Would it be right to apply the "justice" Saddam received to every leader who kills with an army?

[bigtree]

I don't think Saddam had to die for Iraqis to get justice for his crimes. His detention was enough to halt and deter any further violence from the former dictator. There's no evidence that killing him is any more of a deterrent to anyone who might follow in his footsteps than detaining him for life.

What happens when Iraqis inevitably replace the current bunch who've assumed power? Will they be justified in prosecuting Maliki and Talibani for their own death squad militias, and for the violence and killing they've ordered against Iraqi communities who rose up in opposition to their manufactured rule?

Will Bush really stand by and let "Iraqis decide" whose leader's killing of innocents is acceptable and whose should be prosecuted? How do we separate Saddam's responsibility for the killing of Iraqi innocents out of vengeance from Bush's own deadly decision to invade and occupy Iraq as a demonstration of U.S. military might and resolve? How are Bush and Maliki any less responsible for the killing of innocents in Iraq?

Obviously, I don't think they are any less responsible. I suspect the majority of Iraqis hold them just as responsible as well. They just don't have the means - as the U.S. sponsored Iraqi tribunal did - to gather these pretenders together, lock them in a cage in a mock court, and pile on the accusations to convict them under specially arranged rules of law.

One day they will find a way to turn the tables on these usurpers. It's just a matter of time and determination. In the meantime, it's a race to the moral bottom as this cobbled regime struggles to touch ground and consolidate their contrived power.

"We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein's rule," Bush said in his statement on Saddam's hanging. "The progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform," he said.

The members of the new regime who put Saddam to death fear our soldiers' departure because it will draw them closer to the judgment of the Iraqis they've been trying to intimidate into obedience behind the sacrifices of our beleaguered forces. What was good for one dictator will likely serve, as well, for the next. It's a poor precedent for a government so desperately in need of reconciliation for its survival.

The hanging of Saddam is yet another measure of the short-sightedness of Bush's Iraq folly. These leaders who've assumed authority over Iraqis don't care how many bodies they allow to pile up, just as long as they can continue to lord over everyone they consider beneath them. The killing needs to end. These leaders so obsessed with hanging the former dictator are clearly not interested in stopping it.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Old and In the Way]

1. The bloodletting will not stop just because Saddam was hung.

Personally, I think we've killed the state of Iraq. The only way it will be held together is if another Saddam is found to take his place. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

[dailykoff]

5. Yes, but state decapitation was the goal all along.

And it isn't just ironic, it's a crime of gigantic proportions. The real irony IMHO is that when all is said and done we will have failed.

[Desertrose]

6. Wonder who will be left to see the irony....

I agree this is gigantic....for so many reasons.

Big big mistake.

[bigtree]

11. tragic really. an opportunity for reconciliation lost

an incredible provocation to those who might have still been inclined to line up with the new U.S. sponsored regime, and a gift to the Shiites who would align with Iran.

[earlybelle]

2. Saddam was hanged. Now the knoose is around our necks.

[bigtree]

7. well put, earlybelle

those who led us into Iraq are, indeed, angling to their own place in line for the Iraqi gallows.

[barb162]

3. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson,

George Washington, etal killed with armies.

[razors edge]

4. Starting to make the

libertarians somewhat more palatable.

[k_jerome]

12. JFK, Clinton... nt.

[bigtree]

13. *

[bigtree]

29. Blair, Howard . . .

Maliki . . .

[dailykoff]

8. Very good question.

As far as I can tell, the executions for treason that Saddam was convicted of carrying out were at least and probably far more legal than the trial and exectution of Saddam.

[bigtree]

9. trial?

of course, there really wasn't a trial, was there? Numerous judges throughout, limits on the evidence Saddam could produce to rebut the charges, and the blatant corruption and interference by the U.S. sponsors of the tribunal made for a mock court to go with Bush's mock war.

[dailykoff]

10. Well, show trial

and it was a pretty poor show, yes, complete with unfortunate executions of Saddam's lawyers.

[cali]

14. Oh, please.

Yes, the trial was a travesty, but there was some pretty compelling testimony from relatives of victims. I have no use for either the compromised trial are the show execution, but Saddam was a right murderous bastard, and there's tons of evidence to support it.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

15. You acknowledge the trial was a travesty

That negates everything else you wrote subsequently IMO.

[bigtree]

16. The Shiite Militias practice summary judgments as they execute the opposition on the street

the entire Iraqi conflict is filled with folks exercising their own brand of "justice" with their violence. Without a credible system of laws and uncompromisable courts, there will continue to be chaos and anarchy in Iraq. The illegitimacy of the tribunal prosecuting Saddam will make it harder to get Iraqis to put down their arms, and harder for them to put their faith in any due process of law and justice that the new regime might offer.

[cali]

18. Really? You actually think

a trial is the only vehicle that can demonstrate bad acts? Extraordinary! By your standards, we shouldn't judge bush or hitler or any number of leaders who were clearly thugs and murderers. That I think the trial was deeply flawed and the execution, revolting, doesn't negate the evidence damning Saddam.

[bigtree]

22. to condem him to hanging after capturing him without due process of law

is just cold-blooded murder, cowboy justice. At least that's what we raise our children to believe in this country.

[cali]

23. What part of the trial was a travesty, don't you understand?

I've made my dissent and disgust over the potemkin trial and show execution quite clear, I believe. That has nothing to do with my point in the post you responded to.

[bigtree]

25. like the poster said, everything else flowed from that travesty

It's simply not enough to just proclaim Saddam guilty outside of a legitimate system of judgment and accountability. That's the entire point of the debate surrounding the U.S. culpability in the invasion, his overthrow, his capture, and his execution. That kind of summary judgment is what Bush used to start this mess. It's not anymore credible when we practice it outside of the system than it is for the government to throw accusations around and act on them without being made to prove them, *or provide for a credible defense by the accused.

edit: *

[dailykoff]

17. The problem is, if what he did was legal,

according to laws in place at the time, and it appears that it was, then what we did was not.

And that's a big problem.

[Little Star]

20. Good Point.

[MzShellG]

19. The hypocracy is sicking...

I am feeling very disallusioned by the lynch mob here on DU. It is so disappointing. Saddam was lynched for ordering punishment for a group of people who attempted to assassinate HIM! If the same thing was attempted in the US, Bush would do who knows what to them. What irony that on the day this morbid incident occurred, Bush was running for HIS life from a natural disaster. Karma.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. No, but arguably for any leader who orders chemical weapons used on civilians.

Saddam was not just another war leader.

[bigtree]

24. lot's of dispute over his culpability for the chemical attacks

Will Pitt posted a couple of accounts.

The manner in which that "justice" was meted out to Saddam should matter to those who deplore the anarchy taking place in Iraq. Without a credible system of laws and enforcements, Iraqis will never have confidence enough in the new government to lay down their arms and trust them to resolve their differences within the system instead of on the streets.

The barbaric nature of the hanging, which our nation facilitated, is yet another hypocrisy in the way of Bush's attempt to tie his bloody aggression together with our own nation's traditional values and morals. The entire coup of Iraq - complete now with the legal-like execution of Saddam - has been prosecuted by Bush far outside of our nation's constitution and conscience. The nature and character of those who our government holds in opposition should not allow leaders like Bush and Maliki to so thoroughly compromise those morals and values abroad which we rely on to sustain and preserve our democracy here at home.

[ContraBass Black]

26. That would leave precious few generals and politicians in the world.

[High Plains]

27. And the world would be a better place for it.

[bigtree]

28. few of the present ones