Talk about an October Surprise. It's no killer rabbit, but it'll do for some.
Well, I suppose it's more of a November Sacrifice to the gods of american electoral politics than an October Surprise. And to me, it isn't much of a surprise as I had both known about Saddam Hussein's impending doom for a couple weeks beforehand and I had long ago given up on any illusions of integrity among our political leaders, but just two days before the midterm elections they sentenced Saddam Hussein to the chair. Or however they kill people over there.
Why do I call it a sacrifice to the gods our leaders hold dear? Because it's been scheduled in advance, that's why. According to one observer of the trial, Columbia professor Scott Horton, most observers expected the {sentencing} date would be much later, but it seems to have been moved up.
In an interview in The Nation, he says
In my experience, everything that comes out of Baghdad is very carefully prepared for U.S. domestic consumption. ... There is a team of American lawyers working as special legal advisers out of the U.S. embassy, who drive the tribunal. They have been involved in preparing the case and overseeing it from the beginning.
Exactly like the
Nuremberg trials in
1946: get them for one of the least of their crimes, get them quickly, get them two days before the elections, and best of all get them before they can implicate the
people who aided in some of the greatest of their crimes. Truly an American tradition.
I consider it doubtful that this maneuver — and however evil the man is, it is still a maneuver — will have the effect its pushers intended. While Shi'as and Kurds are dancing jubilantly in the streets, the Sunni minority is solemn, and protests in large groups, holding up portraits of Saddam. Will this highlight, to the American public, the deep and growing divisions that crisscross Iraq like fault lines? Will anyone glean satisfaction from this next step in what has been largely a theatrical judicial process long enough to let it affect their voting decisions in an election widely purported to be a referendum on the policies of the Bush administration and the Republican congress?
Believe it or not, though, death sentences of far greater import have been handed out in the land of Iraq in the last few months. I refer to the case of one Mohammed Munaf, an Iraqi-born United States citizen.
Mr. Munaf had traveled to Iraq with three Romanian journalists in 2005 from Romania, where Mr. Munaf lived with his wife and children, who are also United States citizens. With his knowledge of the language and culture of Iraq, he was a doubtless a great asset to the journalists. According to the U.S. military, however, he is also a terrorist.
18 months ago, the three journalists and Mr. Munaf were kidnapped by a group of insurgents. When they were released three months later, Mr. Munaf was immediately taken into custody by the U.S. military. Held for sixteen months, the situation finally came to a head in October of 2006.
The story goes like this: the judge overseeing the case was ready to dismiss the charges against Munaf, because there was a dearth of evidence against him and because the Romanian government wasn't seeking charges against him. At the figurative last minute however, two American army officers appear. One claims to represent the Romanian government. They urge the judge to give Munaf the death penalty. The officers met privately with the judge — no defendant, no lawyers, just the two officers and the judge. When the judge came back, he sentenced Mohammed Munaf to death.
An American citizen. Death. On evidence he did not have the chance to hear about or refute. No due process, nobody even knows how many constitutional rights disregarded, and the guy isn't even threatening to detonate a dirty bomb in the middle of New York City in the next three hours. What a rip-off.
Do you feel comfortable knowing that your government can and will suspend the rights of your fellow citizens based on who knows what evidence? Even if you do accept the idea that they must have a fantastic reason for denying Munaf his constitutional rights, do you think that they — ordinary people with inordinate power — will not eventually abuse that power? Our rights were established for a reason, and that reason was not that people who gain power gain a
proportional amount of virtue as they get it. Has the government,
any government, ever given up any power voluntarily? I don't want you to vote Democrat. I don't want you to vote Independent. I want you to give this country a shock to its system, because that's what it's going to take. What I mean to say, really, is:
Osama bin Laden is still free. Are you?
I always feel a litte bit crazy after I write something like this, but then again it's a crazy world. Luckily, the Secret Service is here to defend us against 14 year old girls.
A video of one of Munaf's lawyers discussing the case: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/43489/Scott Horton's The Nation interview: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1018-23.htm