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Position: Trial was fair
This position addresses the topic Trial of Saddam Hussein.
For this position
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"The trial of Saddam Hussein with all of its flaws is a new model for the Middle East, and shows aspiring democrats under the heel of despotic power in other nations what they could have if they will make the sacrifices that come with fighting for freedom."
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"Against the background of the inability of both Iraqi and American authorities to stop the bloodletting, the five-judge Special Tribunal has affirmed the principle that officials in government are accountable for every life."
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"Perfect justice is an illusion. Perfect injustice is a reality, as Saddam Hussein proved when he inflicted it on his perceived enemies for so many years. Now this exemplar of perfect injustice has been subjected to imperfect justice. The result is satisfying, and should serve as an object lesson to the many dictators who continue to terrorize their people and others in the expectation that they will never be brought to justice."
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"This is not Topeka, Stockholm or The Hague. It's necessary to step outside the expectations game that now dominates Western discussions of Iraq. Let the Iraqis put their own interests first when it comes to reckoning with a dictator condemned to hang."
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"And yet, in the end there is only one standard by which the trial of Hussein and other Baathist leaders should be judged: Did it or did it not compile a true record of Hussein's crimes -- a record that in some distant, future, peaceful Iraq, will be available to help Iraqis understand what took place during Saddam Hussein's reign? Though it is unfashionable to write anything positive about Iraq right now, the answer is that it did."
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"For the first time ever, an Arab despot has been made to answer for his crimes in an open and fair trial conducted by an independent judiciary. His sentence - if carried out, as we hope it is - should serve as fair warning to other tyrants."
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"It does not matter what we think. If the Iraqis decide that a man who used mustard and nerve gas to murder 100,000 Kurds ought to be hanged, that is a matter for them."
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"But there is a difference between legal incompetence and a stitch-up. This was not a kangaroo court, and it did not stage a show trial. Given that the responsibility for trying Saddam was – rightly – assigned to his own countrymen, it was unrealistic to expect the legal proceedings to be conducted according to the highest standards."
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"Three defense lawyers were murdered, a judge was pressured into resigning and many of the 39 courtroom sessions were chaotic. There nevertheless can be little doubt that justice was delivered in the trial of a tyrant who never hesitated when ordering the summary murder of tens of thousands of Iraqis."
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"Critics complained that there was a "rush to justice." Saddam was captured three years ago and went through two trials. That's a rush?"
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"In the end, it was only fair that Iraqis be allowed to reach the final verdict over the man who had held their country in his iron grip for over 20 years. That the trial at times turned into a farce was to a far greater degree due to Saddam's antics in the courtroom and threats of hunger strike than anything done by the justices, who persevered in the face of great personal danger."
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"Saddam's trial had its critics, just as Nuremberg did in its time. But the dictator received far more due process than his own victims ever did. He was able to play to the cameras of al Jazeera, giving the illusion to his former allies in the insurgency that he might return. He could denounce his Iraqi judges as American stooges, though the U.S. studiously left his fate to Iraqis and even protected Saddam in captivity from vengeful ill-treatment."
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"The Iraqi people are now spared continuance of that "litany of his vile and unforgivable atrocities," which included sectarian violence against Kurds and Shiites conducted by Hussein. Justice has been served, and we neither mourn the tyrant's passing nor the methods by which it was accomplished."
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"Hussein's regime is believed to have murdered at least 300,000 Iraqis. He offered no mercy to his own people, and he deserved none from them. "
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"Today Saddam is dead - hanged in the early morning after a reasonably fair trial. Saddam had a substantial legal team; he was allowed to face his accusers and able to offer testimony in his defense. The entire affair was held in the open and recorded. This is far more than the victims of Dujail were ever allowed. "
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"To be sure, the tribunal that sent Saddam Hussein to his just rewards might not have met the full, strict criteria of the U.S. criminal-justice system - though whatever its faults, they fell far short of the dire predictions of its critics. Besides, it's not as if there was mitigating evidence waiting to be admitted by a different set of judges. No one, save Saddam and his staunchest defenders, ever doubted that he was guilty as charged."
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"Still, there is something unreal about the cries of foul from human rights groups demanding perfect procedural justice from a country struggling with civil war, daily bombings and death-squad killings. The reality is that by the trial's end, there was no significant factual dispute between prosecution and defense: Saddam Hussein acknowledged on national television that he had signed the death warrants after only the most cursory look at the evidence against his victims."
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Against this position
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"Mr. Hussein, as expected, repeatedly tried to mock the proceedings. More seriously, powerful politicians regularly tried to influence the outcome, judges were not allowed to rule impartially, and defense lawyers were denied security measures and documents they needed. The appeals court that will now review the verdict can undo some of the damage by taking into account some of these deficiencies."
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"None of the judges and lawyers showed an understanding of international criminal law; court administration was chaotic. Reliance on anonymous witnesses undercut the defendants' right to confront witnesses and test their evidence. The murder of four defence lawyers and the removal of a judge under political pressure made the whole thing a black farce."
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" How can anyone in a civilized world justify or condone what has happened? Invading (preemptively) a sovereign nation, occupying it, capturing its leader, setting up a kangaroo court, and sentencing him to hang for crimes against his own people..... Did we dare do this with Idi Amin, with Joseph Stalin, with Chou En-lai, with Pol Pot?"
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"The hanging of Saddam Hussein was an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of President Bush's claim it was "an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy." Instead, the rushed, illegal and unruly execution of a former U.S. ally after his conviction in a kangaroo court blurred the line between terrorist and terrorized as effectively as Hussein's own evil propaganda ever did. "
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"This is the administration, after all, that could see little advantage in a United Nations mandate for its own invasion and occupation. It put Hussein's fate in the hands of the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians who had been victims of his reign. As a result, Hussein's trial, which should have been the judgment of civilized society against a tyrant, is now seen by Iraq's Sunnis and much of the Arab world as a farce, reflecting only the victors' vengeance."
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"And it might be no bad thing if Americans, especially those who supported the breaking of his death grip on Iraqi society, found ways of conveying their distaste for this rushed and vindictive — and partial — version of a process of reckoning that ought to have been sober, meticulous and untainted."
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"But the trial and execution of Saddam will do little to add to the force of international law, which derives from its high-mindedness, because it was such a flawed process so closely identified with the occupying American forces. As we saw yesterday, it can too easily be portrayed not just by Sunni sectarians in Iraq but by anti-Western opinion throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds as victor's justice."
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"A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness. It could have fostered a new national unity in an Iraq long manipulated through its religious and ethnic divisions. It could have, but it didn’t."
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Mixed on this position
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