An Iraqi court has sentenced U.S.-toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to hang for war crimes committed against 148 adults and children whose deaths he ordered after a failed 1982 assassination attempt against him in the Iraqi Shi'ite town of Dujail. The story here from Associated Press. 
If upheld after appeals are exhausted in the next month, the sentence would foreclose Saddam answering charges on his involvement in many other mass killings that he and his Sunni Muslim Baath Party thugs ordered for insufficiently cowed Iraqis during his tenure as Iraq's Maximum Malefactor. Such as Kurds in the north, more Shi'ites in the south, and, oh, yes; the roughly 300,000 Iraqis believed to have been buried in mass graves during Saddam's 23-year reign, as noted by not only Fox News, but also those Bush-ite dupes at BBC.
We are now supposed to be worried about Sunni and jihadist reactions to the sentence Saddam has received. The top-linked AP story notes one Iraqi Sunni politico declaring there will be anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of killings in response to the outrage of Saddam finally facing justice. A "respected" Thai Muslim cleric is quoted as well, saying the punishment meted to Saddam will "turn to hell for the Americans."
I'm sure that's the hope, for some. I rather doubt it , though. Buried within the AP story are a few telling details. During his trial, Saddam dug his own grave with the admission that:
.....he had ordered the trial of (the) 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in the assassination attempt against him....About 50 of those sentenced by the "Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were children.
So let's see: killings based on suspicions rather than convictions in an impartial court; deaths during interrogation; and the hanging of children - under Saddam's rule. Hmmmmn. I'm not sure where the valorous and principled defenders of jihadists now in U.S, custody were, back then.
Yes, I'd say justice has been rendered.
TECHNORATI TAGS: SADDAM HUSSEIN, SENTENCE, HANGING, IRAQ
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 5, 2006 12:48 PM
Whether Saddam received a just sentence and whether it will be so perceived around the world are separate questions.
I have no doubt that he got what he deserved, but I suspect that many Sunnis, even those who hated him, will regard the process that led him to the gallows as no more legitimate than the electoral process that put the Shiites in power. Therein lies the core of our predicament, not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. There is no general agreement on the standards for measuring the legitimate transfer or exercise of power, and we have so far been unable to facilitate one.
Posted by: Tom Rekdal at November 5, 2006 03:04 PM