Saddam is a POW

Joseph · January 9, 2004, 23:39

Early tonigh CNN reported that Saddam is now legal P.O.W. So what does that mean for a speedy trial and Hanging?

mrmitchell · January 9, 2004, 23:41

Legal experts:

Does this mean the USA will pursue Saddam's case with dignity? (A trial in a court, a lawyer, etc.)

Space05us · January 9, 2004, 23:43

it means no more pictures for us to laugh at

Mazarin · January 9, 2004, 23:46

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Legal experts:

Does this mean the USA will pursue Saddam's case with dignity? (A trial in a court, a lawyer, etc.)

not as long as he doesn't get an armani suit and a hair cut

I really hope he'll get a good trial, just to avoid future myths of victors' justice

DinoDoc · January 9, 2004, 23:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Mazarin
I really hope he'll get a good trial, just to avoid future myths of victors' justice

All war crimes tribunals are exercises in that.

TCO · January 10, 2004, 00:08

KILL HIM. HE DESERVES THE DEATH PENALTY. NO LIMPWRISTED EURO JUSTICE.

PLATO · January 10, 2004, 00:12

Quote:

Originally posted by TCO
KILL HIM. HE DESERVES THE DEATH PENALTY. NO LIMPWRISTED EURO JUSTICE.

No loose ends.

St Leo · January 10, 2004, 02:58

Death cannot conceivably be considered a valid penalty for anything.

Life imprisonment in a Belgian or Swiss prison.

PLATO · January 10, 2004, 03:29

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo
Death cannot conceivably be considered a valid penalty for anything.

Life imprisonment in a Belgian or Swiss prison.

Sure. Murder 300,000 people and bankrupt a nation...get a room at the Belgium Hilton.

Some people have no right to existence.

alva · January 10, 2004, 04:05

Neither does a civilised world to kill one.

Anyway, what would killing him solve?

Nubclear · January 10, 2004, 04:30

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Legal experts:

Does this mean the USA will pursue Saddam's case with dignity? (A trial in a court, a lawyer, etc.)

I hope he gets a lawyer

That would be SO entertaining to watch

Grandpa Troll · January 10, 2004, 17:34

.....maybe we could simply let him ride off into the sunset..an "Iraqie-Western" type scene..where maybe the bad guy gets a "fighting chance" one more time??

Peace

Grandpa "Just-trying-2-B-fair" Troll

GePap · January 10, 2004, 17:36

He must have really been tighlipped- otherwise they would still have kept him in legal limbo so the boys at the CIA could go after him.

Lancer · January 10, 2004, 17:43

I really don't like Saddam. That lets me out of jury duty on this one.

Grandpa Troll · January 10, 2004, 17:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Lancer
I really don't like Saddam. That lets me out of jury duty on this one.

Lancer..interesting point you bring up..

For real, imagine being asked if you know anything about the case or have you any predisposed feeling on his status of guilt or guilt..er..ugh..I mean not being innocent..heck..

even I cant say he is innocent..

but I have never seen what he did and only from what I have heard and read..

Peace

Grandpa Troll

Lancer · January 10, 2004, 18:03

My prediction...

Johnny Cochran will get him off, say several hundred thousand murder raps. He will then go up the river for tax evasion when they get the goods on him after putting the squeeze on his shifty weasle accountant...

Patroklos · January 10, 2004, 18:26

The civil suit will catch him

He will probobly get a better trial than the Nazis. Won't have any uniformed Soviet generals sitting on this one. Of course in that case it might have helped, having committed so many was crimes themselves the defendants couldn't BS them. I can just see one jumping up from the bench pointing while shouting "B****** Goering, I knew every detail of what went on at my gulags.... wait that came out wrong, errrrr strike that from the record."

yaroslav · January 10, 2004, 20:11

I hope he will get a fair trial, and then get a life imprisionemnt in any european or american prision.

Although you can have a problem with that trials... IIRC, the trial of Milosevic haven't damaged his popularity, but raised it

BTW, Patroklos, were the gulags knew by the time Numbereg's trials took place?

mrmitchell · January 10, 2004, 20:17

Why he should be trialed:

It's what civilized nations do. Besides, are you afraid you can't give enough evidence to convict him or something?

