing about it, and in the absence of a god to pass judgement, we should not be in the business of murdering people.
Hang him, shoot him; whatever. The only problem I have is the Iragi’s should have popped him a long time ago; and didn’t.
Some people not only deserve to be killed – they need to be killed.
In the absense of the ability to create something like Heinlein’s Coventry – it’s the only option.
Also, for you bleeding hearts out there: is it really moral to spend tens of thousands per year per prisoner to keep these sackblows alive when that same money could be used to feed starving children? Resources are limited after all.
Why didn’t they complain during the trial? Iraq is becoming more like America, where having a bad lawyer is the best way to avoid the death penalty.
#14 “Capital punishment is immoral”
that’s your opinion, don’t state it as a fact. if you think saddam should live in a prison for the rest of his life under the watchful eye of human rights groups who will ensure he lives out his days in comfort after all the lives and rights he has taken, you have a seriously distorted sense of justice (imo).
#18, ryan
Morality is opinion and therefore incapable of being stated as a fact. The fact that the vast majority of the Western world does not have the death penalty should give an indication of people’s opinion on the death penalty.
Whereas,
oh dear…procedural flaws or not, the guy is guilty and everyone knows it. just hang him already.
Comment by ryan — 11/20/2006 @ 2:27 am
is written as pure fact when it is truly an opinion. I don’t KNOW he is guilty. I didn’t watch the trial and only read the filtered excerpt on the news.
A fair trial is more then just if the guy is truly guilty, simply because we as a society are the doling out the punishment. If we punish someone who we denied a fair trial to, then we have committed an injustice. Justice must be seen and if it isn’t seen, then it isn’t justice.
#14 – “I agree – some people deserve to die. It’s just that none of you have the moral authority to do a damn thing about it, and in the absence of a god to pass judgement, we should not be in the business of murdering people.”
It’s not that it’s murder; it’s justice. Sometimes however, justice sucks for the person on the receiving end. Not that they haven’t done something to deserve it (especially in this case)
If we are truly interested in fascts, it is a fact that only 17% of the world population is considered part of the “western World”. and not a vast majority, but a slim majority does not have the death penality. World wide (and Iraq is still part of this world) over 80% of the population and governments have the death penality…including IRAQ! If the crimes were commited in iraq, and the criminal tried in Iraq by Iraqis, and the rope was an Iraqii rope, then justice has been served to the IRAQ standards. Canada has no death penality and almost weekly, I read of people wondering if they should push to get it re-instated. the USA has the death penality in some states and all other states can not interfere with the justice handed out.
Let Iraq handle it in the Iraq way…Hang’em High…