Very Important Saddam point # 1. Saddam is getting what he deserves.

[AIJ Alom]

But....The crime for which he is sentenced to be hung is from 1982. BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced a combative Saddam Hussein and two other defendants to death by hanging for a brutal crackdown in 1982 in the Shiite town of Dujail.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/05/dujail.saddam/index.html
Yet a year later we have the classic moment of Saddam with Rumsfeld (Anyone have the picture).

Point # 2: This is not the first death sentence for Mr. Hussein, nor was the War with Iran his first involvement with the United States. I remember reading about this in college in book entitled Thank God They're On Our Side for a Cold War Class.
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Saddam_Hussein

Saddam had CIA training, much like Ho Chi Minh (Agent 99 during WWII). I give you the following from Reference.com

In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abdul Karim Qassim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959, Saddam was involved in the attempted United States-backed plot to assassinate Prime Minister Qassim.

Saddam was shot in the leg, but managed to flee to Tikrit with the help of CIA and Egyptian intelligence agents. Saddam then crossed into Syria and was transferred to Beirut for a brief CIA training course. From there he moved to Cairo where he made frequent visits to the American embassy. During this time the CIA placed him in a upper-class appartment observed by CIA and Egyptian operatives. (UPI 'analysis' article)

He was sentenced to death in absentia. Saddam studied law at the Cairo University during his exile.
Rise to power
Concerned about Qassim's growing ties to Communists, the CIA gave assistance to the Ba'ath Party and other regime opponents.Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew Qassim in a coup in 1963. Ba'athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and Abdul Salam Arif became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba'athist leaders later that year. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. He escaped prison in 1967 and quickly became a leading member of the party.

FOIA anyone for files from the 50's and 60's regarding Saddam and Iraq.

Also we should look into the Reagan administration and their dealings with this brutal dictator. Anyone up to it ?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. Here you go

I have been trying to point this out on another thread but so far no one seems to be getting it. They are bogged down in weather or not Saddam deserved it or weather or not the trial was rigged, which either one of I could care less about.

[AIJ Alom]

6. Thanks for the photo. I've got an idea.

Try this topic. Crime 1982, Handshake 1983: See anything WRONG here ? and post it with the photo.

[Mugsy]

27. Better yet, video.

I noted that very fact in the YouTube video I uploaded earlier this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42oejmpkgw

[pamela]

2. Point #3

Over 2350 soldiers have died since his capture.

[AIJ Alom]

8. and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis in what I like to

call the Dubya's Debacle In the Desert. Truly sad. And meanwhile somewhere in Afghanistan Osama roams free.

[az chela]

12. So where is the justice

When Saddam gets death for murdering over 182 people and bushco is responsible for killing almost 700,000???What kind of balance is this????
When will bushco pay for the death and carnage they have caused???

[rman]

15. over half a million, and another million

if one includes the "food for oil" sanctions.

[Roland99]

3. The Communist Party of Iraq was very close to taking power in Iraq in the 50s.....

and would have setup a rather stable and popular government. They were not closely aligned with the Soviets and were more of a Nationalist/Socialist party than anything.

But, of course, the US couldn't have any of that and stuck their noses in where it didn't belong and we then took over from the British as the new colonial empire.

[AIJ Alom]

11. Like Mossadique in Iran. God did the CIA f things up during the

Cold War.

[Roland99]

14. And just who was in the CIA back then, eh? Hmm....gee...I wonder...

[AIJ Alom]

19. Pappy Bush of course. Family comes full circle.

[Roland99]

20. Ayup. The BFEE has long been associate with intelligence/defense industry

anyone surprised at the US's penchant for permanent war is just not paying ANY attention.

[AIJ Alom]

25. Agreed. Wonder what the form of the next Pearl Harbor will be, now

that terrorist flying planes into buildings has been taken out of the playbook. Nuclear perhaps ?

[Roland99]

26. Well, putting plans for building nuclear weapons on the internets is a good 1st step.

[AIJ Alom]

29. You know I was thinking the same thing. In Arabic nonetheless.

Just to make it that much easier. We celebrate the (supposed)termination of AQ Khan network, then supply the material, not in Urdu, but in Arabic.

[Roland99]

4. Oh, and btw, if Saddam is to be tried for 24 year-old crimes.....

Why can't the British (Churchill) be tried posthumously for using mustard gas on Iraqis in the 1920s?

And toss in some members of the last and current administrations here in the US for the crimes against humanity in Iraq (UN sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands)?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

9. This party could go on ad infinitum. n/t

[Mugsy]

24. That meeting with Rummy came just 15 months after...

...the crime he was convicted for today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42oejmpkgw

[AIJ Alom]

10. Because history is written by the victors. Otherwise we would

be held more accountable for Dresden and Hiroshima during WWII.

[cornermouse]

5. Do the Iraqi people deserve what happens next?

That should be the real point #1.

