An Object Lesson...
...into exactly how great a favor Hitler did the Allies by killing himself at the end of WW2: apparently, like Milosevic before him, Saddam's trial is suffering from a lack of evidence.
Prosecutors are struggling to build a case against Saddam Hussein because they lack both witnesses and evidence to prove the ousted Iraqi dictator is guilty of atrocities.
Brilliant, just brilliant! The man kills hundreds of thousands of his own people, and because he was
so darn good at it we can't find the evidence to convict him.
Look - there's a distinction being discussed here. How do we deal with terrorists and war criminals? Through our legal systems? Through our military systems? Or some wholly new way? It seems to me that the Legal option is failing badly. Toss it out. Military? Well, we're too civilized to stomach such things that option might entail - aren't we? So what's left?
Just like Westphalianism and the Geneva Convention, the real world has made our old rule sets obsolete. This would have happened earlier, had Hitler not committed suicide (and even as it was, the Nuremburg trials were
rather spotty vis a vis the Law - even
Eisenhower was upset with them); but now it's coming into full effect.
We're going to have to deal with this, and soon - and it may involve us taking actions that are not
easy to swallow - otherwise, our failure to adapt to the surrounding world will result in our destruction - that much is certain. Perhaps we should turn Saddam back to the Iraqis, and wash our hands of him. That's not what the world looks upon as a 'civilized' or 'enlightened' action (after all, the Iraqis would butcher him, as the Italians butchered Mussolini), but its the best option of the ones I'm seeing right now: try him and find him 'not guilty' on the lack of evidence; subject him to death penalty in a military setting - that is, without a citizen's trial; or...give him over to those who are crying for his head. I must admit, however, the latter two options are by far more satisfactory than the first. Sometimes, it seems, justice is can only be served by brutality.
[HatTip to
PowerLine.]
Solidaridad
