Glenn Greenwald Calls For Politicization Of Saddam’s Trial
I’m flabbergasted at the callousness of the following, from a post entitled, “What Are The Democrats Doing About The November 5th Saddam Verdict?”:
We have 140,000 soldiers in the middle of a country which is spiraling out of control. More American troops died in Iraq this last month than in any month for more than a year. The U.S. military itself now acknowledges that the country is collapsing towards full-blown chaos — at exactly the same time that Vice President Cheney lied to Americans by claiming that things are going “remarkably well” there — and what is the administration focused on? How to squeeze political advantage out of a show trial that will do nothing to help the war effort. It is disgraceful and unconscionable to use this war to help themselves stay in power — particularly given how much they have neglected and botched the war itself — but that is what the scheduling of this Saddam verdict is about.
Sitting around until the media explosion on November 5 and then hoping to say these things is a loser strategy. Even with their war oppoosition, Americans — for two decades now — have been conditioned to think of Saddam as the epitome of dangerous evil and his conviction and death sentence are going to pack some emotional punch. That emotional reaction will kick in with less than two days before they go to vote, which means there is no time for reasoned assessment to foster the realization that the event is actually meaningless.
This is shameless. Show trial? “Conditioned” to regard Saddam as evil? Meaningless that Saddam will be brought to justice for his mass murders – of his own people?
Five questions for Greenwald:
1. Our ambassador to Iraq has denied U.S. involvement in the date of the verdict announcement (and recent accounts suggest it may be delayed). What proof do you have that this date is timed to influence the elections?
2. How can you in good conscience write a post decrying Republican politicization of the verdict by calling for politicization of the verdict by the Democrats?
3. Saddam is being tried for “mass killing in the deaths of 148 Shi’ite men from the village of Dujail. Many were killed after an assassination attempt on Saddam by Shi’ite militants in the village in 1982.” His other crimes against humanity are well-known and acknowledged by even the most steadfast opponents of the Iraq War.
How can you suggest this verdict is meaningless?
4. You say we have been ‘conditioned’ to think of Saddam as the epitome of dangerous evil. If a torturing, mass-murdering, genocidal, chemical-weapons-using tyrant is not the epitome of dangerous evil, then who the hell is?
5. You call this a show trial, yet Saddam has been tried by Iraqis, has been provided a defense counsel, and will not be executed, even if found guilty, until all his appeals have been heard. What exactly is the basis for doubting the validity of this trial?
Glenn, if you care to defend yourself, the challenge is here. I hope you won’t insult our intelligence by declining to answer the five questions directly…
as mentioned by me, a while back, the execution is looming near.
Glenn Greenwald doesn’t make a peep, until it hits drudge. This is a guy who is supposedly closely following events in Iraq, and he is just now writing about it, the week it will actually occur?
It is as important as any previous election and yet the press that was suppoed to be telling us what was going on in Iraq, hid it.
The verdict is meaningless?
Does mr greenwald realize how many people involved with the trial have been killed in order to obtain a verdict? Does he realize the implications to the organized sunnis, trying to circumvent the execution?
In any liberated country, the death (and subequent inability to return to power) of its most hated dictator is a cause for celebration.
glenn simply makes the argument that the execution should be opposed by democrats, for domestic election concerns. If he was really following things in Iraq, this outcome was forseeable 3 months ago. I guess by his lack of acknowledgement of the event prior suggests he doesn’t have a clue about Iraq.
1. The ambassador is a member of the administration and, per se, a liar.
2. The GOP started it.
3. A local issue, not relevant to the US.
4. You are so “conditioned” that you can’t recognize that you are.
5. The Iraqi government are nothing but US puppets owing fealty to GWB.
The evidence is obvious and overwhelming, beginning with the planned verdict date of November 5, 2006, just a few days before the US elections. What else do you need to know?
I should point out that too many steves is being snarky! But yes, those answers are about what I would expect, unless Glenn comes by and proves otherwise…
Oh man, I thought this medium was less transparent?!?
