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Baghdad Burning: Mother of All Trials...
I didn't get to see the beginning of the trial today. We were gathered in the kitchen after a brief rodent scare, trying to determine where the mouse had come from when I was attracted by the sound of yelling coming from the living room.
The cousin was standing in front of the television adjusting the volume and there was a lot of bellowing coming from the court. That was nearly the beginning- the defense lawyers were pulling out of the trial because apparently, Ramsey Clark wasn't allowed to speak in English- something to do with the sovereignty of the court or trial and the impropriety of speaking in a foreign language (slightly ironic considering the whole country is under foreign occupation). The lawyers were back later- although I didn't see that either.
I really began watching when they brought on the first witness, who was also the first plaintiff. He talked about the whole Dujail situation and his account was emotional and detailed. The details were intriguing considering he was only 15 years old at the time. The problem with his whole account is that so much of it is hearsay. He heard from someone that something happened to someone else, etc. Now, I'm not a lawyer but I'm a fan of The Practice and if watching Dylan McDermott has taught me anything, it's that hearsay is not acceptable evidence.
The second witness was more to the point but he was 10 when everything happened and that didn't help his case. In the end, when the judge asked him who he was making a complaint against, he said he wasn't making a complaint against anyone. Then he changed his mind and said he was complaining against one of the accused… Then he added his complaint was against anyone convicted of the crime... And finally it was a complaint against "All Ba'athists at the time".
Couldn't they find more credible witnesses? They were fifteen and ten at the time... it just doesn't make sense.
At one point, the defense lawyers wanted to leave the trial yet again because apparently some security guard or police officer was threatening them from afar- making threatening gestures, etc. The judge requested that he be pulled out of the court (the security person), but not before hell broke loose in the court. Saddam began yelling something, the defense lawyers were making accusations and Barazan got up and began shouting at the person we couldn't see.
The court was a mess. There was a lot of yelling, screaming, sermonising, ranting, accusing, etc. I felt bad for the judge. He really seemed to be trying hard to control the situation, but everyone kept interrupting him, and giving him orders. He's polite and patient, he'd make a good divorce judge- but I don't think he's strong enough for the court. He just doesn't have the power to keep the court in its place.
It wasn't really like a trial. It reminded me of what we call a 'fassil' which is what tribal sheikhs arrange when two tribes are out of sorts with one another. The heads of the tribes are brought together along with the principal family members involved in the rift and after some yelling, accusations, and angry words they try to sort things out. That's what it felt like today. They kept interrupting each other and there was even some spitting at one point… It was both frustrating and embarrassing- and very unprofessional.
One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.
It makes one wonder when Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest will have their day, as the accused, in court.
I really began watching when they brought on the first witness, who was also the first plaintiff. He talked about the whole Dujail situation and his account was emotional and detailed. The details were intriguing considering he was only 15 years old at the time. The problem with his whole account is that so much of it is hearsay. He heard from someone that something happened to someone else, etc. Now, I'm not a lawyer but I'm a fan of The Practice and if watching Dylan McDermott has taught me anything, it's that hearsay is not acceptable evidence.
The second witness was more to the point but he was 10 when everything happened and that didn't help his case. In the end, when the judge asked him who he was making a complaint against, he said he wasn't making a complaint against anyone. Then he changed his mind and said he was complaining against one of the accused… Then he added his complaint was against anyone convicted of the crime... And finally it was a complaint against "All Ba'athists at the time".
Couldn't they find more credible witnesses? They were fifteen and ten at the time... it just doesn't make sense.
At one point, the defense lawyers wanted to leave the trial yet again because apparently some security guard or police officer was threatening them from afar- making threatening gestures, etc. The judge requested that he be pulled out of the court (the security person), but not before hell broke loose in the court. Saddam began yelling something, the defense lawyers were making accusations and Barazan got up and began shouting at the person we couldn't see.
The court was a mess. There was a lot of yelling, screaming, sermonising, ranting, accusing, etc. I felt bad for the judge. He really seemed to be trying hard to control the situation, but everyone kept interrupting him, and giving him orders. He's polite and patient, he'd make a good divorce judge- but I don't think he's strong enough for the court. He just doesn't have the power to keep the court in its place.