Why he shouldn't get death:

What does killing him solve? We lose a key intelligence source, and in addition he doesn't have to have any long woeful prison sentence in which to regret his crimes. He just gets off easy with a quick death.

yaroslav · January 10, 2004, 20:23

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Why he should be trialed:

It's what civilized nations do. Besides, are you afraid you can't give enough evidence to convict him or something?

I don't know it that is about me, but if so, that's my answer

I firmly believe he should get a fair trial, and I hope so. However, with the Milosevic trial at the Haya and they way Milosevic is defeding himself, he appears to have recovered some of his supporters in Yugoslavia. I'm afraid that a public trial could increment the way some people see that evildoer, bloodthirsty Saddam as a "martyr" or something the like.

just my humble opinion.

mrmitchell · January 10, 2004, 20:36

Quote:

I'm afraid that a public trial could increment the way some people see that evildoer, bloodthirsty Saddam as a "martyr" or something the like.

Unfortunately, in a Democracy, even an evil man can rise to power if he's supported.

Then again, the masses are supposed to be smart enough to prevent that.

Considering how many Iraqis Saddam has killed, I don't think it will be likely to vote for the same man that killed your brother and jailed your mom.

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2004, 20:41

Send him on the space shuttle... or the Moon base, or the March base or whatever. Or let him take a space walk naked. Just don't send him to a Swedish prison.

But showing him off to the other prisoners at Gitmo would probably loose some thounges. This is one of the few cases where I expect that exceptions from the Geneva convention apply. Just treat the bastard bad, in any way possible.

Patroklos · January 10, 2004, 20:42

Not sure if you meant where the Gulags were new, or if we knew about them.

1.) Gulags or some varient were well established by WWII.

2.) We knew they had an unwholsome place to retire poeple. I am not sure if we knew exacly what they were, we really still don't.

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2004, 20:50

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Patroklos

1.) Gulags or some varient were well established by WWII.

No, they were established already in the late 30'ies. I don't have a link, but there should be plenty of evidence if you take a look around on the topic of "Stalin's political cleansings".

Patroklos · January 10, 2004, 20:59

ummmmm... is not the late 30s before WWII???

The gulag system in Siberia were established in the late thirties. However, there was a massive system of places to hold political prisoners well before that ("varient"), in fact from the moment the Soviet Union started.

They just made it more "efficient" witht he gulags proper.

Uncle Sparky · January 11, 2004, 05:39

ooooooo... I hope they broadcast the trail ! Live on Court TV :

prosecuting attorney : Does Iraq now have or has it ever had weapons of mass destruction ?

Saddam : We did. but we used them all on the Iranians at the request of Reagan.

attorney : Where did you get the weapons from ?

Saddam : The US. Donald Rumsfeld delivered them personally.

***********************

attorney : Was the us aware of what you were doing to your own people - the Kurds in the north and the "marsh Arabs" in the south ?

Saddam : Yes. The CIA specifically asked us to let them know how effective the various poison gasses we has acquired from them were.

************************

yaroslav · January 11, 2004, 05:45

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell

Unfortunately, in a Democracy, even an evil man can rise to power if he's supported.

Then again, the masses are supposed to be smart enough to prevent that.

Considering how many Iraqis Saddam has killed, I don't think it will be likely to vote for the same man that killed your brother and jailed your mom.

I hope so, but you can't be sure...

Charles Taylor was elected democratically, even when he was the man who killed many of the Liberian citiziens

I don't think Saddam could be elected after the trials (or I hope so), but I fear the image could be more the image of a martyr than anything else, at least for some people, specially in other arab countries.

That doesn't mean that I don't want a trial, I want a trial, but we must know what could be the outcome of such a trial.

--------------

BTW, I'm pretty sure that the gulas are pre-Nurember: the nobel prize Solzhenitsyn was imprisioned in one before the end of the WWII, and in his book, IIRC, he says something about gulags in the of the 20's.

But I wonder if that was public knolewged in the West by 1945.

DinoDoc · January 11, 2004, 09:57

Quote:

Originally posted by yaroslav
I hope he will get a fair trial, and then get a life imprisionemnt in any european or american prision.

The Iraqis get him.

yaroslav · January 11, 2004, 10:23

Good point. But I wonder if he will be safe in a Iraqui prision.

DinoDoc · January 11, 2004, 10:25

I find myself trying to care about that but I'm just not able to do so.