Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
Dead men tell no tales.
(trite but true)
I don't like this. I don't like this one bit. And I especially don't like that it's being done in my name, on my dime. This is all about Bush jr proving to his dad what a man he is. I haven't given much thought to what the appropriate punishment for Saddam would be. But this trial, and this punishment at this time makes me ill.
We can all hope that Bush is the next tyrant brought to justice in a court room.
If we really believed in justice, we would have turned both Bush and Saddam over to the ICC for parallel trials. In both cases the charge would be crimes against humanity for the premeditated killing of Iraqi civilians.
So this is what we have become. I will lose sleep over this. It is sham justice, we say all the right words and behave in all the wrong ways. It is what it is and all the serious pronouncements and self righteous and sanctimonious statements to the contrary, no one, NO ONE is deceived by the immorality of this. It is unclear precisely what the point of this execution is, but one thing it is not about is justice.
Death of Saddam = Absolution for Chimp's mistakes.
Absolution of sin in exchange for an execution.
Seems like a familiar story, where have I heard that one before?
Jesus, should be easy, but can't think of it.
Seems like I read somewhere recently where they were seriously looking for a "strongman" to rule Iraq.
Ironic.
The W Adminstration has shown repeatedly that it does not believe in the rule of law, starting with the rejection of the ICC and the expenditure of quite a lot of political capital to get a great many countries to agree never to hold Americans accountable under the ICC treaty. I think W thinks he believes in justice, but is utterly incapable of understanding how the rule of law, in the real world, is the best way we have of getting to some approximation of justice.
But then, it's all about him, isn't it?
Interesting. A photo-op execution, isn't it?
Unfortunately, it is hard for me to see what strategic advantage will be gained in offing him. We have no credibility with the Iraqis, so it is too much to hope for any of them to suddenly become loyal. They're still without power and safety, so their daily suffering continues. Any domestic political advantage will vanish quickly. Unlike the death of our country's economy and military, however, which will go on like Chinese water torture. Once Saddam's dead, that card can't be played anymore.
Grotesque as it sounds, I think this execution is really so the neocons can jack off to the picture of Saddam's corpse swinging from the gibbet as it drips urine and feces. (Put less crudely, it is simply a morale boost to the rapidly shrinking pool of True Believers).
This is very bad indeed. A new low for this nation. For shame. And as someone else noted ... dead men tell no tales.
A terror alert has been put out? Jesus, does that mean the terrorists have already followed us home?
The new year comes with fire and smoke. We ain't seen nuthin' yet.
When Haddam Husseins kids were killed (I forget their names) it was positively barbaric how the pictures of their bodies were distributed by the Americans. It duscusted me that this country had anything to do with snuff porn like that.
If similar pictures or videos of Saddam's hanging are on the net I'm sure this will thrill to pieces all of the LGFB set.
It is a fundamental contradiction, and will probably be seen as such by the world community. More hearts-and-minds stuff 
One could imagine a commando squad, in a Mission- Impossible sort of scenario, kidnapping Bush and Cheney and holding them to similar justice for the murders of hundreds of thousands. Same logic, different reception, no doubt.
There's nothing Bush likes more than a bit of state-sponsored murder.
Frankly, if Saddam had been somehow blown to bits when his hiding-hole was discovered, I'd have shed no tears. But this is a shambolic (and symbolic) exercise.
Done on the weekend of the Muslim feast of sacrifices, no less.
Nice!
If what I´ve read is true:
- The execution maybe during the Hajj.
- Not to mention possibly even during the Muslim holiday of Eid (Feast of the Sacrifice). Executions are traditionally not done during that time.
Those who can afford it must kill an animal, usually a goat or a sheep, but sometimes a cow. You share the meat equally between your family, your friends, and the poor or needy. The sacrifice is a symbol of Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his only son; as the story goes, at the last minute, God let Ibrahim off the hook and allowed him to sacrifice a ram, instead of his boy.
(From European Tribune)
But as the NYT reports:
The Muslim holiday of Eid begins Saturday [noon?] for Sunnis, which is Mr. Hussein’s sect, and Sunday for Shiites, who where oppressed under Mr. Hussein’s rule but now control the government.
Iraqi law seems to indicate that executions are forbidden on the holiday.
Mr. Haddad [a judge on the Iraqi High Tribunal] was dismissive of those concerns, injecting some of the sectarian split that is ripping this country apart into his response to a question on the subject.
“Tomorrow is not Eid,” he said. “The official Eid in Iraq is Sunday.”
(Insertions [..] mine.)
I´m sure the Sunnis will be thrilled!
Update:
The BBC now says the execution "seems to be imminent".
But several reports quoted senior Iraqi officials as saying the execution would take place at 0600 local time (0300 GMT).
...
Some reports say doubt remains over whether the execution could be carried out before the Islamic holiday of Eid, which begins at noon on Saturday (0900 GMT).
if the entire invasion is ever judged to be illegal, wouldn't this execution then become a war crime?
it can't be wise to hastily execute a former head of state in the current situation in iraq. it is a civil war and as digby notes, there is no real gov't there so a rushed killing could come back and bite someone in the ass...
Well mark my words, make no mistake, etc etc etc
It won't make things any better in Iraq, and it might just make things worse.
Why could we send Milosevic to the Hague and not Hussein? I guess because the World Court would not impose capital punishment. I agree with you that this execution is conceived in madness and will be like pouring gasoline on the civil strife there, but maybe that is what our leader is hoping for so that he can feel justified in sending a surge of troops over there. I hope to God his poll numbers don't go up because of this.