The funny about it is that the article Glenn quotes in Media Matters even says that there is no proof that the Bush or anyone else was involved in pushing that date back. I guess that is more nuace of which I am unable to decipher. However, I am currently being called a “moron” & “liar” for pointing that out & the simple fact that Glenn is promoting using the verdict of a mass murderer as a political ploy.
How dare you insult Glenn Greenwald, don’t you know he was on the NYT Best Seller’s list and his blog was read in congress and all that other stuff… oh never mind I can’t even do this anymore. I’m a fraud. I’m taking down the Greenwald blog now and becoming a Log Cabin Republican.
Yer pal, Wilson
Do you insist Glenn himself answer you, or will one of his 14 or so strikingly like-minded housemates do?
Good DAY sir!
i had to read too many steves-3 times-before the snarkliness hit me…
I must say that I laugh out loud when I juxtapose the arguments that GWB & his Administration are:
a. idiots and incompetent boobs
AND
b. so crafty that they can create and hide such devilish conspiracies.
Everyone seems willing to believe that the timing of today’s publication in the Times of an article damaging to Bush is “transparently” partisan — but scheduling Hussein’s verdict two days before the election is mere coincidence — do you see any irony here?
Not at all, Peter, in the absence of proof that the U.S. had anything to do with the scheduling. We KNOW the Times controls their publication dates…I’ve seen nothing at all to suggest that there is even a smidgen of evidence that the verdict date was set to help the Bush administration during the elections…just unsubstantiated allegations that have been denied…
In other words, this trial is being run by the Iraqis, not the administration, but the Times surely can control when a story goes to press…
Well, perhaps — I wouldn’t expect either the US or Iraq to mention any putative linkage between the trial date and the election date, but I think that some skepticism is warranted — it is certainly plausible that we exerted influence, but it is also plausible that the Times published the story today because it is clearly newsworthy (just as they felt that the pieces on Murtha, Reid, and Menendez were newsworthy) –
I’m perplexed as to why anyone would still listen to what the “Brazilian Cabana Boy” has to say anymore. Since the infamous sock puppetry, he’s pretty much lost all credibility these days (except for the Moonbats, of course).
to you proposition peter,
if both are coincidental, then neither group is guilty of playing politics.
if both are timed, then both are equally guilty, and deserve the same contempt-although one is a party acting in their own self preservation, and the other is european elites acting(in the US) in their own self preservation.
I find that given the way the field is slanted by the media, it is only fair for the admin to do the same. The media failed to ‘prepare the public’-as in, a nuremberg level trial, getting zero news attention. It has far more to do with internal iraqi politics than any other story, and the media whiffed.
I would be charitable and say that both instances are coincidental.
Lacking hard evidence for either, I would say that both the Bush administration and the New York Times deserve the presumption of innocence.
TMS: Re post 9, I’m not sure if any of y’all are South Park viewers, but did you catch the episode that depicted Bush setting up phony conspiracy theory sites (911truth.org) in order to pretend that he was able to concoct such a large conspiracy? In the episode he shoots the leader of 911truth.org in the head in the oval office in front of the kids. I about died laughing. The latest episode on Wed. was a classic too with a war in 2500 between two rival groups of atheists. Sorry to pimp SP, but whatever, it’s darn funny.
I find it hard to believe that anything the NYT does regarding this Administration isn’t intentional. I mean they sat on the wiretapping story for over a year & released only after they learned that Rupert Murdoch had it & was going to publish it. My guess is that the Bush Administration was going to release something crucial & once again the NYT had it leaked to them in advance & tried to make it look as damaging as they could before the Republicans could get their information out. This article could open the doors & force the media to accept & even question the basis of the Democrats political platform, for the last 3 years. Not to mention it could also disrupt the impeachment process for the Dems if the very basis has been proven to be as false as most of us believe/know it to be.
Peter, I would imagine that the US was partially involved in the date for securities reasons. Funny how the left hasn’t tried to use that as proof for Greenwald’s conspiracy theory yet, especially since the article he links, justifying it says there is no proof. Not that anyone in that echo chamber actually read the article.
