Saddam's Trial: Genuine MidEastern Comedy

"Ladies and gentlemen... We got him!"

Those were the words of U.S. Iraq Administrator, Paul Bremer, on December 14th, 2003. Photos of the capture and a video of Saddam Hussein being attended to by a medic were shown at the same press conference. The DNA tests confirmed that the man they captured was the former Iraqi Ba'ath Dictator, who had a record of killing Kurds, Sunnites, Shi'ites (Iraqis in general) as well as Iranians and Kuwaitis. Personally, I was happy that he was gone, but I was opposed to this invasion from the beginning. Granted, he may not have been the nicest person around, but at least Iraq was under much more stability during his brutal reign than it is now, with a destroyed infrastructure and alarming death rates.

What made his capture a farce was the notion that it was a scenario. This is explained by the very unserious nature of the trial that has been going on so far: sensationalism rocked the court room, with witnesses recounting horrible tales of living under Saddam, and Saddam himself shouting and blithering in the stand. Many people viewed the trial as a comedy or circus. Others viewed it as a sign of occupation. I for one am to believe the former account, but not disregard the latter entirely.

During one of the trial's court sessions, which was described as "chaos and comedy" by BBC's Andrew North, Saddam made a speech against the invaders and occupiers. The judge interrupted and asked him for his testimony on the subject of the Dujail killings when he was a head of state. This was met with a furious response from Saddam:

"I am the head of state!"

To which the judge replied:

"You used to be the head of state. Now you are a defendant in a court."

Now, this is seriously funny. Saddam, known for his rants and rhetoric, uses them as his best defense in a FORMAL court of law. But that's not the end of the furor. What really cracked my ribs was this account from Andrew North.

His hands "were as clean as Moses" he insisted, frequently invoking the name of the key Shia figure, Imam Ali, despite the fact that he is a Sunni Muslim.

To us Muslims, swearing in the name of someone else other than God is usually considered haram (prohibited), but the use of Caliph Ali's name by a Sunnite is regarded as not just blasphemous (God is the only One worthy of swearing by), but also borderline insane.

However, the chaos and comedy does not end there. Gulf News cited an event in which the defense team was being assaulted by Iraqi guards in the court room, after Barzan Ebrahim Al Tikriti was dragged out. Just take a look at Barzan's response to his being pulled out:

"This is dictatorial. You know dictatorship."

The defense team is victimizing itself. It has been doing so for quite a while, using the sneakiest of tactics to delay the prosecution and cause more upheaval. However, when I read that report, I never expected an American, out of all people, to be part of Saddam's defense team. Sure, he may have been hired and all, but why would they bother to defend Saddam? I'm not saying that he does not deserve a fair trial, but his trial should have ended a long time ago. On a more sarcastic note, Saddam noted that he and his defense team will leave if their presence bothered the court.

It was one time I flipped the television to see news about this joke of a trial, only to see Barzan testifying while his half-brother was... praying?! Since when did that secular bastard become religious all of a sudden? I rubbed my eyes again, only to see a deep irony in front of me: Saddam, bearded and old, was praying in his chair, with all movements, and even raising his voice slightly in some instances. I mean, after all these delays... these adjournments... these tirades... When will the comedy end and the trial start as planned?

However, when you shove aside all "murderer" BS... you'll still find a murderer. Ok... but what's the significance of the trial? Many claim that it's a diversionary tactic that will keep people on their toes, clouding them from other wrong-doings by the Coalition in Iraq. The Saddam Trial provoked a radical response from many Arabs in the Middle East, even amongst relatives of mine. Many people claim that Saddam's trial was used as a joke to humiliate Arab dignity and signify American imperialism. Others claim that it's a message to Arabs that they will never be allowed to govern themselves. The ever-rambling Ghali Hassan cites Professor Charif Bassiouni of DePaul University, an expert on International Criminal Law and former U.N. human rights investigator in Afghanistan:

“All efforts are being made to have a tribunal whose judiciary is not independent but controlled, and by controlled I mean that the political manipulators of the tribunal have to make sure the U.S. and other western powers are not brought in cause. This makes it look like victor's vengeance: it makes it seem targeted, selected, and unfair. It's a subterfuge”.

Just like the Gaza "Disengagement", the Saddam Trial was a farce in the sense that other people were more worthy of being prosecuted, more notably George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As Ghali Hassan put it, it is also used to divert attention from the ongoing destruction of Iraq: the media has spent more energy in Saddam's Trial and coverage of the Baghdad political arena more than anything else, it seems. Human rights groups are becoming less concerned with the dying Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. forces. This occupation, illegal in nature and monstrous in disguise, has beleaguered the Iraqi people... and instead we are seeing the images of a comedy in Saddam's trials. What about the hundreds of thousands of dollars of Iraqi property that are being deliberately destroyed by the Coalition's occupation? What about the lives that are being wasted? Gwynn Dyer of the Sydney Morning Herald claims that such comedy and immaturity was inevitable. He writes,

So, from Washington's point of view, Saddam had to be tried in an Iraqi court. Given the chaotic incompetence of the Iraqi regime created by the occupation forces, the ludicrous spectacle unfolding before our eyes in the courtroom in Baghdad then became inevitable.

However, Dyer argues further that because of the farcical nature of the court, the court itself will accomplish "the improbable feat of turning this monster of a man into a hero and a martyr in the eyes of many people across the Arab world, and even in Iraq itself."

This will still divert the attention from the tragedy that is befalling on Iraq. Don't take me wrong: I hate Saddam, but I hate the Coalition's leadership even more. The Coalition knows that Saddam is guilty, and they could have hanged him. Due to the incompetence of the government they installed, the Coalition has failed to cover up its illegal actions in Iraq, and not even Saddam's joke of a trial, a media circus in its very essense, will hide the truth of the tragedy that befell on Iraq. God, I hope that Bush, Blair and Sharon, and all other war criminals of the West get their butts grilled on the stand, and have tightrope nooses be the last piece of apparrel they don before they go to Hell and burn for the crimes they committed in Iraq. Amen.

Salaam, from
Saracen