Hussein’s Execution — Some Additional Thoughts
Michael Novak, discussing the Hussein execution — and continuing to attempt to defend the justice of the Iraq war, which he and his colleagues have championed — has this to say:
The crucial point has been and is the rule of law. Under great
difficulties, and with considerable heroism and persistence, the legal
system of Iraq functioned in accord with that rule of law. That noble
achievement is now an imperishable marker in the history of the Middle
East. The rule of law applies without respect for persons. It applies
even to dictators of formerly unrivaled power. The law humbles all to
“equality under the law.”
Ah, yes. The “rule of law.” The Hussein execution was nothing if not a shining example of its virtues. First, there was the trial:
The trial was marred by defense team walkouts and boycotts, defendants
on hunger strikes, defendants dragged out kicking and screaming,
sessions with no defendants, and one defendant, Barzan Hassan, dressed
in underwear.
Hussein’s legal team expressed many criticisms and concerns about the proceeding. The
biggest one — the most persistent and basic — was the need for safety
for the attorneys in the volatile country. Throughout the Dujail trial,
three defense lawyers were killed and one fled the country after he was
seriously wounded.
Human Rights Watch, the watchdog group that
has regularly issued reports about the Hussein regime’s brutality over
the years, issued several critical reports about the Dujail trial. One
involved safety for defense counsel. Another said defendants had the
right to have the lawyers they wanted, not court-appointed lawyers they
rejected. That issue came up after the defendants’ chosen lawyers
walked out of the trial. Another concern involved “government
interference with the independence of the judges.” This came up when
lawmakers and officials criticized Amin and demanded his dismissal.
Human Rights Watch had other criticisms. Iraqi jurists and attorneys lacked “an understanding of international criminal law,” the group said. “The court’s administration has been chaotic and inadequate, making it unable to conduct a trial of this magnitude fairly.” “The
court has relied so heavily on anonymous witnesses that it has undercut
the defendants’ right to confront witnesses against them and
effectively test their evidence.”
Even the Bush administration is damning the trial with faint praise:
U.S. officials close to the court agree the trial was “not a perfect
process,” but they also say it was “a very fair trial.” The low point,
they say, was when the defense attorneys were killed.
The low point was when the defense lawyers were killed? I should hope so. Then, of course, there was the execution:
A new video that appeared on the Internet late Saturday, apparently
made by a witness with a camera cellphone, underscored the unruly,
mocking atmosphere in the execution chamber. This continued, on the video, through the actual hanging itself,
with a shout of “The tyrant has fallen! May God curse him!” as Mr.
Hussein hung lifeless, his neck snapped back and his glassy eyes open.
The cacophony from those gathered before the gallows included a
shout of “Go to hell!” as the former ruler stood with the noose around
his neck in the final moments, and his riposte, barely audible above
the bedlam, which included the words “gallows of shame.” It continued
despite appeals from an official-sounding voice, possibly Munir Haddad,
the judge who presided at the hanging, saying, “Please no! The man is
about to die.”
The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one
point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”— the name of a volatile cleric
whose private militia has spawned death squads that have made an
indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis — appending it to a Muslim
imprecation for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad. “Moktada,” Mr.
Hussein replied, smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave?”
I’m not going to shed any tears for Saddam Hussein. As I’ve already said, the procedural irregularities of his trial notwithstanding, there is no doubt about his guilt and I think his execution is actually a close case under the Church’s official teachings regarding the death penalty. But, please, is this the rule of law that 3000 American solidiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died to establish? The notion would be laughable if it were not so infuriatingly tragic. Michael Novak, however, is not one to let reality get in the way of his apologetics. “[T]he whole free world and all those opposed to
extremist, lawless terrorism,” he concludes, “have cause to rejoice.”
I do not disagree with the general thrust of your post. In looking back at our involvement in Iraq, I suspect most folks would concede that the situation there has been a growing fiasco.
Nonetheless, in pointing out the shortcomings of Hussein’s trial, might we not be looking through tinted glasses? Might we not be guilty of ethnocentrism in faulting the parties involved for failing to satisfy the well established legalities found in American trials? There is no question that Hussein was responsible for the deaths of thousands if not millions of his countrymen. Given the politico/socio/military situation, however, could we really have expected anything better?