Come on. This whole thing weas orchestrated to get him killed before the evidence about OUR complicity (remember the Rumsfeld handshake?) in his crimes was broadcast to the world.
It was a sham trial. This execution is murder. It will be rightly blamed on us.
It makes me queasy. Death follows in Bush's wake like dust in Pigpen's. Death. That's all he's about. I'll bet Bush stays up past his bedtime for this special little enjoyment.
Sending Saddam to the World Court would:
a) be a good and just thing
b) send wingnuts -- Bush's base -- right round the bend screaming "one world government!"
c) make it clear that the US supports and approves of bringing world leaders to justice through the World Court... hence, no objections to Kissinger being sent there, and Rumsfeld, and Cheney, and Bush.
So you're surprised it didn't happen?
I feel the same way, but reralize that it could never happen, because we have refused to joint the International Justice System, ergo An International Tribunal.
Bush would never sogn the treaty, lest he end up there for Crimes Against Humanity.
Uday and Qusay were the names of the sons. The worst thing about the killing of Saddam is American public opinion. Promulgated by American Corporate media, Saddam is the epitome of evil and deserves to die. The black/white false dichotomy, oversimplification, the lack of understanding re: America's previous role as a Saddam supporter and bigtime looker of the other way when Saddam should have been stopped.
Perhaps the US should never have sold him the weapons he used on the Kurds.
What Ref says. These are the tales which this Dead Man will not tell. One wonders why Mr. Hussein and his co-defendants did not Sing Sing Sing about American, Russian, and all-major-countries European help and assistance in all his wars and Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction programs. He will have died showing a loyalty to
the DC Federal Regime and the Upper Class Elites which they never showed to him.
I saw Scott Ritter long ago on TV talking about how this trial was strictly Shia Iraqi vengeance for Dujail without any major concern on the part of the Shia governing figures
for his other crimes. Witness their eager haste to kill him quick and not even let the trial about the Extermination of the Kurds go forward.
And the Iranians feel deeply cheated over not getting to try them himself for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Iran.
Also note how none of the other Western Powers applied any pressure to
get him tried at the Hague. They alsso wanted to silence him, just as much as the DC FedRegime wanted to silence him. Tinfoil, anyone?
but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the US had behaved like a world leader and sent him to be tried in the International Criminal Court
Actually that would not have been the proper course of action under international law. The proper course of action would have been to release Saddam Hussein at the end of the war -- since he was a POW.
Cases go to the ICC only if the normal national court system cannot deal (or will not deal) with a case. that decision would have been up to the Iraqi government.
If the US want to show they are serious about war crimes they should put Clinton, Bush, Wes Clark etc etc on trial in a US court.
People still believe that story?
Frankly, if Saddam had been somehow blown to bits when his hiding-hole was discovered....
I see that mild mannered Riverbend, who started off feeling sympathy for dead US soldiers in Iraq, is now seemingly siding with Saddam Hussein, seeing him, as he has been made by the US, a representation of Iraq resistance to US colonialism. Saddam will be a patriotic martyr now.
Of course they knew that when they captured him. Hence the need to lie about the way he was captured.
Why could we send Milosevic to the Hague and not Hussein? I guess because the World Court would not impose capital punishment.
Milosevic's trial was at the Hague but it wasn't an international court. it was just another American kangaroo court. In fact the trial was even more obviously fucked up than Saddam's trial. Saddam's trial looks like a model of jurisprudence compared to Milosevic's.
Both were illegal of course.
The World Court is not the same as the ICC by the way. And, yes, the ICC won't kill someone.
Amazing how you all will oppose even the execution of a mass-murderer because you oppose anything done by Bush. Charles Manson was opposed to Nixon (and bourgeois society); should that get him a pardon?
How would you feel about conservatives opposed to executing Timothy McVeigh because he hated Bill Clinton, arguing that Clinton must have been acting out of animus or infantile psychological needs, or to keep "the truth" about Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City from coming out?
Or is it that you have to murder many more, say 100,000, and also impose a dictatorship, before the left will support you?
These executions are overdetermined, people. Both Clinton and Bush, as governors, actively and regularly favored the death penalty for murders. It's silly and offensive to claim that either one needed an ulterior motivation to support the executions of Timothy McVeigh or Saddam Hussein.
Let's not forget that Saddam is a bastard, but he was once our bastard, and a fair trial would implicate our own government. It was our gas he used on his own people, after all. Funny how the so-called professional media seem to ignore that, even as they remember every lie, no matter how old, the GOP ever spread about anyone they disagreed with.
As for the "execution", all I can say is that Saddam must have really pissed someone off because we had no problems helping out other mass-murderers like Marcos, Noriega, and the Shah.
Ok, if we're going to be executing mass murderers when do war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Feith, Wolfowitz etc. get hanged for lying us into an illegal war of agression and murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?
Look this is the World Court's web site (aka the ICJ or International Court of Justice) and this is the web site of the International Criminal Court (or ICC).
The World Court is the court set up by the UN charter 60 years ago to try desputes between signatories to the UN charter (ie every country but the Papacy). The defendent in a case would be a state. For example Nicaragua took the US to court over the US' terrorist attack on Nicaragua at the time of Reagan. The US lost that case of course which led to Reagan saying he rejected the court (ie the UN charter).
