Word: saddamism
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...that I believe Saddam got a raw deal. Some opponents of his execution say the trial's flaws - compounded by the climate of intimidation surrounding it, during which two defense lawyers and a judge were assassinated - are sufficient to justify sparing his life. (Human Rights Watch outlines the trial's deficiencies here: http://hrw.org/reports/2006/iraq1106/). But it's doubtful that any proceeding held in Iraq today would have turned out any differently. The fundamental question before the tribunal's judges - whether the prosecution could prove Saddam's direct complicity in the Dujail massacre - was settled when prosecutors produced killing orders...
...anyone interested in holding the world's worst despots accountable for their crimes, the Iraqi High Tribunal's conviction of Saddam for the 1982 massacre in Dujail should be cause for celebration. And considering that the 148 people killed in Dujail amount to only a tiny fraction of the thousands who died under Saddam's murderous rule, it's perverse to claim that capital punishment did not fit the magnitude of his crimes. By most codes of retributive justice, execution is the only worthy end to such a brutal life. But it is also a mistake...
...case against executing Saddam has little to do with justice. (Though it has some: as Gary J. Bass has argued, Saddam still faces trial for an even worse offense, the genocide of Kurds at Anfal in 1988, which will never be prosecuted adequately if he is put to death now.) It comes down instead to politics. In a perfect world, Iraq's courts would be free of sectarian biases and worthy of public trust. But many Sunnis who loathed Saddam distrust the institutions of the Shi'ite-led government even more. I doubt that most Sunnis will view Saddam...
...Iraqis who suffered under Saddam would be outraged at the idea of granting him clemency. But beyond the fleeting, visceral satisfaction of giving Saddam the same violent end that he administered to his victims, there's little political upside for the Iraqi government in putting him to death. It will not slow down the pace of Iraq's sectarian slaughter, which is being driven by an array of uncontrollable forces. But it will almost certainly fuel Sunni rage and scuttle Pri me Minister Nouri al-Maliki's program of reconciliation, which may be the last chance to avoid an even...
...That, of course, would require the U.S. to intervene in the case, which the Bush Administration is determined not to do. U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq abolished the death penalty after Saddam's fall in 2003, out of fear that it could be too easily abused by Iraqis out to settle scores with their former Baathist tormentors. But capital punishment returned with the ratification of a new constitution in 2005. Whatever the Administration's true feelings about the wisdom of executing Saddam in such a heated environment, the U.S. appears prepared to allow the Iraqis to do as they please...