The deed has been done, and we’re now faced with the big question of “What is next that our troops and their families have to put up with in Iraq?” (not to mention the poor Iraqis themselves!).
Joe — thanks for the commment. One quick point that I wanted to include in the main post but didnt’. You say “most folks would concede that the situation there has been a growing fiasco.”
Most folks, probably, but not all. Here’s what Novak says:
“The Coalition of anti-extremist forces had three aims in making war in Iraq in 2003: To topple a regime that was aiding and abetting terrorists and working to obtain weapons of mass destruction (especially chemical weapons, which it had already used against Iranians, the Kurds, and the Shiites of Iraq); second, to bring Saddam Hussein under the rule of law, according to the constitution that the Iraqi people themselves chose to live under; and, third, to support Iraq’s fledgling democracy until it can defend and sustain itself, as an ally of all nations opposed to extra-legal, extremist terrorism…..At this point, having achieved two out of three great, noble, and difficult purposes, the whole free world and all those opposed to extremist, lawless terrorism have cause to rejoice. And to draw long slow breaths of renewed purpose and determination.”
I’ve argued in the link below that the execution was wrong, not least because it represented venegance rather than true retributive justice (if such a thing is even possible). I based on argument on Avery Dulles’s 2002 essay in First Things.
http://reasons-and-opinions.blogspot.com/2007/01/avery-dulles-saddam-hussein-and-death.html
Military spokespeople said on the radio that had they been allowed to handle the execution, it would have gone much differently.
Meaning, I guess, that there would have been a certain amount of pomp and circumstance. A last meal and cigarette, perhaps. Maybe the condemned could have offered some decorous last words. A cleric of sympathetic but firm countenance might have stood by to offer last words of counsel and solace. And then white-garbed medical personnel could have strapped Saddam to a gurney and started an IV drip as the official witnesses watched in silence.
All stately, done by the book, and medically certified.
Really, these people have so much to learn from us about how to be really and truly civilized.
Elsewhere on National Review. Pay attention to the last sentence quoted here:
http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDk1Y2FjOGMyMzQyYTk3NTY5OTcyMjA3ODQ1NmFkMjE=
Despite what has been posted here on various arguments for the morality of executing Saddam, I am afraid that whatever value his death might have had for the new Iraq will be dissipated by the awful film of his last moments. There is good reason that we no longer have public hangings and executions. Of course they have to be witnessed, and maybe this one had to have some official footage in order to assure people that it had taken place, but what I have seen of the evidently unofficial film (and I guess no precautions were taken to insure against that) is an absolute disgrace, a violation of the whole procedure, removing it from the level of higher justice and putting it on the level of tribal vengeance. The film could even support the argument against capital punishment. In a film of this low level, looking like something that could have been done in the depths of the gulag, we do not see the cruel dictator who committed crimes against against humanity being executed honorably and in a dignified way—in a manner of death more humane than he inflicted on others—in order to serve justice, but a poor helpless human being having his God-given life taken away by ordinary men who have somehow been given power over him, some of whom taunted him in his last moments. And his executioners being hooded did not carry the idea that they were personifications of abstract justice, but suggested in that context the primitive, hooded, faceless murderousness of the Middle East that we often see in parades and funerals. Terrible, terrible, terrible, and another sign that Iraq is nowhere on the rule of law and that we have been utter fools to think that this society even understands the meaning of those words at this point.
Elsewhere on National Review. Pay attention to the last sentence quoted here:
http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDk1Y2FjOGMyMzQyYTk3NTY5OTcyMjA3ODQ1NmFkMjE=
Despite what has been posted here on various arguments for the morality of executing Saddam, I am afraid that whatever value his death might have had for the new Iraq will be dissipated by the awful film of his last moments. There is good reason that we no longer have public hangings and executions. Of course they have to be witnessed, and maybe this one had to have some official footage in order to assure people that it had taken place, but what I have seen of the evidently unofficial film (and I guess no precautions were taken to insure against that) is an absolute disgrace, a violation of the whole procedure, removing it from the level of higher justice and putting it on the level of tribal vengeance. The film could even support the argument against capital punishment. In a film of this low level, looking like something that could have been done in the depths of the gulag, we do not see the cruel dictator who committed crimes against against humanity being executed honorably and in a dignified way—in a manner of death more humane than he inflicted on others—in order to serve justice, but a poor helpless human being having his God-given life taken away by ordinary men who have somehow been given power over him, some of whom taunted him in his last moments. And his executioners being hooded did not carry the idea that they were personifications of abstract justice, but suggested in that context the primitive, hooded, faceless murderousness of the Middle East that we often see in parades and funerals. Terrible, terrible, terrible, and another sign that Iraq is nowhere on the rule of law and that we have been utter fools to think that this society even understands the meaning of those words at this point.
