The IHT has officially dismissed Saddam from the Anfal trial. The trial will continue against Saddam's six co-defendants, which include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the infamous "Chemical Ali." ...
Okay, in less than a week I have found myself in complete agreement with Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer, both of whom have written exceptional editorials on Saddam's execution. Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse or something? ...
Here's a sentence I don't write very often: Kudos to President Bush. I'm not particularly enamored with Khalilzad's work in Iraq, and I have a number of issues with his reliably neocon worldview (see here and here), particularly his membership in the Project for the New American Century; his colonial-like attempts to fix Afghanistan's 2004 election, which earned him...
Two days before Saddam was executed, Iraq's deputy justice minister, Bosho Ibrahim, told the Associated Press that executing Saddam within 30 days of the Cassation Panel’s decision to uphold his death sentence would violate Iraqi law. “The law does not say within 30 days,” he said, “it says after the lapse of 30 days.” The Cassation Panel rejected Ibrahim’s...
Whenever I discuss Saddam here in New Zealand, people always want to know to what extent the U.S. supported his regime. Fortunately, I can now refer them to Juan Cole's recent post "For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein." Summarizing, the ten ways are as follows: The CIA was...
Juan Cole has an excellent article on Saddam's execution at Salon.com. Particularly interesting is what he has to say about the decision to execute Saddam today, which appears to be designed to further alienate Iraq's Sunnis:The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to...
Let us hope that his death doesn't breathe even more life into the insurgency. I fear that it will. ...
According to reports, Saddam will be executed before the Muslim holiday Eid Al-Adha, which begins this Sunday. Saddam will hanged, although he has expressed a preference for a firing squad. The Iraqi government's decision echoes the Nuremberg trial, where the IMT deliberately denied the condemned defendants a firing squad, the preferred method of execution for soldiers. Indeed,...
If you are interested in the history of the Middle East, I highly recommend this flash video, which compresses 5,000 years of imperial ambitions in the area into a mere 90 seconds. Who knew the Mongols had such a gigantic empire? UPDATE: The Maps of War site, which created the Empires video, is a treasure-trove of interesting information. Check...
Bloomberg has an interesting article today on how the US's increasingly onerous visa restrictions are causing significant harm to American businesses.Companies say U.S. rules have become so onerous in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that it's often simpler to meet customers, business partners and employees elsewhere. Exxon Mobil Corp. has resorted to customer meetings in a London...
A number of years ago, I visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. The museum was strangely deserted; the only other visitors my friend and I saw were a young African-American family. Social animals that humans are, the four of us wandered the museum near to each other, although we never spoke. After about an hour,...
For those of you who don't read Balkinization -- and you should! -- Brian Tamanaha has a wonderful post on the Wizard of Oz, which, it turns out, is actually a political allegory about the debate over gold and silver. Who knew? ...