The ICC is only about 4 years old, and is for bringing charges against individuals. It has an entirely separate treaty of it's own to which neither Iraq nor the US are signatories (a little over half the UN members are signatories). It really isn't an option for Saddam, but in any case it wouldn't be needed because any country that is able and willing to try a suspect is supposed to try them in a national court if they can.
The ICC won't take a case you can handle for yourself, and it won't take a case if you are not a memeber.
(continued in next post because of link limit)
Here's another problem:
The Court’s jurisdiction is further limited to events taking place since 1 July 2002. In addition, if a State joins the Court after 1 July 2002, the Court only has jurisdiction after the Statute entered into force for that State. Such a State may nonetheless accept the jurisdiction of the Court for the period before the Statute’s entry into force. However, in no case can the Court exercise jurisdiction over events before 1 July 2002.
No, the issue wasn't that the trial was held in Iraqi. That was the only part of the trial that was RIGHT. The problem was that the whole trial was a kangaroo court illegally run by the Americans, and everyone on the planet knows it. In case you haven't been paying attention to the details of the trial here's a precis of some of the issues from Riverbend:
There was a brief interlude when, with the first judge, it was thought that it might actually be a coherent trial where Iraqis could hear explanations and see what happened. That was soon over with the prosecution’s first false witness. Events that followed were so ridiculous; it’s difficult to believe them even now.
The sound would suddenly disappear when the defense or one of the defendants got up to speak. We would hear the witnesses but no one could see them- hidden behind a curtain, their voices were changed. People who were supposed to have been dead in the Dujail incident were found to be very alive.
Judge after judge was brought in because the ones in court were seen as too fair. They didn’t instantly condemn the defendants (even if only for the sake of the media). The piece de resistance was the final judge they brought in. His reputation vies only that of Chalabi- a well-known thief and murderer who ran away to Iran to escape not political condemnation, but his father’s wrath after he stole from the restaurant his father ran.
Actually, I don't think any country sold gas weapons to Iraq, although they were sold dual-use materials and equipment, as well as conventional weapons, by the U.S. among others. However, Germany, France, Russia and China all sold Iraq more such material than did the U.S.
And none of this has any bearing on whether it is just to execute Saddam Hussein.
Saddam is being executed for the conventional murders of 148 people, not for the gas attack. And 148 murders ought to be enough to get one executed, in any system that executes anyone.
A state may decide to delay an execution if it believes doing so is useful to the state (e.g., perhaps it will learn useful facts it does not know), but I for one do not think that Saddam's murdering 10,000 or 1,000,000 other people morally obligates the state to grant him a reprieve from being executed for the murder of 148. Do you?
Hey DW dipshit - Bush has killed almost 700,000 thousand innocent Iraqis. What do you propose we do about that? Please answer.
ran: "...when do war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Feith, Wolfowitz etc. get hanged for lying us into an illegal war of agression and murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?"
Don't stop there. We should also execute the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Senators Roberts, Rockefeller, Hatch, DeWine, Bond, Lott, Snowe, Hagel, Chambliss, Warner, Levin, Feinstein, Wyden, Durbin, Bayh, John Edwards, and Mikulski.
After all, these Senators, of both parties, unanimously found that the errors about WMDs were NOT lies. As such, they are conspiring with the Bush Administration in its plans for genocide and world domination. Kill 'em all, right?
BTW, do you have any idea of how insane and unpersuasive you sound to the majority of people when you oppose executing mass murders because Bush, too, is a mass murderer? Bush is lucky in his enemies.
poputonian: "Hey DW dipshit - Bush has killed almost 700,000 thousand innocent Iraqis. What do you propose we do about that? Please answer."
Nice persuasive argument you got there, poputonian. Even if you believe the Lancet, the claim is that a similar number of Iraqis died because of the war, not that this number was:
1) Noncombatant ("innocent")
2) Killed by the US ("Bush has killed")
3) Or even killed by anyone, as opposed to indirectly from hardships.
As it happens, I do not believe the Lancet's numbers. But if Bush is to be condemned for murders made by the other side, as well as all other deaths occurring in the course of war, then we must of course condemn all war leaders.
"After all, these Senators, of both parties, unanimously found that the errors about WMDs were NOT lies."
I don't give a fuck what the whitewash commitee "found".
Iraq was no threat to us, and the criminals who started this clusterfuck knew it. Invading a country under false pretenses is a war crime. They knew Iraq was no threat to anyone but they wanted to control their oil and set up permanent bases from which to menace anyone else who fails to genuflect before their US/Israeli masters. And they didn't give a shit how many Iraqis they had to murder for their imperial ambitions.
DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 9:08 pm
Ever go by the name of DavidByron. you sure sound like him.
Saddam is being executed for the conventional murders of 148 people, not for the gas attack. And 148 murders ought to be enough to get one executed, in any system that executes anyone.
After a fair trial. A fair trial. It isn't that hard to understand - "a fair trial". Look it up in a dictionary if you're not sure what the words mean.
I only know DavidByron from his posts within this page. His positions and writing style are quite different from my own. At any rate, I see no similarity to myself; it looks like he fits in with the rest of the posters here, while I do not.
Phoenician,
Writing "fair trial" 3 times does not an argument make. It is, at any rate unpersuasive to most people. Let me demonstrate:
Saddam had a fair trial. Saddam is guilty. Saddam had a fair trial. Saddam is guilty. Saddam had a fair trial. Saddam is guilty.
Convinced? Well neither am I.
As one Iraqi put it:
“I was an opponent of Saddam and his policies, but I support putting him through a real national court away from occupation influence. I cannot forgive or forget that my son was executed, but as an Iraqi nationalist I cannot accept to see the president of my country put to trial in such a ridiculous way by invaders and their tails.”
