Did anyone really expect a fair trial?

What exactly is a fair trial when there is no question of guilt or innocence?

Yes, you killed everybody, but since you were in Bagdad, and this court only deals with Anbar, I guess you'll have to go free.

Yea its kind of obvious that he did the things that everyone is saying he did, the trial was a bit of a joke really they may as well just have hung him the moment they found him as opposed to putting on a pointless trial and then doing it anyway. :shrug:

I really really want to flame the pants off you. But I don't have the time to do it well, so I'm going to leave that to someone else.

The only defense I heard of Saddam that was even remotely worth listening to, was the idea that it was actually the Iranians who killed the people. But that was thoroughly proven to be false. I'm not sure what else someone is looking for to say the trial was fair or not.

Of course the man did it.

But in order for the rule of law to not become a farce, the forms must be observed.
Furthermore, the offences have to be linked to crimes, etc.

The point is, if things aren't done properly it sets an appalling precedent. In a trial of this magnitude, regardless of Saddam's guilt, things -had- to be done properly. And they weren't.

What exactly wasn't done properly?

All I heard were reports of Saddam refusing to cooperate.

*exasperated gruntings*

That.

That's why I posted in the first place.

Guess I'll have to wait till after work cause I can't read pdfs. But generally, I find many of the definitions of a fair trial are quite ridiculous when you aren't discussing your average person being put on trial by the government they live under.

Courts like the Hague are jokes.

ah. Well.. fair enough then.

That he even got a trial is a miracle. That it can set any kind of precedent is a total joke. If Britain came over and overthrew Bush, and tried him for something or other, would that set precedent for our legal system? Even if they had us do it ourselves? Not in the least.

Also, my previous point is that I don't see how anyone can really give a damn . He did it and should be dealt with, or he didn't do it and just happens to be the unluckiest son of a bitch on the planet. The whole damn invasion of Iraq has been a total farce (in keeping with our foreign policy for the past several decades), and this is just a continuation of it.

A huge chunk of my tax money is going to something I couldn't give less of a damn about and has no real affect on me. I may as well just shred my damn paycheck and save them the hassle of collecting.

What difference in the short or the long term do you think it would have made in any situation if sadam had gotten a perfect trial as opposed to this or opposed to just hanging him when they found him? I just want to know what you personally feel would have been different or achieved in either of the three situations?

The answer to that question is quite clearly represented in my previous posts.

Either way Saddam would have been found guilty. But had his trial not been farcical, it would not have set a corrupt judicial precedent for a country which is attempting to rebuild itself along fair and uncorrupt lines. In retrospect, they would probably have been better off hanging him as they found him.

I'll leave it to your imagination to work out why that's a bad thing. I could take time to explain, but I have a feeling it would be time wasted:
- Sylphas will explain that since the world is an awful place with lots of death anyway, setting a precedent of unfairness in Iraqi courts is neither here nor there, and we should let them get on with it.
- Daganev wil remind us that Iraq is the ancestral birthplace of vast and great civilisations that manifoldly out-do the civilisations of today, so it is not our place to criticise and we should let things be.


Disclaimer: Parts of the above post are deliberately facetious.

I'm wasn't trying to get into an arguement or agravate you it was a honest question. Basically you don't like the mock trial because you feel it is going to set a bad precident for iraqis future justice system? I'm not sure if thats what your trying to say but that's the interpretation I'm getting from you at the moment?

Again, I'm not sure where you are coming from.

Half of the people involved in the court case were shot at for being involved in the court case.

Just today another anti-Syrian minister in Lebanon got assassinated.

When that is the reality you are dealing with, its pretty hard to judge from afar was is a "farce" and what is needed for that society.

I know that if you read American History, it was a slow process of declaring civil liberties till actually granting them. If someone else came in and tried to force feed it we'd probably have a lot more Waco situations than we do.

I'm still of the opinion that you can't set a precedent using an incredibly extreme example. The only trials that will compare to this in future Iraq will be when the government is overthrown by a foreign power, in which case precedent is thrown the hell out anyway.

That is true also.

Even if you say "Oh, there won't be anythng this huge for ages, it won't make a precedent" what went on in there will still sit in your mind and slightly bend your decisions. Simple psychology.

Even if that particular phenomena didn't happen, that doesn't make it Ok to screw it up, for human rights issues. Yes, yes, there are those who think the guy's human rights are forfeit, but he is still a real living, breathing human, wether or not the list of bad things he's done could streth to the moon and back in 12pt text. Hence, he still has rights.

Bull . I know it's hard, but life's not fair. If you up, you DO forfeit your rights. It's a hard line to walk, but treating everyone as if they're exactly the same is just a cop out.

(Yes, I know it's incredibly impractical to try to implement that on a nationwide scale, but I'm opposed on a very basic level to equality for everyone. Everyone is not the same.)

The problem here is that he's not being treated as if he's a special case, but instead they're trying to put him on trial in the country, by a government that's not stable, while the country is still occupied by foreign troops. He -should- be tried in an international court on charges of human rights violations. If that sets a bad precedent, that's their fault.

This does nothing to legitimize the Iraqi government; if anything, it makes them look worse. Maybe they just want some form of revenge for his crimes, and are trying him themselves to get that. If so, that's a recipe for disaster. You don't let the family of a murder victim judge or jury for the killer, or you're just asking for a farce.

I do apologise. My post sounded a little bitchy.. but read it as though I'm saying it in game while spamming the sparkle emote.. because that was my mood as I wrote it.