Trial of Saddam Hussein & The Rule of Law

nb #15,
Always welcome to udaipur.
I`m sure u`ll enjoy the place.
Sorry for the digression Gajendra.

Adios

Bremer`s chotaa Kangaroo Court....for baraa criminal Sadaam -- whereas -- the BaRaa ICC for Chotaa criminal Bush...

not fair....discrimination...discrimination....discrimination....

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A thorough article. Too bad Mr. Singh does not interact.
I think that the neocons have already achieved their purpose. They have irreparably weakened a strong arab country, which was the beacon of progressive arab nationalism.

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nikki...
...hey i am in the chota apple...toronto...meanwhile why dont you come over to ``unplugged``...it`s more fun and needs characters like you to brighten up the place and fire up the imagination of your hated poonzabis and bhayya log...;)

[It will remain a matter of speculation why the US led Coalition decided to ‘capture’ Saddam Hussein last December and not kill him or had him assassinated as they had tried earlier many times. After all his sons Uday and Qusay could have been captured by waiting out but were killed in north Iraq city of Mosul after a 6 hour fierce battle.]

For the simple reason that the already outraged Arab world would never forgive the US (not that it has condoned the US actions now) for killing someone who resolutely stood up to them. The Arab/Muslim world has always worshipped men who haven`t buckled under threat, however cruel they be to their own countrymen. The backlash would have been simply too much for the US to take. Another reason could be that capturing Saddam alive would lift the sagging morale of the US troops in Iraq and shut the voices of the anti-war activists back home. Most of all, in an election year Bush needed to show something for all the troubles he put the nation to, or his then plunging popularity ratings would have taken a further nosedive.

#14 by soysauce

Yes! yours are all plausible scenarios but what you are missing is that now the President is red-faced and in the other situation (plant) the security agencies would have to answer for what they did.
Just look at this scenario: If they had faked the discovery of the WMDs, for most part they hide the trail as best as they could and use the media to make a huge splash. The Prez looks good the Repubs look good and in mostly likely situation a majority of public would have bought it any way. (Remember there are still people out there that don’t believe that Bushman lied!)

Now after two years of investigations somebody does find out that it was all a hoax or the skeptics keep harping that it is all made up but it would have been all too easy to dismiss that skepticism as “conspiracy theory” or just Leftwing shill.

So, there has to be more than what meets the eye in NOT finding the WMDs in Iraq and that’s not been answered by anybody yet.

nikki..give up the act...it was you who came with a chip on your shoulder and started bashing Punjabis from your first day on chowk.....I remember you were bashing sikhs from the first post of yours I ever saw on chowk. practice what your are preaching others now.

Gajendra, I also had no idea that Allawi was a former Brit/Yank spy. Who would tell me, Murdoch`s papers? Haven`t seen it in the major Indian papers either.
Thanks, Maharana, but you see why I thought you might be Gajendra? My mum loved Udaipur. I will go there when I can afford to stay at the Lake Palace-soon!!

#8 HP
Regarding planting WMD, I suppose the US could have done it and claimed that they had found it. Everyone else would then be skeptical. They could have planted the weapons and have had the UN found it. It would not be very easy because these things leave a trail - you had to find the factory that produced them, the people that produced them, the companies that supplied them, etc. They would have had to invent the whole schebang which again is not very easy to do and the cost if you get caught would be enormous. You can bet that Bush & co would have had to resign had they got caught. The risk to reward ratio was rather large.

On the article itself, it`s well-written and well-balanced. There is irony in there somewhere of accusing Saddam of the ``crime of invading a sovereign nation`` when the accusers themselves were put in there by an invading army! The hypocrisy of the west is astounding.

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nikki...

...my feelings exactly...shall we tango on that beach..? while these gfn (good for nothing) carry on with their cacophony...

[why are muslims from pakistan so hung-up about being muslim???...That`s what fascinates me so.]

...it`s natural..the hung-up part...and that fascinates most females.... ;)

Gajendra,

Good article depicting the other side of the story too. I`m not sure if saddam can be portrayed in positive light all the time. He has committed heineous crimes just to keep himself in power. But indeed the west is guilty too for being supportive of his misdeeds.
Having lived in the middle east for a while, I`ve known iraq to be more progressive than most of the other nations around. Comparing human rights & religious rights with saudi or yemen, iraq comes out with flying colours. Well afetr all you cannot discount the fact that iraq is the seat of one of the oldest civilizations fo the world.
On the western media, I`m a little cynical about them. They choose to tell us what we should know. And we are blinded with their power over selective information.

nb #7,

I`m not gajendra as it would be obvious by now. And yes I`m from udaipur (still the most beautiful city i`ve seen so far).