And one question back at you.
Do you think a leader of a country at war with terrorists should be able to do anything to protect his country?
Ah yes, the Ramsey Clarke defense: Saddam had to have hundreds of men in one town slaughtered after someone tried to assassinate him there, because, y’know, as a leader, you have to crack down sometimes.
This is the same guy who wants to impeach President Bush.
I’m not sure who the question in post 19 is aimed at, but it’s an interesting question which I will take a stab at.
In my opinion, the leader of a country at war does not have unlimited powers, nor should he. Certain war-related powers are expressly given to Congress (make rules for the navy and army; make rules for the handling of captures; ratify treaties; etc.). There is nothing in the Constitution which allows the executive to abrogate the power of the other branches of government in times of war.
The Constitution also gives Congress the power to “call forth the militia” and “suppress insurrections.” Even in the event of civil disorder, the President cannot declare martial law — that power is given to Congress.
The President also cannot violate the rights granted in the Bill of Rights in times of war. This has been violated by Lincoln and others, but this does not (in my opinion) make it constitutional. He cannot shut down newspapers, mosques, or protest rallies in times of war.
When the criterion becomes “war with terrorists,” as opposed to all wars, I believe that the President has even less scope than war with a foreign army. To call the conflict with Al Qaeda a war is to misuse the term, at least in the sense in which it was understood by the founding fathers. A war is a conflict between two state militias, and it implies a resolution. The “war against terrorism” is against stateless actors and its nature does not lead to an armistice. It is intrinsically amorphous and open-ended. If you defeat another country, you put your flag there and everybody knows it’s over. How can a “war on terrorism” be concluded? A terrorist act can happen the next day and nullify the “conclusion.”
This is not to minimize the threat which terrorists pose: it’s only to suggest that there is a legitimate distinction between fighting terrorists and fighting state run armies, and this has constitutional ramifications. It is reasonable to think that the powers granted to the President as commander in chief in times of war against armies is greater than in the war on terrorism, if only because it is difficult to conceive that the founding fathers intended the emergency powers of war to be granted in perpetuity. The job of defining the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches in fighting terrorism is, I believe, something properly done by the Supreme Court.
As for the “war on terrorism,” and how you know its concluded, I’ve argued before (elsewhere) that the term is a bit of a misnomer. What people mean when they say “war on terror” is actually “war on political extremist Islam,” and we’ll know we’ve won that the same way we knew we’d won the Cold War, or “war on Communism”: when the percent of the population that truly adheres to the ideology in question is incidental at best and the ideology is discredited. As for concrete signs of that conclusion (I know this sounds silly), when a McDonald’s opens in Kabul and a Toyota plant opens in Baghdad — in other words, when the countries of the Middle East reject isolationism and anti-globalism, and they are accepted into the community of nations — we will know we’ve won. (This is why the Dubai Ports World debacle was such a tragedy and probably the most counter-productive action we could have possibly taken in the “War on Terror”).
capitalism on the march. glory, glory halaleujah…
I agree on the propostion that modern countries don’t usually wage war. (I know, I know, the US does…still working that one out.)
I agree with Aaron — I’m not sure if seeing Al Qaeda members renouncing terrorism so they can shop at Banana Republic is a criterion which would pass constitutional muster, but it’s as good a definition as I can think of for the end of terrorism –
[...] Atrios, silence (not even an Open Thread!); Glenn Greenwald, silence (and you never answered my five-question challenge, Glenn); Kos, silence (though georgia10 weighs in); Billmon, silent (thoughs he’s up in arms about those darn Jews again)… [...]
[...] (1) This is obviously a coordinated effort to ‘choke the oxygen’ from the story by ignoring it in the major liberal blogs (Greenwald practically telegraphed this the other day with his call for the Democrats to politicize the verdict). We’ve seen it before, with the Jerome Armstrong SEC consent decree story…is this the return of Townhouse (the e-mail list used to make sure the ‘independent-minded’ progressives all tout the party line)? More likely, it never went away, but just moved to more ‘exclusive’ digs. [...]