It wasn't really like a trial. It reminded me of what we call a 'fassil' which is what tribal sheikhs arrange when two tribes are out of sorts with one another. The heads of the tribes are brought together along with the principal family members involved in the rift and after some yelling, accusations, and angry words they try to sort things out. That's what it felt like today. They kept interrupting each other and there was even some spitting at one point… It was both frustrating and embarrassing- and very unprofessional.
One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.
It makes one wonder when Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest will have their day, as the accused, in court.
For more information:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_12_...
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Saddam Hussein shouted that he would not return "to an unjust court" after spending the fourth day of his trial listening stony-faced to a woman describe horrific tortures inflicted on her by Iraqi interrogators.
She was known only as "Witness A," testifying from behind a blue curtain, her voice electronically distorted as she told of beatings and electric shocks.
Describing her treatment by Wadah al-Sheik, an Iraqi intelligence officer who died of cancer last month, the woman said: "I was forced to take off my clothes, and he raised my legs up and tied up my hands. He continued administering electric shocks and beating me."
Sometimes bursting into tears and moaning "God is great. Oh my Lord", the woman, who was 16 at the time, told the court in Baghdad what had happened to the women and children from the Shia town of Dujail detained after a failed attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1982.
"I begged them but they hit me with their pistols," she said. "They made me put my legs up. There were five or more and they treated me like a banquet."
She gave a graphic description of the cruelties inflicted on the prisoners during her four years imprisonment. "One of my relatives was mute and deaf. They would take him before the women and hold him by his penis and mock him, making the women and children cry." At first she was tortured in the intelligence centre. She implied but did not say that she was raped. "Is that what happens to the virtuous woman that Saddam speaks about?" she said. Asked whom she held responsible, Witness A identified Saddam: "When so many people are jailed and tortured, who takes such a decision?"
In the intelligence centre in Dujail she was kept in a small red room with no light. She used her shoes as a pillow. She was given two small loaves of bread a day to eat. "After all that torture do you think we could eat?" she asked. In other prisons, at Abu Ghraib and Samawah, the mistreatment continued. She said: "This woman was giving birth, and they wouldn't let another woman help her. The foetus was stuck." The baby suffocated.
Two other anonymous witnesses were also concealed behind a curtain. Witness C described how his 65-year-old father had died after being beaten over the head. He said: "My father died in prison and I was not able to see him."
This prompted an outburst from Saddam Hussein. He said the court was listening to the witnesses' complaints "but does anyone ask Saddam Hussein whether he was tortured? Whether he was hit?"
He suggested that the court inspect the conditions under which he was held. "I live in an iron cage covered by a tent under American democratic rule. You are supposed to come and see my cage," he said.
http://counterpunch.org/patrick12072005.html
She was known only as "Witness A," testifying from behind a blue curtain, her voice electronically distorted as she told of beatings and electric shocks.
Describing her treatment by Wadah al-Sheik, an Iraqi intelligence officer who died of cancer last month, the woman said: "I was forced to take off my clothes, and he raised my legs up and tied up my hands. He continued administering electric shocks and beating me."
Sometimes bursting into tears and moaning "God is great. Oh my Lord", the woman, who was 16 at the time, told the court in Baghdad what had happened to the women and children from the Shia town of Dujail detained after a failed attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1982.
"I begged them but they hit me with their pistols," she said. "They made me put my legs up. There were five or more and they treated me like a banquet."
She gave a graphic description of the cruelties inflicted on the prisoners during her four years imprisonment. "One of my relatives was mute and deaf. They would take him before the women and hold him by his penis and mock him, making the women and children cry." At first she was tortured in the intelligence centre. She implied but did not say that she was raped. "Is that what happens to the virtuous woman that Saddam speaks about?" she said. Asked whom she held responsible, Witness A identified Saddam: "When so many people are jailed and tortured, who takes such a decision?"
In the intelligence centre in Dujail she was kept in a small red room with no light. She used her shoes as a pillow. She was given two small loaves of bread a day to eat. "After all that torture do you think we could eat?" she asked. In other prisons, at Abu Ghraib and Samawah, the mistreatment continued. She said: "This woman was giving birth, and they wouldn't let another woman help her. The foetus was stuck." The baby suffocated.
Two other anonymous witnesses were also concealed behind a curtain. Witness C described how his 65-year-old father had died after being beaten over the head. He said: "My father died in prison and I was not able to see him."
This prompted an outburst from Saddam Hussein. He said the court was listening to the witnesses' complaints "but does anyone ask Saddam Hussein whether he was tortured? Whether he was hit?"
