Common and Obama: Poetry Night

Tonight at the White House, the Obamas will be celebrating American poetry.

From the Washington Examiner:

[The Obamas will celebrate] American poetry and prose by hosting a gathering of poets, musicians and artists.

Those slated to attend include Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Common, Rita Dove, Kenneth Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, Aimee Mann and Jill Scott. The performers, using music and verse, will highlight poetry's influence on American culture, according to the Associated Press.

As per usual, Michelle Obama will use the event to teach young ones. The first lady will host an afternoon workshop connecting students from all across the country to the evening's performers.

"An Evening of Poetry" is part of White House's music series, which began in 2009 with a jazz studio. Since then, Michelle Obama has hosted a celebration of country music, classical music, Motown music, Latin music, a salute to Broadway, music of the civil rights movement and a dance tribute to Judith Jamison.

"An Evening of Poetry" doesn't sound very controversial, but it is.

The source of the controversy is the White House invitation for Common, aka Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., a poet and rapper from Chicago, to participate in the event.

Common and the Obamas go way back.

They were all members of the very controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ.

Watch Common freestyle the sermon, and campaign for Obama, at the Church's 2008 New Year celebration.



Common defended his pastor when Wright came under fire back in 2008. Obama, of course, eventually threw Wright under the bus.

Here's another performance by Common, "Can a Black Man be a President."



Clearly, Common is politically active and a longtime Obama supporter. He's done plenty of campaigning for Obama. Watch "Vote Hope: Common for Barack Obama."



Given their history, it's no surprise that the Obamas would want Common to attend their celebration of American poetry.

The issue is some of Common's "poetry."

One of his "poems" speaks of killing police and burning President George W. Bush.

That violent imagery is a problem, especially since Michelle intends to use the event as a teaching moment for kids.

As per usual, Michelle Obama will use the event to teach young ones. The first lady will host an afternoon workshop connecting students from all across the country to the evening's performers.

I don't know that it's a good thing to connect American students with Common.

Common writes some rough, hateful stuff. I don't think that's a good message to send to kids.

Video of Common reciting "A Letter to the Law."



Transcript, from The Daily Caller.

A Letter to the Law

Dem boy wanna talk… [indistinguishable]

Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?

I sing a song for the hero unsung

with faces on the mural of the revolution

No looking back cos’ in back is what’s done

Tell the preacher, God got more than one son

Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton

I walk like a warrior,

from them I won’t run

On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum

In Cincinnati, another brother hung

A guinea won’t see the sun

with his family stung

They want us to hold justice

but you handed me none

The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson

make them the main attraction

Turn around and attack them

Black gem in the rough

You’re rugged enough

Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch

Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun

I got the black strap to make the cops run

They watching me, I’m watching them

Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them

My people on the block got a lot of Pac in them

and when we roll together

we be rocking them to sleep

No time for that, because there’s things to be done

Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come

from project building

Seeing a fiend being hung

With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?

Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button

Killing over oil and grease

no weapons of destruction

How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one

The government’s a g-unit and they might buck young black people

Black people In the urban area one

I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.

Peace, ya’ll.

I have no problem whatsoever with Common expressing himself through his art.

However, because some of his work contains very violent imagery and inflammatory rhetoric like calling to "Burn a Bush," I don't think it's appropriate for the Obamas to highlight him at their poetry soiree.

Where's that new tone of civility?

Common's "A Letter to the Law" isn't vague. It's very specific about President Bush and police being the enemy, and dealing with them violently.

Would the Leftists mind if a Republican president invited a performer to the White House who called for Obama to be burned?

I think they'd completely flip out.

Condoleezza Rice and Lawrence O'Donnell

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is a horrible interviewer. HORRIBLE.

Watch former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suffer the disrespect and stupidity of the crazed Leftist propagandist Lawrence O'Donnell.

Video.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Condoleezza Rice showed incredible restraint and patience with the disgraceful, classless O'Donnell.

Rice's brilliance overpowers O'Donnell, a rude and ill-informed hack.

Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson

Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson acted as dupes for Saddam Hussein. That's a proud legacy, isn't it?

WASHINGTON -- Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators "have no information whatsoever" any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

"Obviously, we didn't know it at the time," McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went."

(Really? See the article below by Stephen Hayes.)

Both McDermott and Thompson are popular among liberal voters in their reliably Democratic districts for their anti-war views. Bonior is no longer in Congress.

Thompson released a statement Wednesday saying the trip was approved by the State Department.

"Obviously, had there been any question at all regarding the sponsor of the trip or the funding, I would not have participated," he said.

...Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, the second-ranking Senate Republican at the time, said the Democrats "sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government." Seattle-are[a] conservatives dubbed McDermott "Baghdad Jim" for the Iraq trip.

Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail.

Between 1999 and 2006, he worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a charity group formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity's headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.

McDermott identified that charity as the group financing the Iraq trip. In House disclosure forms, he put the cost at $5,510. Thompson also understood the charity to be financing the trip, spokeswoman Anne Warden said.

Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam's government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq.

In exchange for coordinating the congressional trip, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, prosecutors said.

None of this should come as a surprise. It's sickening but not surprising.

In the October 14, 2002 issue of The Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes wrote an interesting, albeit nauseating, piece, "The Baghdad Democrats."