One has to admire Novak, whose principles are so strong that they seem impervious to facts, reason, or ethics.
Iraq was never a terrorist threat to the United States, even with its chemical weapons, which were initially supplied to them by us. It did not have a relationship with Al Qaeda. We did not have a right nor an obligation to invade Iraq in order to protect and defend its Constitution, which in any event became null and void as soon as we appointed a military governor. There is not nor has there ever been a democratic movement in Iraq in our secular sense of people who would utterly put nation and civil law above religion, tribe or ethnicity. And in the case of Novak’s obscene spin of “two out of three ain’t bad”, this is the argument of the incompetant surgeon who reports to the shocked widow that although the patient died, most of the operation was a success.
Novak is at least consistent. His opinions have changed over the years, but despite the changes he has been throughout consistently wrong-headed.
Unagidon fails to explain why he thinks Saddam was never a terrorist threat … doe she somehow believe that Saddam, who was one of the leading funders of suicide terrorist attacks on Israel (which, incidentally, have declined considerably since his funding of them ceased), would NOT have supplied weapons or oil money to fund groups that hate the United States? Hamas and Hezbollah are already threatening to attack US interests–it is unreasonable to believe that Saddam would not have asissted them in attacking us, given that he helped them attack Israel repeatedly? We overthrew Saddam because in the aftermath of 9-11 we felt it was too dangerous to leave a man like that, with his history, in control of a country with the technical capabilities and oil wealth to make advanced weapons. He used such weapons in the past; he certainly would have sought them in the future. The fact that he did not have such weapons at the moment we invaded him is unfortunate from the view of world opinion but it likely saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers during the war itself. Those who died in the aftermath did so because of msiatkes made after the fact–but the invasion itself and the ultimate execution of Saddam were completely justified. remember–read your history: the Nuremberg trials were also a bit of a fiasco, yet they helped lead to a free, democratic Germany that also had never had a history of liberal democracry.
How do you define “a history of liberal democracy,” and why doesn’t the Weimar Republic count?
Hussein didn’t “fund” suicide bombers in Palestine. He did, like a number of other Arab leaders, offer to give support to the families of suicide bombers. Most likely it was a pr stunt, but you are wrong if you think that by doing this, people were sending their sons and daughters out to be suicide bombers for the “bounty”.
As far as his general “background” as a bad man is concerned, this is an argument that only has appeal to people who don’t know much about other bad men in the Middle East. Who Saddam really was and what kind of threat he really posed has been totally revealed by subsequent events. He was a two bit Third World with a weak army and really no bite at all. In other words, he was not a threat and people who still say that he was are still taking counsel of their fears.
“One has to admire Novak, whose principles are so strong that they seem impervious to facts, reason, or ethics.”
The opinion of many that he sold out for money seems accurate. He is certainly not alone here whether you look right or left.
Bill,
To suggest that Novak has never had a clue is one thing, to say that he has been bribed by some dark forces is another. Have you any evidence? Who would buy a spokesman as unconvincing as MN?
Not a bribe, Joe. He clearly saw a niche there for him and he filled it big time and with ample compensation. Notice that I wrote that he has company on the left.
I strongly believe that many people are conservative or liberal because of the economic benefits. An interesting couple in this regard is Matlin and Carville. That family will always be working.
By the way, Augustine, Jerome, Basil and Ambrose were very good about courting the rich. It is an area that needs more honesty.
Very few have meals with the homeless where Jesus infallibly assured those of his kingdom would be.
Bill,
Yes, Novak has had an eye for the niche. There are people one is wary of finding oneself in agreement with. He is one of them, to my mind. The problem is that anyone can be right once in a while.