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Saddam Hussein pleads not guilty to court. Everyone is SHOCKED

Saddam pleads not guilty and he also says that the real criminal is Bush. (link to AP article at MSNBC)

Everyone is acting like this is big news when it’s not. Of course he says he’s not guilty, that’s the purpose of the trial, to prove his guilt. Unless he was offered some kind of plea bargain, what idiot would plead guilty?

The whole concept of a trial for Saddam Hussein is a dumb idea anyway. I don’t understand the legal basis for it. He didn’t violate any Iraqi laws, he was the law. Not exactly the style of government I endorse, but there are loads of other dictators just as guilty as Hussein, why aren’t they on trial?

One of the basic rights of criminal defendants is that they can only be convicted of crimes that existed as crimes at the time the act was committed. This is enshrined in Art. 1, Sec. 10 of the United States Constitution which prohibits any State from passing an ex post facto law. This is even more important than anything in the Bill of Rights, because the Bill of Rights wasn’t intended to apply to the States.

We don’t need a trial to hold Saddam, he’s an enemy whom we were at war with. That’s enough. We didn’t have to have a trial to hold the enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay (the Supreme Court only held they have to have access to the courts, not a trial), and we didn’t have to hold a trial every time one of our warplanes dropped a bomb that surely killed people that it hit on the ground.

Pat Buchanan agrees with Saddam Hussein that the trial will help President Bush win reelection. But he’s skeptical about whether this will help us in the Arab world. By giving Saddam a soapbox to speak out against America, he is likely to become a hero to the Arab street.

A war crimes trial against Hussein, held in Iraq, is such a big juicy target for insurgents that it’s hard to imagine how they will get through the trial without terrorist attacks killing some of the participants.

Meanwhile, has anyone considered the worst possible outcome? Saddam Hussein is found not guilty, and then he runs for President in the democratic Iraq, wins the election, and he’s back in charge of the country.

posted Thursday, July 01, 2004

2 Comments:

By Alicia:

I disagree with you on several points.

First, the trial of Saddam in Iraq IS big news for several reasons. First, the Iraqi people will see that the U.S. has kept its word by allowing them control of the fate of their tormentor. Second, it further helps dispel the image that the Iraqis had of Saddam being above everything so that they see him for what he really is: a mere human with a vicious character. Third, it helps to legitimize the current Iraqi government and provides closure to the old government. Moreover, just because other evil dictators escape justice does not mean that the Saddam is entitled to the same good luck. Frankly, I hope that all those nasty SOBs get their comeuppins, and soon.

I am reminded of the time when Oliver Cromwell had Charles I beheaded without the appearance of justice (the indictment of him being a total sham). This resulted in a backlash of public sentiment against the revolution (and eventually the reinstatement of the monarchy after Cromwell's death). The backlash was in no small part contributable to the general culture (harkening back to the medieval ages) that kings possessed a God-given higher stature than ordinary citizens. I believe that Iraq is in a similar culture (though more sustained by fear, than anything) and that without a flagrant show of justice and due process, Saddam's execution would be remembered disfavorably. I am not comparing the U.S. to Oliver Cromwell, really, but just pointing out historical context for analysis.

You are right, though: the fact that he pled not guilty isn't shocking at all. Saddam is egomaniacal and believes that he really isn't guilty of crimes because he makes the law. But that has nothing to do with a rational course of dealing as a criminal defendant.

First, you assume that the purpose of this court is to prove his guilt. That would be the case in an adversarial system, but the Iraqis have apparently adopted a civil system. They might not even have a plea bargaining mechanism. Thus, the purpose of the court is to ascertain truth via active investigation, be it his guilt or otherwise. We all know Saddam is guilty of the acts that the court charged him with based on plenty of direct evidence and Saddam's own admissions; Saddam doesn't even deny them now. So, the real question is whether those acts constitute crimes.

Despite your ex post facto argument, I say that his acts still constitute crimes because I don't believe in a purely positivist view of law. Genocide, murder, and human torture are evil and criminal inherently. Though I think that killing and torture's evil nature may be rebuttable when war is necessary, Saddam's wars were not justified, nor was his brutal treatment of dissenters. Personal power grabs do not justify the liberal use of pain and death.

Moreover, the reason behind the ex post facto prohibition in the Constitution is that we want to avoid the governmental oppression that occurs when the government conveniently creates crimes in order to put unsuspecting people into prison without notice. Because of the inherently evil nature of his acts, Saddam had plenty of notice that he might someday have to pay for them; this has nothing to do with the capriciousness of the Iraqi government. (I shall only mention briefly that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to an Iraqi court anyway and that Article I's relative merits to the Bill of Rights is completely irrelevant to this situtation.)

You are right that we did not need to hold a trial for Saddam if he had been killed in action. However, once captured, it seems abusive of the generally accepted rules of war to summarily execute him. Call it a throwback to outdated notions of chivalric warfare -- but whatever. Again, the U.S. isn't the sovereign seeking authority to try Saddam -- it is Iraq. The U.S. is handing him over as a political courtesy more than anything else.

You are also right that this is a huge terrorist target. Whether the good of the trial outweighs this risk is yet to be seen; though I believe it will. If Saddam is found to be not guilty of crimes, the U.S. may still try him directly (for conspiracy to murder President Bush at the very least), so the scenario that he will walk free again is highly unlikely.

Saddam will definitely use this is a soapbox. I don't think it matters much, though, because sympathetic Arabs have already glorified him and Americans will generally discount what he says. I am reminded of your recent article on cognitive dissonance. Nonetheless, I hope that it doesn't turn into the circus that Milosevic's trial has become.

posted at 7/02/2004 2:20 PM

By blogdisher04:

My oppinion on this is that i do believe it is somewhat dumb to give saddam a trial but, at the same time i do believe we should keep our word to the iraqies and give him a trial and i do believe many of the arabs do look up to him an fd support him and i am sure that support will grow stronger through all this but at the end of this i hope the outcome is for all of the familys he has hurt , and he is found guilty .

posted at 7/27/2004 12:16 AM