I think we (sane and reasonable) people realize this trial and execution does not represent justice in any way, shape or form, particularly seeing as how the entire invasion was based on the lie about WMDs which never existed, and the man being hung was installed and supported by the US gov't in the first place.
Lesley, if Saddam was installed by the US, that would have been by Jimmy Carter. Do you really believe that?
Even granting the "Bush lied" lie, do you really think a mass murderer should escape execution because his enemy and the enabler of his prosecution is Bush?
You'll recall, this post was about executing Saddam. I did not choose to turn it into a referendum on the purity of Bush's motives. Why must everything turn into that?
Writing "fair trial" 3 times does not an argument make.
I was not making an argument, dickhead. I was pointing out the whopping great hole in your argument.
Thank you dee dub, you played right into my hand. If gee dub isn't guilty for doing what he felt was necessary to establish the control and security of the nation he runs (which is to say, make America more secure by killing Iraqis), why is Saddam Hussein guilty of tyring to stablize Iraq, no matter how brutal the required methods might be? Iraq used to be stable. Now it's not. Hussein killed many. Bush killed more.
Both are criminals.
Try to think beyond the first layer of bullshit in your ever-shallow mind.
I see no similarity to myself
DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 9:33 pm
Ah, makes perfect sense to me.
Actually, I don't think any country sold gas weapons to Iraq, although they were sold dual-use materials and equipment
DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 8:29 pm
Yes, dual use. Why is that? what purpose does that serve?
As it happens, I do not believe the Lancet's numbers.
DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 9:08 pm
Why not? Got a better source?
I did not choose to turn it into a referendum on the purity of Bush's motives. Why must everything turn into that?
DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 9:48 pm
Yeah, pure like the driven snow. It just happens, right?
Why wasn’t Saddam brought back to the USA for trial, just like Poppy did with Noriega? Regime change runs in the family, especially after Manuel’s and Saddam’s CIA love affairs went south. Plus, Saddam was a direct threat to the USA, right? Mushroom clouds and all that, right?
poputonian,
It is unsettling to attempt an argument against one of such clarity and temperance, class even, as your own. But I will point out that waging war is a bloody business, and yet international law and practise has long recognized that waging war, which results in deaths, even deaths of innocents, is not akin to running death camps and ordering the executions of innocents.
i>DWPittelli | 12.29.06 - 10:34 pm
What war? There was none declared by the USA. There was however, a “liberation” and regime change, followed by the occupation. Unless you mean the civil war going on now in Iraq.
IMShocked,
Actually there was a war declared by the US, in law and in fact -- not to mention the numerous preceding actions of Hussein's government which were acts of war, notably firing on overflying airplanes which were enforcing the terms of the cease-fire from the previous war, which was never technically ended.
But regardless, what is your point? That because you don't like the wording of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, therefore the mass murder of innocents is no worse than civilian war casualties?
IMShocked,
I would also attempt to answer your previous post, but as it consisted of snark rather than specific facts and logic to agree or disagree with, it is rather too slippery a creature for me to take on.
By now, Saddam has probably been croaked. He was a mass murderer and a war criminal. Bush and all of his enablers are mass murderers and war criminals. Saddam was not tried by a legitimate court - there is no legitimate government in Iraq - he was tried by US. Bush and his co-murderers will never face trial before any court.
This bothers me. Bush is at least as bad and at least as guilty as Saddam.
Yet he and his ilk will slink back to their villas to nurture another generation of criminals.
700,000 dead and you say it's not the same as running death camps. You are one sick motherfucker -- no, really, I mean that. You are a sick self-serving bastard with no concept of what it means to kill a million people. You are everything that is wrong with America, from genocide of native Americans to slavery, if you can find a technical justification for self-enrichment and a means to gratify your narcissistic impulses, you are all about yourself. you sick fucking, murderous bastard.
DWP, there has been no declaration of war by our Congress since December 1941. The AUMF was not a declaration of war. As a result, there have been no "civilian war casualties" in Iraq. Instead, those who are dead as a result of our military actions are victims of illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal acts of agression against people of a country that doesn't belong to us and whose people do not want us there.
poputonian, I again tremble before attempting to answer your wit, logic and class.
In my own miserable and inadequate, yea, narcissistic defense, I will point out that I do not believe that there have been 700,000 excess deaths since the war began, or even probably ANY excess deaths, given the bloody cost of Saddam's rule, and also perhaps of the prewar sanctions, which costs the Left was well aware of until it became more expedient to claim that prewar Iraq had one of the lowest death rates in the world.
I will also point out that previous wars (including the bombing of Kosovo) were not without human cost.
Congratulations for discovering my narcissistic and murderous impulses, as well as my literal bastardy. I forgot that my initial support (like, no doubt, that of 3/4 of the Congress who saw equally damning intel as the President and voted for the war) was due to my enormous holdings in Standard Oil, left me by the hefty trust fund my father left his underage mistress, my mother.
But I don't see what any of this has to due with whether executing Saddam Hussein is a good thing.
dcnataro,
There are a few problems with your claim:
First, by that logic, EVERY President since WWII is a war criminal. Make the claim if you wish; it will not prove persuasive to many.
Second, the Congressional Record shows that the Congress believes otherwise.
Third, the courts have ruled otherwise.
Fourth, the "use of military force" is a clear euphemism (a happy synonym, if you will) for waging war.
