Making a Martyr Out of Saddam - Time (Robert Baer)

[WillyT]

{Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.}

<snip>

Now is not the time to execute Saddam Hussein. With Iraq still under coalition occupation, as far as Iraqis are concerned the rope around Saddam's neck will be American. The Shi'a and the Kurds may not care whose rope it is — they just want the man dead and their pound of revenge. But for the Sunni, Saddam will become an instant martyr.

You'd be hard pressed to find a Sunni — or for that matter anyone else — who thinks Saddam's trial was fair or impartial. The Coalition Provisional Authority, the institution dedicated to dismantling Saddam's regime, established Saddam's tribunal. Its first head was the nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who dedicated his life to destroying Saddam. The tribunal's presiding judge is a Kurd from Halabjah, the Kurdish city Saddam gassed in 1988. How could the man vote other than to execute Saddam and still expect to go home to Kurdistan?

The list goes on. Iraq's judiciary clearly is not independent — the Shi'a-led council of ministers has appointed and removed the tribunal's judges according to political whim. Saddam's trial was conducted inside the Green Zone, protected by American forces and paid for by American money. The U.S. Department of Justice was integral to the prosecution's investigation and training the tribunal's judges and lawyers.

Sunnis aren't alone in their view of the trial. Europe refused to participate in it because it believed the trial could not be fair and his execution would be a foregone conclusion. The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers of the Human Rights Council issued a press statement that the tribunal is illegitimate.

<snip>

Link: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1573220,00.html

I have that really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach over this. I ain't no fan of Saddam's, but there is absolutely no legitimate hurry to perform this execution. And the fact that it is driven by this particular U.S. administration, at this particular time, is the ultimate in gall.

Maybe that's it. It's the bile from the gall that's got my stomach in a knot.

Impeach, and put on trial, George W. bush et. al.!

:puke: