So, I'm watching live coverage of the Saddam trial,

and Saddam's on a rant.

He's telling the judge that he's being tried by illegal invaders in an occupied country... Then the camera, which is apparently controlled by the new Iraqi government, suddenly cuts away and the sound is muted because there are some things the world simply cannot be permitted to hear.

This is the "democracy" Americans died for.

When do you think the pro-Saddam rallys will begin in Sunni territory. And will US troops permit them? Will there be a news blackout a la Baghdad Bob? "There are no demonstrations at the airport."

Certainly not anything involving the USA. Those stories will come out over time as they have. Once the USA is not running things on the ground. Saddam did murder thousands of innocents. Without prodding from the USA.

He will be found guilty on those counts. And really - there are so many war crimes - prosecutors get to pick and choose.

Actually he is facing neither charge at present. It seems the present charges are murder, torture, forced expulsions and illegal detentions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051128.w2saddam1128/BNStory/International/

Just wondering how you can be so certain he will be found guilty unless you know the trial is fixed.

fact he committed war crimes but is not at the ICC.

He will be found guilty because he murdered so many people and used chemical weapons against so many people and destroyed the farm land of so many subsistance farmers and murdered people again - perfectly innocent civilians often - sometimes to punish a kinsman for being political - that he will be found guilty.

And hey - this is Iraq. Do they have the presumption of innocence there?

SAddam was not a tin pot dictator. There are hundreds of thousands who are murdered because of him. They have thousands of crimes to choose to try him on.

Obviously they will choose to try him on crimes that do not embarrass the USA. That is Iraq being very pragmatic. And since they are dependant on US air cover to keep from being invaded by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for that oil - me doubts any trial involving American intelligence leading up to the crime, or sales of biological agents to SAddam by the USA - me doubts any of these trials will take place.

Are not the Rumsfield's of the world lucky that Saddam committed so many attrocities that there is a 100 percent change of him being convicted without having to put anyone in the CIA on the stand?

Lucky him.

Poor you.

Oh - and poor the 2000 villagers who were gassed. And all the other thousands and thousands of victims. Some dead. Some alive. Some with a family member un-accounted for. But lucky for them that in some way they will get a day in court. Even if it is only to watch Saddam's trial for the murder of someone else and not their own family member. Everyone in their country will have a vague shared understanding of what it meant to be a victim of Saddam.



Just because you hate Bush so much (as do we all) don't get so blind that you will let Cheney dance you outside of your own dam self. You don't like genocidal maniacs anymore than anyone else does. Saddam Hussein was one for almost a decade (before & after that he was just a murderous strongman).

That is his main argument isn't it? That he broke no Iraqi law at the time.

I would love to see him and the current invaders tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Wars of aggression after all are the supreme international crime. The Iraqi government and media are as guilty of that crime in the past as the US and UK governments are now.

But these smaller crimes that he is currently being tried for may not have been illegal under Iraqi law at the time.

As far as Saddam being a genocidal maniac while he was an ally of the US, I'd still like to see proof of the hundreds of thousands of mass graves. I just don't know how much of it is propaganda and how much is real.

within the laws of the planet - at least at this point. You are playing with semantics.

One of the defence's main arguments is going to be that Saddam's actions when in power were immune from prosecution by virtue of clauses in the Iraqi constitution.

Let the courts decide. Don't invest in Saddam. He is a monster.

But he did commit the supreme international crime - starting a war of aggression.

the defence was crying yesterday that they didn't get "all the death certificates" in disclosure.

The International Criminal Court is quite upset that they are not doing this trial. I would be too. They are trying to build case law and precedents for international war criminals. The US is trying to not do that precedent. Plust they get to put pressure on which crimes Saddam will be tried on. He did so much that was horrendous that the prosecutors can easily convict him of the death of thousands without involving testimony from anyone in George I adminsitration.

Not perfect.

But what the people in Iraq need. Those many, many victims. A trial that itemizes it. To bring Iraqis together in a shared moment for once.

I kind of doubt it. I guess a fair portion of the Sunni population won't be rejoicing over Saddam's conviction.

I'm still waiting for evidence of those many many mass graves. I don't mean the ones the US created.

Doesn't the enormity of the hypocrisy of all this just make you want to puke?

a hard time sugar-coating Saddam when the vitims and families speak. Sunnis don't need to be rejoicing. They need a little dose of the truth. Saddam was bad. They can make a better country without him.

"They need a little dose of the truth...They can make a better country without him."

Just like so many US politicians and their patronising statements implying Iraqis are children who need to be helped along and taught to look after themselves by enlightened Westerners. Who are you or me to say what they need or don't need.

a starched white shirt and overcoat in the court room!?

They certainly don't give a shit about killing innocent people as we all know here.