Adios

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Brilliant! A wonderful read. It had just the right mix of facts and insights.

My fiance recently exclaimed ,`` I just realized that the Iraqi people are in for a big loss by losing out on Saddam ! ``

Upon further query, he explained that Saddam will all his flaws had strengthened the nation economically and that he was the only perosn capable of easing tensions between the Sunnis and shias..

Anyhow, here are some excerpts from a website: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Saddam%20Hussein

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In 1973 Saddam was appointed a general in the Iraqi armed forces. He rapidly became the strongman of the regime, and was the de facto ruler of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq`s government and the Ba`ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon gained a powerful circle of support within the party.

As Iraq`s weak and elderly President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became increasingly unable to execute the duties of his office, Saddam began to take an increasingly prominent role as the face of the Iraqi government, both internally and externally. He soon became the sole architect of Iraq`s foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. By the late 1970s, Saddam had emerged as the undisputed de facto leader of Iraq.

Saddam`s consolidation of power and the modernization of Iraq

Saddam consolidated power in a nation ridden with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq has been split by social, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi`ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant.

Stable rule in a country torn by political factionalism and conflict required the improvement of living standards. Thus, Saddam, a rising star in the new regime, aided party attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba`ath party by taking a leading role in addressing the country`s major domestic problems and expanding the party`s following.

Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with consolidating his power base, he followed the administration and execution of state welfare and development programs closely. He played a leading role in the oil industry, Iraq`s major source of wealth. On June 1, 1972, he led the process of expropriating Western oil companies, which had had a monopoly on the country`s oil.

Due to the 1973 world oil shock, oil prices skyrocketed. Saddam pursued an ambitious agenda through oil revenues. Within a period of just several years, the state provided some social services to Iraqi people unprecedented in other Middle Eastern countries. Saddam initiated and led the the implementation of the ``National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy`` and the campaign for ``Compulsory Free Education in Iraq.``

Largely under Saddam`s auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels, supported families of soldiers killed in war, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. The government made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and development of other industries to diversify the oil-dependent economy.

Saddam supervised the modernization of the Iraqi countryside, the mechanization of agriculture on a large scale, and the distribution of land to farmers. He broke up the large holdings of the landowners and land to peasant farmers. He effected a comprehensive revolution in energy industries as well as in public services such as transport and education. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, including many communities in far outlying areas.

By focusing especially on the implementation role, Saddam became associated with Ba`athist welfare programs, thus widening his original popular base of support while co-opting new sectors of the Iraqi population. Part of a combination of ``carrot and stick`` tactics, expanding government services forged patron-client ties between Saddam and his support base within the party, government bureaucracy.

Saddam Hussein as a secular leader

Saddam saw himself as a social revolutionary and a modernizer, following the model of Nasser. To the consternation of Islamic conservatives, his regime gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to Islamic law. Saddam abolished the Sharia-law courts except for personal injury claims.

Domestic conflict impeded Saddam`s modernizing projects. Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam’s regime rested on the support of the 20% minority of largely working class, peasant, and petit bourgeois Sunni Muslims, continuing a pattern that dates back at least to the British mandate authority`s reliance on them as administrators.

The Shi`a majority were long a source of opposition to the government and constant vigilance was required to keep them subordinated, particularly after the Shi`a-led Iranian Revolution in 1979. Likewise, the Kurds in the north (who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba`athist party`s Arabising tendencies. Saddam had no choice but to rule as a dictator, because the Ba`athists could not have retained power any other way. At the core of Saddam`s regime was a retinue of close relatives and members of his Tikriti tribe.

Saddam justified Iraqi patriotism, in the form of claiming a unique role of Iraq in the history of the Arab world. As president, Saddam made frequent references to the Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political, cultural, and economic capital of the Arab world. He also promoted Iraq`s pre-Islamic role as the ancient cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, alluding to such historical figures as Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi. He devoted resources to archaeological explorations. In effect, Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world united and led by Iraq.

His propaganda reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant, and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would be portrayed as a dedicated Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca; at other times, he would be shown wearing a western business suit and sunglasses, brandishing a rifle over his head.

In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers. However, the 1978 the executions of Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union, which took on a more Western orientation from then until the Gulf War in 1991.

