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| The Atlantic Affairs Security. Ideologies. Multiculturalism. |
The injustice of Saddam Hussein's trial
By Elan Journo
Posted: March 6, 2006
The American-endorsed trial of Saddam Hussein is touted as an
opportunity to render justice and lay the groundwork for an Iraqi transition
from the arbitrary courts of a dictatorship to a proper legal system. But the
trial will accomplish neither goal.
A trial that presumes Hussein's innocence can achieve nothing but a
travesty of justice.
Saddam Hussein is not a private citizen, whose guilt requires proof in an
objective court of law, but a dictator whose incontestable evil was manifest
to any rational observer of his tyranny. The Bush administration, after all,
determined that Hussein was so vicious that we had to go to war to topple
his regime.
Once we defeat and capture a militant dictator like Hussein, he deserves to
be definitively condemned as evil and then executed--immediately, or after
any valuable information is extracted from him. Prior to his execution, there
can be a legitimate reason to hold a public hearing--not to establish his
guilt, but to fully expose his secretive dictatorship by publicly cataloguing its
myriad vile deeds.
Such a hearing would recognize that, unlike a private citizen, a dictator is
responsible not merely for his own individual acts of violence but for all
crimes committed by his regime, whether or not in any given case he
himself pulled the trigger or gave a direct order to murder the victims.
But the trial now underway evades Hussein's incontrovertible culpability,
absurdly presumes him innocent, and demands that his "command
responsibility" be established for particular acts of murder.
In the case that began Oct. 19, the prosecution is required to prove that
Hussein specifically ordered his thugs to carry out the 1982 massacre of
some 140 people. This is as perverse as presuming Hitler, Stalin, or Mao
innocent in the millions murdered by their regimes--and then groping for
evidence that they personally ordered the execution of a handful of
dissidents in one small village.
It is outrageous that after more than 2 years into a war that has cost billions
of dollars and thousands of American lives, we regard as legitimate the
possibility that Hussein could be found culpable for only some minuscule
number of murders or even not guilty.
It is outrageous that Hussein is given a defense team of 1,500 lawyers, that
he is granted the right to appeal a guilty verdict, and that he is allowed to
address the court. In one more injustice against all his victims, domestic
and foreign, Saddam Hussein has eagerly exploited this international
stage, paid for with American money and blood, to challenge and scold his
Iraqi victims, to rail against the United States, and to cheer on the
insurgents murdering Americans.
And yet this trial, the epitome of injustice, is defended as paving the way for
a truly just legal system. Proponents argue that, whatever one thinks of the
specifics of the trial, it marks the transformation of Iraq's judiciary from
courts subservient to a dictator's whims, to courts objectively determining
guilt or innocence. But the trial does no such thing.
Observe that only Iraqis were deemed qualified to decide Hussein's
culpability. With President Bush's encouragement and blessing, the Iraqi
leadership was given full control of the proceedings, and deliberately
excluded American judges. Though there are plenty of US judges with
decades of experience under a proper legal system -- and few, if any Iraqis
with comparable experience -- American participation was viewed as
unacceptable. Why were only members of Hussein's ethnic tribe deemed fit
to judge him?
Because justice, on the premise of the trial, is determined by the tribe; the
tribe alone is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil,
innocence and guilt. On this view, a meticulously logical assessment of
universally available facts has no bearing on justice. Whatever the tribal
group feels is just--regardless of evidence or logic--is just. A trial conducted
on this premise is a repudiation of justice as an objective principle.
The trial is not, in essence, a departure from the subjective courts of the
former regime. Instead of Hussein capriciously prescribing a "just" verdict,
that arbitrary power now belongs to the Iraqi tribe--or any sub-tribe (whether
Sunni, Shiite, Kurd) that wrests control of the courts.
This trial is irredeemably corrupt. The United States--which gave Iraq
millions of dollars and sent lawyers and forensic investigators to launch the
proceedings--must immediately withdraw its moral sanction from this
travesty of justice.
