The article you quote from states further, and I paraphrase, the Iraqis asked, "look, is it our call whether and when to execute him?" To which the reply was, as it must have been, "yes."
Thinking about the Nuremberg trials reminded me of the people (and there are many) (mostly East Germans) who blame the United States for the Soviet occupation and the Iron Curtain and the dreadful suffering they endured.
I suppose it's kind of a back handed compliment to attribute superhuman powers to American presidents, even such ordinary men as Truman and Bush.
In Truman's case, of course, there was really nothing he could do, not really.
In Bush's case, yes, of course, we could treat the Iraqi government as sock puppets, but we (by which I mean our leaders) chose not to treat them as sock puppets.
It really was their call. |
