[Clive]
Good to see Greg Djererjian finally back in action after technical problems at his site. I don’t agree that it would have been a good idea to put Saddam Hussein on trial in the Hague (I’ve already stated my preference) but Greg makes his case with his usual clarity, and through him I also discovered John Burns’ excellent piece on the legal process as a whole:
Quickly, he [Saddam] fixed his gaze on the handful of foreigners in the court, and I had my own moment of anxiety when it came to my mind that he was intent on remembering the faces of the non-Iraqis that were there to witness his humiliation, perhaps to get word through to his lawyers, and then on to the insurgents, that we were to be punished for our intrusion. It was only later, after I learned what he had been told before being taken from his cell to the court, that I understood that our presence meant something else to him entirely, that with foreigners present, he was not going to be summarily hanged or shot.
Not that the dictator’s end was entirely dignified, of course.
The Dish 