### ### ###
The writer is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.
By Elan Journo
Posted: March 6, 2006
The American-endorsed trial of Saddam Hussein is touted as an
opportunity to render justice and lay the groundwork for an Iraqi transition
from the arbitrary courts of a dictatorship to a proper legal system. But the
trial will accomplish neither goal.
A trial that presumes Hussein's innocence can achieve nothing but a
travesty of justice.
Saddam Hussein is not a private citizen, whose guilt requires proof in an
objective court of law, but a dictator whose incontestable evil was manifest
to any rational observer of his tyranny. The Bush administration, after all,
determined that Hussein was so vicious that we had to go to war to topple
his regime.
Once we defeat and capture a militant dictator like Hussein, he deserves to
be definitively condemned as evil and then executed--immediately, or after
any valuable information is extracted from him. Prior to his execution, there
can be a legitimate reason to hold a public hearing--not to establish his
guilt, but to fully expose his secretive dictatorship by publicly cataloguing its
myriad vile deeds.
Such a hearing would recognize that, unlike a private citizen, a dictator is
responsible not merely for his own individual acts of violence but for all
crimes committed by his regime, whether or not in any given case he
himself pulled the trigger or gave a direct order to murder the victims.
But the trial now underway evades Hussein's incontrovertible culpability,
absurdly presumes him innocent, and demands that his "command
responsibility" be established for particular acts of murder.
In the case that began Oct. 19, the prosecution is required to prove that
Hussein specifically ordered his thugs to carry out the 1982 massacre of
some 140 people. This is as perverse as presuming Hitler, Stalin, or Mao
innocent in the millions murdered by their regimes--and then groping for
evidence that they personally ordered the execution of a handful of
dissidents in one small village.
It is outrageous that after more than 2 years into a war that has cost billions
of dollars and thousands of American lives, we regard as legitimate the
possibility that Hussein could be found culpable for only some minuscule
number of murders or even not guilty.
It is outrageous that Hussein is given a defense team of 1,500 lawyers, that
he is granted the right to appeal a guilty verdict, and that he is allowed to
address the court. In one more injustice against all his victims, domestic
and foreign, Saddam Hussein has eagerly exploited this international
stage, paid for with American money and blood, to challenge and scold his
Iraqi victims, to rail against the United States, and to cheer on the
insurgents murdering Americans.
And yet this trial, the epitome of injustice, is defended as paving the way for
a truly just legal system. Proponents argue that, whatever one thinks of the
specifics of the trial, it marks the transformation of Iraq's judiciary from
courts subservient to a dictator's whims, to courts objectively determining
guilt or innocence. But the trial does no such thing.
Observe that only Iraqis were deemed qualified to decide Hussein's
culpability. With President Bush's encouragement and blessing, the Iraqi
leadership was given full control of the proceedings, and deliberately
excluded American judges. Though there are plenty of US judges with
decades of experience under a proper legal system -- and few, if any Iraqis
with comparable experience -- American participation was viewed as
unacceptable. Why were only members of Hussein's ethnic tribe deemed fit
to judge him?
Because justice, on the premise of the trial, is determined by the tribe; the
tribe alone is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil,
innocence and guilt. On this view, a meticulously logical assessment of
universally available facts has no bearing on justice. Whatever the tribal
group feels is just--regardless of evidence or logic--is just. A trial conducted
on this premise is a repudiation of justice as an objective principle.
The trial is not, in essence, a departure from the subjective courts of the
former regime. Instead of Hussein capriciously prescribing a "just" verdict,
that arbitrary power now belongs to the Iraqi tribe--or any sub-tribe (whether
Sunni, Shiite, Kurd) that wrests control of the courts.
This trial is irredeemably corrupt. The United States--which gave Iraq
millions of dollars and sent lawyers and forensic investigators to launch the
proceedings--must immediately withdraw its moral sanction from this
travesty of justice.
### ### ###
The writer is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.
| (c) 2006 The Atlantic Affairs |