Of course you wouldn't see what it has to do with hanging Saddam. He is your symbol, your justification for the people you have killed in order to get to him. He is your trophy. You have no concept of human welfare, only of DWPitelli. You are a psychopathic personality. You have no conscience. A dead Saddam gratifies you, and it's your way of rationalizing America's submit or die foreign policy. It really boils down to self-enrichment, and you are willing to kill to make sure you get more and more and more and more and more and more. You are no secret to me, you are only a secret to yourself.
A declaration of war doesn't need euphemisms or synonyms if it is done in accordance with our constitution, DW. War is so damn bad it is a good idea to get out in the open what you are about to do and why. And if you lie about it, as Bush and company did, you are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors by any reasonable definition of the terms.
Yes, Bush is a criminal and should be punished in America. I think I'm the only person posting who believes the US should be able to handle its own housecleaning if we are to call ourselves world leaders, but that's the way it is.
LOL
DWPittelli doesn't believe Lancet's numbers.
Case closed.
The election was clearly illegal and yet another horrible bloody stain on America.
In the words of Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" ...
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
-Lewis Allen (Abel Merropol)
Poputonian,
So classy and a mind-reader too! Perhaps you should go into psychotherapy… I mean as the therapist. Really. Thank you for enlightening me about my grave character flaws, which now that I think about it are more about mental illness than about how amazingly enriched I am growing off of my war profits. I will only correct you to the small extent that I must admit that the biggest complaint I have about Bush is that, until tonight, no one has been executed in the War on Terror, or whatever they’re calling it this month. So for me it’s not about Saddam, it’s about executing as many illegal combatants and mass-murderers as possible. Like many others, I guess, I am sick!
Perhaps you can address the President and a joint session of Congress on that, and cure this sick and murderous society. But tell me, whom a dead Saddam gratifies (anyone got any tips on cleaning the caviar and champagne out of my keyboard?) why does a dead Saddam drive you to such rage?
"Strange Fruit"?
Illegal election?
Why not just go straight to Godwin's Law?
God, dee dub, you are slow. It's not Saddam that drives us to rage. It's you.
A Patriot,
It's easy to broadly assert that "Bush lied" but the people who would have to consider the details behind such an assertion, such as the (bipartisan) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, unanimously found otherwise. So merely reiterating "Bush lied" has limited credibility, and is either itself a lie, or evidence of your own ignorance. At the least, a claim that Bush lied should be accompanied by some theory or discussion as to why the Senate found otherwise.
Likewise your pseudo-argument about the War Powers resolution; I repeat that the Courts and Congress have acted and voted to the contrary; but who are they to argue with you, when you bring such a bold assertion to the table?
Further, if the wording of the AUMF makes Bush a criminal, then every other postwar President is no less a criminal. Will you assert that too, or just leave that hanging as the obvious implication of your know-nothing rant?
Bush loves a good execution. Or rather, a bad one. It's his biggest thrill. Laura might be getting some tonight.
And yes, doing it on Saturday is an even bigger fuck-you to the Sunnis, because it's saying that their Eid counts for nothing.
Trolllll discipline, people. Trolllll discipline.
Oh, for god's sake, DWPittelli, why don't you go join the sociopaths' circle jerk at LGF or Free Republic?
I'm upset about the execution. I don't think executions actually solve problems; generally they just create more. This one in particular seems very fraught.
"But I will point out that waging war is a bloody business, and yet international law and practise has long recognized that waging war, which results in deaths, even deaths of innocents, is not akin to running death camps and ordering the executions of innocents."
Mark Twain would agree with you:
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
With a little prayer, most Americans are really okay with the kind of killing our soldiers do in Iraq. The American soldier's way is the good and right way to slaughter other human beings.
Don't go away mad Pittelli.
Just go away.
Pitelli,
No wonder poputonian gets so pissed off with you. Trust me, you will know when I am ranting.
First of all since I don't worship the office of President or the occupant of the White House, I have no problem with at least considering the idea of criminal presidents. It's an opinion and if it really bothers you, maybe a little self-examination is in order.
You should note however, that asserting that courts Supreme or otherwise have said the authorization to use force is legal doesn't mean much. Remember the result of Plessy v. Ferguson? Or their interference in the 2000 election? Any court suitably staffed will reach the appropriate conclusions. That's why FDR tried to pack the court and every president thereafter has tried to do the same when the opportunity has presented itself.
The senators? When was the last time a group of politicians go together and said "We're guilty? We screwed up by believing a liar and a fool?" All the theory I need is knowing how powerful people in Washington behave. So much for your appeals to authority for authority's sake.
As for evidence, guess how long it took to find a story in the Washington Post by Johnathan Weisman detailing some of Bush's lies? Not too long. Any ignorance on this matter is your own.
We were told Iraq was an imminent threat to the US. It had to be to even think about invoking the War Powers resolution. But that's not what Sec. Powell thought in 2001. Go and find(Yes,you're going to have to do some work)then Sec. of State Powell's news conference in Cairo, Egypt.
Physicists like Gordon Prather, who knows a little something about WMDs understood that before sanctions were in place, Iraq had little chance of developing an effective WMD program on their own, and after years of sanctions the chances were so small the war was simply not necessary. Bush lied. You can't change that so get over it.
Oh, and by the way, the Courts and Congress work for the people, not the other way around, jackass.
Awesome rant from CD:
Good Times Are For Hanging the Nigger.
Careful poputonian. There's a certain little bigot running around here who will say you've got to angry with these comments.
