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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (20217)	12/17/2003 7:45:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793622

Let Iraqis judge Saddam Hussein By Thomas Bray / The Detroit News No, the capture of Saddam Hussein isn’t going to end terrorism in Iraq or anywhere else. It isn’t going to make the establishment of the first functioning democracy in the Arab world much easier. But it is certainly not nothing. Consider how the capture went down. According to news reports, somebody in the region, perhaps from the pro-Saddam camp, tipped off American forces. This undercuts the notion that the Iraqi guerrillas are swimming in a sea of implacable anti-Americanism. Second, Saddam gave up without a fight. So much for a heroic Hussein martyrdom around which aggrieved Arabs might rally. In short, what the Saddam capture demonstrates is the obvious: Coalition forces are winning. That doesn’t mean mission accomplished, as the silly banner aboard the USS Lincoln prematurely acclaimed. But it does mean the mission isn’t hopeless, as some leading Democratic candidates for president have been insinuating. Only last week Al Gore was throwing his arm around the antiwar candidate, Howard Dean, and saying the Iraq venture had all the smell of the Vietnam "quagmire." As is so often true with Gore, he badly overstated the case — besides ignoring the damaging effect on troop morale that politicization of the Iraq war would inevitably have. Iraq may not be a simple nut to crack, but neither is it Vietnam. Nobody captured Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam conflict. The Iraq skeptics are now rushing to shift their grounds for attack. Saddam should be tried by an international court, they assert, or a conviction wouldn’t have much legitimacy. That’s nonsense. Nobody has ever questioned the horrible nature of the Saddam regime. The real point of a trial is not guilt or innocence, any more than it was the issue before the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The real point is to educate the world about what happened in Iraq and to help the Iraqi people remove a stain on their history. What better way to start than to give the Iraqi people themselves a substantial role in the process of truth and accountability? American forces can provide the needed security. And America can insist that the prosecutors meet a sufficient burden of proof that the proceedings can’t be dismissed as victor’s justice. In the end, an Iraqi trial would establish legitimacy where it is most needed: in Iraq. An international court could too easily be used for mischief by those countries that opposed U.S. enforcement of the U.N. resolutions. It would also be the perfect theater for Saddam and his lieutenants to shift the focus from their crimes to wild allegations about the Bush administration. If France, Germany and Kofi Annan had really wanted to bring Saddam to justice, they could have sent troops to Iraq to assist in the bloody, dirty, harrowing task of hunting him and his pals down. The troops who found Saddam could have shot him on the spot. That they didn’t is proof enough of America’s capacity for civilized behavior. They also understood that by publicly displaying a humiliated Saddam, Iraqis may be far more inclined to provide the intelligence needed to find the remaining rats — and to speak out about any foreign terrorists who might be trying to turn Iraq into a second front in their own war. Interestingly, the London Daily Telegraph last week surfaced a handwritten letter from Saddam’s chief of security talking about providing training to Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks. If verified, it would further undermine those, like Gore, who have rashly placed political bets on the idea that Iraq was a needless sideshow. However it’s structured, a trial of Saddam can be a crucial step in draining the Middle Eastern swamp. It will show other dictators that they can’t forever escape justice. And it will give the oppressed masses throughout the Middle East hope that one day they, too, might enjoy the blessings of liberty. And that is the real key to victory in the war against terror — which really is a war against injustice. detnews.com