This entry was posted on
Thursday, October 20th, 2005 at
10:38 am and is filed
under It’s War! It’s Legal! It’s Lovely!, Page 3 – News in Briefs.
A lovely Page 3 editorial greets my return. I think Rebekah Wade is sending me secret signals of lurve:
Today Nicola T (22, from Croydon) is pleased to see Saddam Hussein finally go on trial yesterday – despite his ‘stalling tactics’. She says; “A lot of people in Iraq have been waiting for this for a long time. Once the trial resumes they will want to see justice being done.”
Why, it’s almost as if Saddam’s stalling tactics were behind the long delay that preceded the trial. Nothing to do with the U.S. wanting to:
a) hold the trial at a ‘convenient’ stage of Bush’s presidency
b) have just enough influence but no visible influence
c) stage a show of democracy or two in order to dodge the charge that Saddam Hussein is still technically president of Iraq
(Yes, I know that international law is something that flows and changes according to consensus and is open to interpretation… but that’s what makes undermining it with a ‘coalition of the willing’ so smegging dangerous. Now can we get back to Saddam? Thanks.)
It’s an odd little dance that’s going on here… Saddam is so evil that there’s no evil left for anyone else (therefore every participant in the coalition of the willing is as pure as the driven snow). But if he’s that evil and that dangerous, why run the risk of letting him off the hook by flouting international law? Surely this was discussed at some stage? Perhaps there was a one-paragraph risk assessment on the single page of A4 that gave Blair the nod.
Left to settle over time, the matter doesn’t look anywhere near as messy as it could have been… but just think about that bit: Saddam was so evil that we had to act with such haste as to risk denying the Iraqis justice… unless we were prepared to flout international law. Again.
Guardian – Saddam defiant as trial opens
Scotsman – Arab world is split over the trial of Saddam
This is worth a look. Why, it almost looks as if the trial is being conducted primarily for our benefit:
DailyKos – Saddam on Trial
Finally, this is worth looking at:
Guardian – Trial of the century? Not for Iraqis
That last article appears to be… the last article filed by Rory Carroll before his apparent kidnapping… though the BBC reports that he gave a radio interview before his disappearance. There are further reports that he was ‘conducting yet another interview in the city with a victim of Saddam’s regime when gunmen confronted him’. He sounds like a pretty busy guy. There is also this recent article on civilian casualties by… Rory Carroll.
I think it might just be a good idea for the kidnappers to know more about the man they are holding.
UPDATE [8:30pm]: Guardian journalist freed in Iraq