You are one sick motherfucker -- no, really, I mean that. You are a sick self-serving bastard with no concept of what it means to kill a million people.
You are one sick motherfucker -- no, really, I mean that. You are a sick self-serving bastard with no concept of what it means to kill a million people
He'll probably ask you condescendingly if you are perhaps married to an Iraqi or have Iraqi relatives that you aparently care about them so.
Howard Beale came to mind when I read a NYT piece on news producers trying to decide what, if any, footage or pics of the hanging they should show on teevee.
Apparently, they're arguing over matters of taste.
Yeah, right. And ratings.
If Saddam had been tried in the Hague, he would have blabbed and blabbed and blabbed. Tariq Aziz has recently let it be known that he's planning to spill the beans about non-Iraqi players in the recent history of Iraq. Just think of the moving photo of the manly warrior Mr. D. Rumsfeld, former Sectretary of Defense, now disgraced, shaking Saddam's hand when Saddam was prosecuting his nasty war of aggression aginst Iran, enemy no. 1 of the U.S. then and now (see Mr. J. Liberman), in which many, many people had and would die. There must be more of this kind of stuff waiting to be revealed.
Will the good people of the U.S. of A. ever kick their fascination for capital punishment? Their Leader is the executioner without equal, a Texan stud. In other parts of the world 'execution' is called 'judicial murder' and in many parts of the world, just plain 'murder'. In the minds of many Europeans there is nothing that separates them more from the U.S. than that country's insistence on killing criminals. It is very biblical, isn't it?
Denataro hit the nail on the head very concisely in the first comment at the top:
"Dead men tell no tales."
Remember that purty lil' picture of Saddam shaking hands with Rumsfeld? Wouldn't it have been nice to hear Saddam's story about that picture? Not just that single picture, really, but the whole relationship behind it, the whole hypocritical embrace of a poison-gas using torturer and tyrant who was so useful to us that we shook his hand and patted him on the head.
Really, I don't care that much about it. It might have been a good policy, actually, at the time, because Iran was a bigger problem to us than Iraq, and, frankly, I don't care that much about dead or tortured Iraqis as long as we don't do it ourselves.
But it's the sanctimonious hypocrisy of it all that gets to me. We had to go to Iraq and secure their oil and kill half a million of their people and break our treasury, all so we could (this is what they say) stop this madman from doing all the things we thought were oh-so-cool when he was OUR madman. Or at least that was one of the shifting justifications, and the one we will hear much of in the next week. We made Iraq safe for some new group of crazies that will very likely torture and kill their own people in the usual way.
Gerald Ford had it right:
"And I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."
I'm sorry if anybody thinks that is too cool and practical a way to put it, but this do-good interventionism crap is for the birds. We can't keep doing this shit. And it's just as bad an idea whether it comes from neocons or liberal-interventionists like Peter Cretin Beinart.
Executing criminals is the only governmental activity that Bush has shown any real interest in throughout his career.
Would have been interesting to know more from Saddam re American encouragement and assistance in Iraq/Iran war, American diplomatic performance prior to his invasion of Kuwait, etc.
since I don't worship the office of President... I have no problem with at least considering the idea of criminal presidents. It's an opinion and if it really bothers you, maybe a little self-examination is in order.
Since the idea does not bother me, and I am not myself the POTUS, I don't see the need for self-examination on that score. I am not the one raging and intemperate here.
asserting that courts Supreme or otherwise have said the authorization to use force is legal doesn't mean much. Remember the result of Plessy v. Ferguson? Or their interference in the 2000 election? Any court suitably staffed will reach the appropriate conclusions.
Yes, but we are not just talking the current SCOTUS and Congress here, but pretty much all of them of the last 60 years. I have argued from authority on this due to limited space and time. You have neither an actual legal argument nor a comparable authority.
The shortest actual argument: Any study of separation of powers would show that your position is absurd. The penalty for a President who goes to war without authorization (or commits any other major crime) is to be impeached and convicted by House and Senate. But when the House and Senate have approved the war, even if they call it an "Authorization to Utilize Military Force" they have explicitly taken such an impeachment off the table. Therefore there can be no legal consequences for a President who wars with an AUMF.
Most death row inmates, especially ones with any reputation at all, have ample opportunity to write books, be interviewed, etc.. Carla Fae Tucker I think was her name, for example. Saddam was in our custody, why not let him be interviewed???? Where is his book? No doubt that in this capitalist society there is already a movie or two in the works. Might as well make a few bucks off of this, right? The military industrial complex sure is.
A declaration of war does not exist without the following two items:
1. A clear statement that a state of war exists
2. A clear statement of the parties against whom the state of war exists.
The AUMF did not say that a state of war existed. It created the POSSIBILITY of using military force in the future, under certain conditions (about which Bush ultimately LIED).
Therefore, DW, the massive amount of death the US has administered to Iraqis cannot be "civilian war casualties". The whole business is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Does this mean that every US President since Truman is a war criminal? Yes. That most Americans don't want to believe this is irrelevant. Truth doesn't care what you (or I) think.
The AUMF is unconstitutional and illegal. Human beings sitting on federal benches are quite capable of allowing criminal activities to go on unimpeded. This they have done in the case of the AUMF.
Wrong. He'll call him a "terrorist", and then tell us we're winning the war on terrorism.
LOL
"Lesley, if Saddam was installed by the US, that would have been by Jimmy Carter."
-DWPittelli
Priceless. Just as an aside, DWP, do you watch yourself in the mirror as you tap out this drivel?