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Gajendra Singh Sahib,
This has to be one of the better articles that I have come across on this site in the last six months or so.
I think it is a very well researched & well put together article. While I agree with the main push of the article, I feel that there is lots of Anti-Americanism lurking behind there somewhere. I also feel that some of the arguments used are pretty much borrowed from the old left. Though nothing particularly wrong with that but when we come down to defending Sadam Hussein, we lose sight of the real issues. Sadam is not an issue after his ouster and that has been amply demonstrated by the Iraqi people. Iraqis are almost neutral or don’t give a damn about his fate.
We can argue about his actions in Kuwait and there is a strong possibility that he acted in Iraq’s national interests but those interests were; the power and wealth of his own coterie and not of the Iraqi people. His claim that Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraq and lowering the prices to hurt Iraq actually does not have much sway.
Iraq in 1990 was not the largest oil producer. in fact, it was not even the third or the fourth on the list. If Kuwait was pumping oil to lower the oil prices, it was actually hurting other countries more than Iraq. Then why Kuwait was so violently invaded by Iraq? The dispute on the Oil wells was not new at all. It was there for years and Iraq never did anything about it.
I agree that April Glaspie or the US may have misled Sadam, but since when playing some diplomatic games to get an enemy or perceived enemy were considered wrong in the international relations?
If we go by the history, we see lots of deceptions and games playing between nations thru out the history.
What is there to believe that Sadam himself was not playing some games there? May be he thought that the US was bluffing him?

That’s all history. The real issue is what is happening now in Iraq. There is lots of hurt and the US policies have not only failed Iraqis but its own people too. The flouting of the international treatise by the US is already showing deep impact in the international relations and the new administration in Washington will have to work double overtime to mitigate the damage done by the Bush admin.

I have a few questions and I have not been able to find answers to them. May be you have a better insight because you did bring that up in your article.

1 WMD. We know that the whole thing was all made up and there is nothing to prove that Iraq had the WMDs. Now, the US admin and the security agencies including the CIA are totally embarrassed about not finding WMD in Iraq. I think we all agree with that. It would be hard to believe that the real knowledgeable and the grown ups did not know that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the war. So, if they knew there were no WMDs or if they found out within days of Iraq occupation that there were no WMDs in Iraq then why did they not PLANT those WMDs in Iraq right away? It could not be a difficult thing to produce 5Lbs of Anthrax or Sarin or any malicious Chemical from the vast Iraqi desert and display that on the TV. Who was there to challenge the finding? My question: why the US did not do that?

2. The liar factor. By not finding even small quantity of WMDs, the US admin has completely lost its credibility in the eyes of the world and it is a matter of time before it loses credibility in the US also. Why all the agencies in the US allowed the US president to look like an idiot and a liar when they could have easily planted WMDs in Iraq and saved face?

3. True that Bush would like to use the Sadam trial for re-election, but there are enough forces within the establishment, that are adamant in not seeing Bush re-elected. Proof- The release of Abu ghraib pictures and a daily dose of tidbits that impact the Bush admin’s credibility. Obviously, there are forces within the establishment that are behind this campaign. It appears that they don’t want the US policy changed but they do want this president to go. Who are these people?

khamkhwa: eidaN keh pai ...ThanDi karke rakh ditti ay.:)

Gajendra, (Maharana?)
Are you from Udaipur?
Anyway, that`s a pretty good article! You can say that about the BBC but what if the choice is Sky News or Fox News?

nikki yaar...

your fire seems to have been extinguished by the punjabees...translated in hindi it would be...punjabion ne teri garmi khatam ker ke thanda ker diya ... please get back to your original self...

your fan
khamkhwa...;)

Good Essay. One could compare the following actions of USA and try to evlauate the legality of what is right and what is wrong.

Can a country decide that in a war on terror, who goes to Guantanemo Bay and who does not. Should the law not apply equally? Is not some sort of misjustice taking place even within the US Judicial system?

If Saddam the Supreme Commander of the Iraqi Forces was not Treated as a POW, was the change in his status legal? and who decides that in the same war some people will be treated as POWs and some as crimminals?

Why not hand over all Iraqi POWs to the Iraqi governing council?

Was the international tribunal bypassed because it does not carry a death sentence?

These are some of the material and technical irregularities which in the course of future history will set aside the US case.

Cheerios

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Vote Democrat 2004!...please don`t through your vote away to and third parties (Nader)...who split the democrat vote last time

Gujendra Sahib

US has been doing this for the past 80 years since world war I to helpless and poor third world nations. This is what puts food on the table and keeps them prosperous. In the past their crimes against other nations were hidden under the cloud of ideological fight against USSR. But now emperor is naked.