And if we are merely implementing a sentence from 1982, then why go to the trouble of a trial at all unless it was nothing more than a show trial?

[AIJ Alom]

22. It was a show trial, nothing less. But we should at least address Rummy's

handshake. Unless we want to make the Reagan administration look bad. I mean don't get me wrong, Saddam is a horrible guy and he deserves a death sentence but not for incidents in 1982 because how pray tell do you account for the actions of the United States.

[AtomicKitten]

7. still, this is none of our business

And, if it is deemed that it is the world community's business, then somebody leave the back door open so another country will come in and try our retarded mass-murdering dictator.

[az chela]

13. That would be called poetic justice

[AIJ Alom]

23. I agree with you. Unless of course we are willing to go in and purge

Saudi Arabia of their brutal dictators, the one's the Taliban tried to emulate in Afghanistan.

[soothsayer]

16. We don't need him alive, now that Bush is doing EVERYTHING

that Saddam did (killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, having torture rooms, and of course we know there have been rapes). Saddam is superfluous now that Georgie's there. Oh, except at least the country was calm under Saddam.

[AIJ Alom]

28. You're right. The fault lines that Saddam put to rest have re-emerged.

And Iraq will be in Civil War for the forseeable future and will only end 5-10 years after the US withdraws a brutal Shiite theocratic regime takes hold.

[me b zola]

17. I've wondered just how many beans Saddam has spilled during his trial

I'd bet a heafty sum that Saddam had documents and other evidence against his US co-conspirators, I wonder if any has survived.

[AIJ Alom]

30. I'm surprised he didn't bring up his CIA training and his first death

sentence.

[ClintonTyree]

18. Bottom line.......

the Reagan administration created Saddam. They supplied him with weapons and biological agents. Another U.S. "success" story. Set up a dictator, someone they think will be THEIR dictator, and later have to take him down after they shit all over him when his usefulness has waned. How many times has this story repeated itself in the last 75 years?

[AIJ Alom]

32. Too many times my friend, hopefully this turn over to former

executives of mega-corporations will bring better fortune and hopefully they will work with non-neocon administrations.

[CJCRANE]

21. Yes he is

but it is obvious that the verdict has been politically timed.

It's this year's version of the Osama '04 videotape which also funnily enough was released two days before the election.

[AIJ Alom]

33. Forgot about that. 2 days is right. Hmmm...but it shouldn't have

as a dramatic effect, unless of course they are covering hindquarters for a Karl Rove GOTV (diebold tabulation) effort.

[CJCRANE]

44. Agreed.

Luckily the margins are much wider this time.

[oblivious]

31. How do you know he is getting what he deserves? What do you know about Iraqi law at the time?

How deeply did you follow the case?

[AIJ Alom]

36. It's not Iraqi law. It's international law that is the concern. I cannot see

how the United States can proxy convict a man today for crimes in 1982 and cannot recall a very public meeting between the same man and Donald Rumsfeld a year later. I will not pretend to know anything about Iraqi law at the time in question, however Saddam was the law. In 1982, when his Health Minister recommended that Saddam step down only temporarily to help end the war with Iran, Saddam had the man chopped up and delivered to the man's wife the next day. These were not the actions of a sane, just man.

[NOLADEM]

34. Great. Now go for the rest of his co-conspiritors Bush I, Cheney, Rummy, et al

They should all see justice, no?

[AIJ Alom]

38. Yes. They should and it is unfortunate that they will claim that they

were working in the best interest of the world community and the Iraqi people. The entire neocon clan should be seen for what they are, war mongering, war profiteering, chicken hawk cowards.

[cassiepriam]

35. What he deserves was NONE OF OUR BUSINESS..........

It was up to the Iraqi people to decide that....

[AIJ Alom]

37. I'm going to go a step further...this war was none of our business.

Unfortunately we have to see it through. I pray that we see our troops withdraw right after this sentence is carried out.

[AzDar]

39. So, who's gonna 'swing' for the half-a-million Iraqi dead since this illegal

war began?

[The Count]

40. True. Still utterly irrelevant to our lives, country, National Security etc

There was no need for US to get mixed in this.
Case in point: Ceausescu got what he deserved in Romania too (although a trial would have been nice). And no American lives were lost in the process.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

41. And when will the Shrub put on trial for the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? nt

[lostnotforgotten]

42. When Does The Bush Crime Family Get What They Deserve?

eom

[many a good man]

43. Trial should have been at ICC in the Hague

But bush (god love 'em) wants to destroy intl law.

[leesa]

45. But more importantly, Dubya has killed more.

[Gregorian]

46. So then one could say that Saddam's torture was proxy torture by USA.

I just thought of something. Maybe it's trivial.

Since Saddam was our man, his actions were essentially our actions. Especially after we blessed him. Shouldn't the truth be that we were torturing and killing in Iraq VIA Saddam?