But when the House and Senate have approved the war, even if they call it an "Authorization to Utilize Military Force" they have explicitly taken such an impeachment off the table. Therefore there can be no legal consequences for a President who wars with an AUMF.
As if teams of legal minions aren't strategizing these scenarios beforehand - just to see how far they can push into the "grey area" of the law.
As with all judicial "interpretation" of law in this country, it depends on the integrity of the Judge (generally little to none) and who stuffed him into his Robe of Many Dollars.
I lurk here on a daily basis, and seldom feel a need to add to the discussion. But I got to say, this place has dwindled into the DWP and DavidByron show and it is really bothersome. They are both suffering from delusions of superiority, they hold other posters in disdain, but their worse sins is that they are wordy--why use 10 word when 100 will do.
It might be interesting if the ultraright DWP would take on the ultraleft DB but from what I can tell they carefully avoid any interaction.
Asshole with your qualified support for state sanctioned murder.
It's better to promote the supremacy of human life rather than the rule of law. You understand the concep of show trial better than you let on.
jam,
Which of my arguments is "ultraright"?
Was Joe Stalin "ultraright" when he executed numerous Nazis for mass murder?
Would you really have a problem with the execution of these Nazis, since Stalin had a comparable amount of blood on his hand?
My position is that it is always acceptable -- indeed, a good thing -- to kill a mass-murdering tyrant. This has as much to do with republicanism and anarchism as it does with any ultraright ideology.
FWIW, I would not decry Stalin's execution of Nazi murderers, even though I would decry much of what Stalin did. I guess that does make me an ultrarightist.
And who has shown even a tenth as much disdain (indeed, foam at the mouth) as poputonian? Certainly not I.
dcnataro: "The AUMF did not say that a state of war existed. It created the POSSIBILITY of using military force in the future, under certain conditions (about which Bush ultimately LIED)."
Why don't you try reading it? And tell us which conditions were not met, and about which Bush lied?
SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.
(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.
In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon there after as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, and
(2) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
garyb50, I wrote that "if Saddam was installed by the US, that would have been by Jimmy Carter" because Saddam formally took over Iraq in 1979, and had gradually assumed total power over the preceding 3 years, while Carter was President. (Saddam was actually closer to the USSR than the US.) What exactly is so risible about my claim?
Of course you don't show any disdain, Pittelli. You never have any doubt about what America does. You can't have, because you have no conscience. In your sick mind, Hussein's hanging puts you one step closer to a singular, homogeneous world. One culture. Yours. As you see it, everything's coming up roses, which is why you're out trumpeting your detailed knowledge of laws and statutes in places where you know others disagree. It is precisely your lack of disdain that confirms you have no conscience.
My position is that it is always acceptable -- indeed, a good thing -- to kill a mass-murdering tyrant.
Why? Is killing not wrong? And if killing's not wrong then who are you to judge how much killing, for whatever reasons, is wrong? You think you're smart, eh? You're a fool's fool.
George Bush:
The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power...
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 14, 2003
24 Feb 2001 In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
"garyb50, I wrote that "if Saddam was installed by the US, that would have been by Jimmy Carter" because Saddam formally took over Iraq in 1979, and had gradually assumed total power over the preceding 3 years, while Carter was President. (Saddam was actually closer to the USSR than the US.) What exactly is so risible about my claim?
Anonymous | 12.30.06 - 2:30 pm | #"
I'm assuming that was you, DWPittelli
What is risible? You're playing games. On the one hand you DISPLAY knowledge of history & politics & tell me such ridiculous things as 'War is a BLOODY business' so anything goes forever and ever no matter who marches first, & for whatever reason. And thus far you have consistently used this knowledge for gamemanship & self adoring rhetoric. You're not a serious person.
17 May 2001 State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "We're working toward what will be a significant change in our approach to Iraq in the United Nations... The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
But shortly after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration (and Tony Blair, and several members of Congress) suddenly began telling everybody that Saddam Hussein definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that those things constituted a clear and present danger against the United States.
No doubt you will mostly be glad to hear that I will leave you now, in favor of a sight where people who disagree with me actually bother to state their own positions and make coherent claims, other than about my supposed intellectual and character flaws. I am content in the belief that 90% of the electorate, were they to stumble on this post, would consider the bulk of you as politically about as persuasive as the John Birch Society. I sincerely hope you all work hard and visibly for the candidate of your choice in 2008, although I doubt the Democratic nominee will let you.
"No doubt you will mostly be glad to hear that I will leave you now, in favor of a sight where people who disagree with me actually bother to state their own positions and make coherent claims, other than about my supposed intellectual and character flaws. I am content in the belief that 90% of the electorate, were they to stumble on this post, would consider the bulk of you as politically about as persuasive as the John Birch Society. I sincerely hope you all work hard and visibly for the candidate of your choice in 2008, although I doubt the Democratic nominee will let you.
DWPittelli | 12.30.06 - 3:31 pm | #"
Perfect.
Boo Fucking Hoo.
DWP is taking his ball and going home.
...and foolish me was ready to dialogue because he/she actually has SOME knowledge.
.
.
pathetic
.
.
DWP is taking his ball and going home.
Yeah, ain't that a kicker. He knows that the Bush administration gamed this war. He's just trying to spin it. And once he realized that he wasn't going to get away with it...he splits.
The penalty for a President who goes to war without authorization (or commits any other major crime) is to be impeached and convicted by House and Senate.
That's in the US. There are international laws against waging aggressive war...certain people could (and in my opinion should) be arrested and sent to the Hague.
