File this one under "not such a good idea":Part of a Nazi leader's speech was played over the public address system before a high school soccer game, prompting an apology by the home team's principal. Forestview High School principal Robert Carpenter said neither he nor his team's coach knew about the speech before the 90-second excerpt was played during warmups Saturday,...
The AP has a story today on Saddam's pending appeal that implies very strongly that Saddam will be executed before the Anfal trial is completed:If the nine-judge appeals panel upholds the death sentences, they could be ready for signing early next year, according to a schedule laid out Monday by chief prosecutor Jaafar Moussawi. Moussawi said the Iraqi High Tribunal must...
In other Saddam news, statements by the Iraqi government earlier today support my suspicion that it believes quickly executing Saddam will help quell the insurgency:If the final verdict confirms Saddam’s guilt, he will be executed within 30 days, and some powerful Iraqi voices are calling for the judges not to dawdle. ‘We strongly feel that every day he lives is not...
I will have more to say when the IHT's written decision is available, but here are a few quick thoughts on Saddam's conviction. First, until this morning, I did not believe that the U.S. had orchestrated the timing of the verdict. But then I learned that the written decision will not be released until Thursday "for technical reasons." So...
You know your policies in Iraq are a disaster when Richard Perle -- he of the infamous phantom libel suit against Seymour Hersh, and one of the neoconservative architects of the war -- says that invading Iraq was a mistake. From this week's Vanity Fair:Three years later, Perle and I meet again at his home outside Washington, D.C. It...
Privacy International, a human-rights organization that was formed in 1990 to track surveillance and privacy invasion by governments and corporations, has released the results of its 2006 international privacy survey. Using primarily quantitative data, the survey scored and ranked 36 countries -- all of the members of the EU and 11 benchmark countries, including the U.S. and New...
I've always believed that one of the least appreciated, but most powerful arguments against torture is that it harms not only the victim, but the torturer, as well. If this story is true -- and there seems to be no indication that it isn't -- the sad case of one of the first women to die in Iraq makes...
Robert Fisk has a troubling story in the Independent (UK) today raising the possibility that Israel used uranium-based weapons against Hezbollah targets during the recent conflict:[S]cientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also...
Last month, as I reported here, Chile's Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that stripped Pinochet of his immunity in a case involving Chile's infamous Villa Grimaldi prison, where the current President, Michelle Bachelet, was tortured in 1975. A Chilean magistrate judge, Alejandro Solis, has now filed formal charges against the former dictator and issued a warrant for...
President Bush signed a bill yesterday authorizing the construction of a 700 mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The fence, of course, is very controversial, opposed not only by Mexico -- outgoing President Vicente Fox has called it "shameful" and likened it to the Berlin wall -- but also by the national union representing Border Patrol agents, the National...
Do you like The Onion? Are you a big fan -- or big critic -- of the World Trade Organization? If so, here is the website for you. Perusing the site is a surreal experience; it seems so real, yet something is just a bit off...
I have posted a new essay on SSRN, "A Poisoned Chalice: The Substantive and Procedural Defects of the Iraqi High Tribunal." Here is the abstract:Scholars and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized Saddam Hussein's initial trial for violating the basic requirements of international due process. Although those criticisms are justified, they are only half the story. A trial is...
