So the Iraqi Special Tribunal is going to try Saddam for invading Kuwait in 1990– but not for invading Iran in 1980? This, despite the fact that the human carnage that resulted from the 1980 invasion was on a far, far greater scale than that occasioned by the 1990 invasion…
Can it be that the people organizing the Special Tribunal place a higher value on the lives of Kuwaitis than on those of Iranians?
Or did the decision come out this way because the US opposed the Saddamist aggression against Kuwait, but condoned, encouraged, and even supported the aggression against Iran?
Whatever the reason: shame on the Tribunal!
8 thoughts on “The politicized charge-sheet”
Comments are closed.
“but not for invading Iran in 1981? This”
So, this need to bring of they helped Saddam in that war and hand him some inelegant information
If they execute Saddam, it won’t matter much what for. We’ll all know what for, anyway.
In addition to the difficulty that Salah pointed out in getting the US involved, there is the pesky matter of involving the Iranians, whose plans for Iraq are murky-to-hostile, and who might use the trial for its own manipulations.
“there is the pesky matter of involving the Iranians, whose plans for Iraq are murky-to-hostile, and who might use the trial for its own manipulations.”
Unlike the plans of the good old USA.
By the way, my apologies for having made the mistake in the first draft published here (and in the previous post) of describing the date of Saddam’s invasion of Iran as 1981. I can’t think where I got that idea– I was actually in Baghdad covering the early weeks of the war in September 1980 or so… What can I say? It was a long time ago…
Sorry.
“If they execute Saddam, it won’t matter much what for. We’ll all know what for, anyway.”
Why have a trial at all then?
(Similarly, I don’t expect the US will extradite Luis Posada to Venezuela anytime soon. If he feels betrayed by the US, then he may start talking and recount lots of embarrassing details of his involvement with the CIA, much like Saddam.)
Apparently, the crimes for which Saddam is to be tried will include his suppression of the Shiite uprising in 1991. This is interesting in two respects.
First, the object of said uprising was to overthrow Saddam’s government by force. However much one might be inclined to sympathize with this goal, by what reasoning does the suppression of violent revolution become a “criminal” act? Should Abraham Lincoln have been tried as a war criminal for violently suppressing the confederate uprising? I’m sure some would say yes, even now.
Second, I seem to recall another more recent Shiite uprising, the violent suppression of which resulted in the slaughter of hundreds or thousands of people and the near total destruction of most of the old city of Najaf. Both involved the use of helicopter gunships against civilian targets.
Do you think it will be on Court TV?
To the the reasons already brought forward to explain the absense of charges relating to the Iran-Iraq war, I would add these three:
1. The invasion followed a series of escalations on both sides, probably including border violations, and might be defensible on those grounds.
2. Saddam could seek to defend himself by appealing to a right of pre-emption, or even prevention, a defense with renewed respectability among some members of the international community, but one that those same members may not wish to see subjected to penetrating legal scrutiny.
3. Saddam would defend himself by citing Iranian attempts to foment insurrection in Iraq. This would open the trial to admitting into evidence a host of embarrassing revelations involving Iranian connections with Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Kurds. At a time when many are pinning hopes for a stable Iraqi government on these two parties, it would be most inconvenient to see their leading lights embroiled in credible charges of treason, and shown to have served as the agents of a foreign power while their countrymen were dying in a war against that power.
“Saddam would defend himself by citing Iranian attempts to foment insurrection in Iraq. This would open the trial to admitting into evidence a host of embarrassing revelations involving Iranian connections with Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Kurds”
I agree, there were some talks during the 1991, that the Iranian rush weapons and men in tracks passed from Basrah south to make trebles to centre government which was on feet.
I think US take the action accordingly by allowing Saddam to use his helicopters to put down the rabbles.
I recall very well that VOA in one of reports in Arabic, saying that there are 11 CIA agents entered Iraq at war time and during the rabbles rise, and they reach to Alnasyriah or beyond that, but the went back to Washington advising to keep the government (Saddam) in power this done according what the see on the ground at that time, which much what we hear a bout Iranian influence on the rabbles rising.
Iran never been good neighbour at all to Iraq and Gulf courtiers, I recall one writing that US invade Iraq with military troops and Iran Invaded Iraq with clerics which obvious in the south like Basrah, the best example is the killing of some student from engineering school while they are in trip some reported that the killers are most be Iranian and they use 4 wheel drive Toyota care with one cleric speak Arabic (not exactly right).