Pittelli elicits such acrimony and rancor from the surreptitiously, right wing liberal establishment because he is the monster cousin they so furtively hide in the dark corners of their own closets.
When he 'gets out,' liberal propriety demands he must be denounced, so that a false sense of separation may ensue- to mask the essential fealty, the liberal reciprocity with fascism.
When these 'progressives' look in the mirror that is whom they see: The America they so assiduously defend and love is essentially the fascism they so facilely excoriate.
Scratch a liberal and you find a Pittelli.
Why let him embarrass you? He is your pater familias.
Pittelli is only an 'American,' and not an atypical one. He must only be leashed, but never suppressed for that would violate the tenants of a spurious 'Democracy' these 'liberals' so unctuously celebrate.
You want to do 'something' about your Pittelli's? Learn to truly understand what America is. That is, truly learn to hate it. All else is inaccurate, a historical, sentimental palaver-the fatal addiction of all liberals.
Fascism and Republicanism must be suppressed, if not destroyed, not allowed to run free periodically to create the blood spoor they so relentlessly demand.
You cant do this with Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Harry Reid. They too, are not part of the problem, but the problem itself.
jam,
You are incorrect to label David Byron an 'ultra
leftist.'
He is in reality only a modest centrist. Of all the posters here about Byron is rigorous in his commonsensical, balanced approach; the only one actually interested in saying truthful things, not mimicking Democratic party nostrums.
You say "but their worse sin is that they are wordy-why use 10 words when 100 will do."
Again this is incorrect: When you have much to say, it takes 100 words to get it all in, not 10.
Jam, you should have stayed 'lurked' so that ignorant things stay in the digital murk.
ATTN Jill Barnes:
Am I correct in my understanding of your 12.30.06 - 5:10 pm post?......
Bubble - Fart - Babba - Grit - Molecule.
Is that about right?
Jesus ! !
OOPS
"ATTN Jill Barnes:"
Bains, not Barnes, damnit, ! BAINS ! .... (copy&paste is your friend).
I'm trying to interpert what you're saying, JB: and correct me if I'm wrong...
flip do blam tip om bib bib toop gip
Is that close?
Learn to truly understand what America is. That is, truly learn to hate it.
Then what?
Fascism and Republicanism must be suppressed, if not destroyed...
Ok, then, how?
You cant do this with Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Harry Reid. They too, are not part of the problem, but the problem itself.
Which politician isn't "part of the problem?" And again, what do you suppose is "THE" solution? Come on, everybody's waiting...
There were 660,000 coalition troops in the Gulf War, just to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. This was a largely kinetic combat operation, the type of warfare for which the US armed forces are trained and equipped. In contrast the occupation of Iraq is a counter insurgency or COIN operation, a far more delicate and difficult task that more resembles police work than kinetic combat and requires a far higher troop to population ratio than does kinetic combat. We only have 140,000 troops in Iraq at the moment and adding even 30,000 more will bring the total to just 170,000, a pathetically low number for a COIN operation. COIN doctrine calls for a 20/1000 ratio: twenty soldiers for every 1,000 civilians. For Iraq, outside of relatively stable Iraqi Kurdistan, that means 450,000 coalition forces, roughly three times what we will have with the current *surge* that is being contemplated. Unless adequate troop levels are in country then those troops are really no more than targets for the insurgents.
The general public has no clue as to the doctrinal FUBAR that Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld ordered over the expert advice of Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki. Shinseki is famous for his remarks to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee before the war in Iraq in which he said "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for post-war Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly disagreed with his estimate. General Shinseki was forced to retire and a more pliable General Schoomaker was installed in his place. On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, USCENTCOM Commanding General John Abizaid said that General Shinseki's estimate had proved correct.
In other words, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice completely ignored the professional advise given by General Shinseki and ordered the invasion of occupation of Iraq with only one third of the forces necessary to prevail and provide security for the citizens of Iraq. The forces of the USA and UK, as occupying powers under international law, have clear obligations to protect the Iraqi population. These obligations derive from international humanitarian law, which has long defined the rules on belligerent occupation, complemented by human rights law, which binds any state exercising jurisdiction or control over a territory.
By going into Iraq with insufficient forces to provide security for the Iraqi population the coalition forces, comprised mainly of the US and UK are in violation of international law. Bush, Cheney et al made a deliberate decision, over the advise of military experts, to invade and occupy Iraq without sufficient forces to maintain order in the occupied country.
This is the crime for which Bush and his cohort should be prosecuted. Knowingly and deliberately depriving the people of Iraq of adequate forces to protect them during the coalition occupation.
What Boudica said. I am going to lose sleep over this, as I would every execuation if I was aware of it and it was as prominently displayed.
And I'm going to continue to oppose the death penalty and thank whatever lucky stars I have that I wound up in a place as sane as Wisconsin, the oldest and longest jurisdiction in this country without a death penalty.
Nor will I engage in the perfunctory avowals that this death sentence was richly deserved, because I will refuse to give in to the mob and I will refuse to have my ethics called into question by people with blood on their hands and smears on their minds.
It's time to wise up and rise up, what's being done in our names is a disgrace of which we should be ashamed and outraged.
Saddham'sTrial & Execution In a nutshell:
A courtroom in Baghdad: good.
A courtroom in The Hague: bad.
Iraqi and coalition judges: good.
International jet-set judges: bad.
Swift execution: good.
Playing Scrabble with Slobo in the prison library for the next 20 years: bad.
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