He suggested that the court inspect the conditions under which he was held. "I live in an iron cage covered by a tent under American democratic rule. You are supposed to come and see my cage," he said.
http://counterpunch.org/patrick12072005.html
This U.S. manipulated sham trial of Saddam Hussain is a loser. He will never be convicted of the charges because he was the legal head of state and there is no credible evidence that he committed any offense against the law.
Saddam Hussain defended himself against an insurrection and was responding to an illegal assassination attempt against his lawfully constituted power.
Think of how many Americans would have been shot if a similar assassination attempt had happened in the United States targeting our leader.
This trial is so stupid it will probably end with all the judges being killed before a verdict can be rendered.
It basically reveals the weakness of the whole fabric of the Bush Administration's bankrupt policy in Iraq, and is a good example of what we can expect from these Bush Clowns in the next two years.
An invasion based on lies and deceit. An occupation based on murder and torture. A reconstruction based on bribery and graft. And a policy designed to facilitate Israeli aggression and oppression of the Palestinian Arabs.
It should be that Nazi Pig Ariel Sharon on trial for butchering refugees in Lebanon in 1982. It should be Israel's weapons of mass destruction that are forcible being removed from the evil dispicable racist Jews threatening to blow up the whole world if they don't get their dirty degenerate way over the Palestinians.
Saddam Hussain defended himself against an insurrection and was responding to an illegal assassination attempt against his lawfully constituted power.
Think of how many Americans would have been shot if a similar assassination attempt had happened in the United States targeting our leader.
This trial is so stupid it will probably end with all the judges being killed before a verdict can be rendered.
It basically reveals the weakness of the whole fabric of the Bush Administration's bankrupt policy in Iraq, and is a good example of what we can expect from these Bush Clowns in the next two years.
An invasion based on lies and deceit. An occupation based on murder and torture. A reconstruction based on bribery and graft. And a policy designed to facilitate Israeli aggression and oppression of the Palestinian Arabs.
It should be that Nazi Pig Ariel Sharon on trial for butchering refugees in Lebanon in 1982. It should be Israel's weapons of mass destruction that are forcible being removed from the evil dispicable racist Jews threatening to blow up the whole world if they don't get their dirty degenerate way over the Palestinians.
Our American Idiot President Bush was in the mid-west yesterday raising political graft for some Republican Nazi political candidate.
This moron President, whose war crimes in Iraq make him guiltier than ex-president Saddam Hussain, should be put in a cell with Saddam and made to answer for the USA killing and maiming of 10,000 Iraqi civilians.
I demand that the world stop paying attention to this Butcher of Civilians from Texas, USA, and refuse to allow him into your country lest you be contaminated by his criminal virus.
Demand that the USA get out of Iraq now! Then the Iraqi people can resolve their own problems without facist America calling the shots.
This moron President, whose war crimes in Iraq make him guiltier than ex-president Saddam Hussain, should be put in a cell with Saddam and made to answer for the USA killing and maiming of 10,000 Iraqi civilians.
I demand that the world stop paying attention to this Butcher of Civilians from Texas, USA, and refuse to allow him into your country lest you be contaminated by his criminal virus.
Demand that the USA get out of Iraq now! Then the Iraqi people can resolve their own problems without facist America calling the shots.
For those of you who study the Bible, and are familiar with the general outline of the Global Anti-Christ Dictatorship portrayed in Revelation; let me draw your attention to the present Western, Capitalist, system of neo-colonialism ruled by America for a comparative study.
The West is ruled by the most morally degenerate power-mad violent murderers the world has ever known. These mad-men are are dispicable liars who will stop at nothing to dominate the people of Earth and they possess WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
OPEN YOUR EYES! YOU ARE SEEING THE ABOVE DESCRIBED EVIL REGIME IN ITS LATER STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT, AND IT WILL BE DESTROYED BY ITS OWN INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS. THE WEST IS THE BEAST!
The West is ruled by the most morally degenerate power-mad violent murderers the world has ever known. These mad-men are are dispicable liars who will stop at nothing to dominate the people of Earth and they possess WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
OPEN YOUR EYES! YOU ARE SEEING THE ABOVE DESCRIBED EVIL REGIME IN ITS LATER STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT, AND IT WILL BE DESTROYED BY ITS OWN INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS. THE WEST IS THE BEAST!
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