IT'S A RARE POLITICAL MOMENT when Terry McAuliffe says no comment. Yet McAuliffe, the garrulous chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said just that last Wednesday at the Brookings Institution after a speech by Al Gore. Asked about the trip to Baghdad taken by three of his fellow partisans--Representatives David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson--McAuliffe was nonplussed.

"Have we issued anything on that?" he asked DNC spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri, who shook her head.

"I don't think we have," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"We handle the politics, and leave those comments to elected officials," Palmieri explained. "But nice try."

Problem is, the elected officials aren't saying much either. Bonior was until recently the second-ranking Democrat in the House, and yet it's nearly impossible to get Democrats to say anything about his and the others' trip to Baghdad.

But if other Democrats aren't talking about the Baghdad tour, Bonior and McDermott themselves won't shut up. And the more they talk, the more scrutiny they invite.

The controversy ignited on September 29 when Bonior and McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC's "This Week." Host George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that "the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war."

McDermott didn't backpedal at all: "I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation. . . . It would not surprise me if they came out with some information that is not provable, and they, they shift it. First they said it was al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they're going back to and saying it's al Qaeda again." When Stephanopoulos pressed McDermott about whether he had any evidence that Bush had lied, the congressman replied, "I think the president would mislead the American people."

An American official floating unsubstantiated allegations against an American president during a visit to Baghdad would be troubling enough. But McDermott compounded his problem by insisting, despite its twelve years of verifiable prevarication, that the Iraqi regime should be given the benefit of the doubt on inspections and disarmament. Said McDermott on "This Week": "I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face value."

But McDermott and Bonior only accept Iraq's more conciliatory statements at face value. They selectively ignore those statements by Iraqi officials defying the international community's demand for unfettered inspections. Even after Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan made clear that inspectors would not be allowed into presidential sites--some 12 square miles of Iraqi territory--McDermott claimed the Iraqi regime really wanted to be accommodating. "They have given us assurances that there will be unfettered inspections," McDermott said at an October 2 press conference he held with Bonior after returning from Iraq. "In the United States, we have a tradition, we have a Constitution that says if there's a bad person there, we give them due process and inspections is the due process in this example."

At the same press conference, McDermott and Bonior retrospectively revised the primary goal of their trip. (Thompson, who wasn't at that appearance, kept a relatively low profile both on the trip and after his return. He was the only one of the three to emphasize that Saddam Hussein, and not the U.S. government, bears responsibility for conditions in Iraq.) "First of all," said Bonior, explaining the objectives of the trip, "we wanted to impress upon the Iraqi government and the people of Iraq how important it was for them to allow unconditional, unfettered, unrestricted access to the inspectors." It was such an important point that he revisited it later.

"The purpose of our trip was to make it very clear, as I said in my opening statement, to the officials in Iraq how serious we--the United States is about going to war and that they will have war unless these inspections are allowed to go unconditionally and unfettered and open. And that was our point. And that was in the best interest of not only Iraq, but the American citizens and our troops. And that's what we were emphasizing. That was our primary concern--that and looking at the humanitarian situation."

But if the return of inspectors was the "first" and "primary" purpose of the trip on October 2, it wasn't quite as important on September 25. In the joint press release all three congressmen issued before their trip, posted on each of their websites, there were many stated goals, and plenty of criticism of U.S. saber rattling and pounding of war drums. But there was no mention of inspections at all.

Instead there was much talk of "gaining insight into the humanitarian challenges another war on Iraq would have on innocent Iraqis and the dangerous implications of a unilateral, preemptive strike on U.S. national security."

It's reassuring to know that these congressmen were concerned about our national security, even if the source of their concern was our president rather than the brutal dictator with weapons of mass destruction the United States is trying to stop. What apparently didn't concern the congressmen was the damage their trip might do abroad to any U.S.-led effort to deal with Saddam. Or any difficulties they may have created for U.S. efforts to fashion a friendly post-Saddam Iraq.

EVEN BEFORE the Baghdad boys left Iraq, media outlets throughout the Middle East gleefully highlighted divisions in the U.S. government and the travels by the "antiwar" congressmen. The Iraq Daily, for example, published by Saddam's Ministry of Information, printed daily updates of the trip and posted them in English on their website.

For example, a September 30 report says, "the members of the U.S. Congress delegation has underlined that this visit aims to get acquainted with the truth of Iraq's people sufferings due to ongoing embargo which caused shortage in food and medicine for all Iraqi people." (That article appeared next to a report on Saddam's continuing financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers or, to use the paper's formulation, "intrepid Palestinian uprising martyrs." Also in that issue is an article by American white supremacist Matthew Hale, "Truth About 9-11: How Jewish Manipulation Killed Thousands.")

Hayes details how the three Congressmen were used as propaganda tools by the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.

On September 27, viewers of Iraqi Satellite Channel Television learned the following (this translation comes from U.S. government sources):

"Three U.S. Congressmen arrived in Baghdad this morning on a visit lasting several days. The delegation will hold several meetings with Iraqi officials and members of the Foreign Relations Committee at the National Assembly. They will also visit hospitals to see the suffering caused by the unjust embargo and the shortage of medicines and medical supplies. Congressman Jim McDermott told reporters upon arrival at Saddam International Airport that the delegation members reject the policy of aggression dominating the U.S. administration."

The video then showed McDermott talking, with a voiceover translation in Arabic. Here is what Arabic-speaking audiences heard from McDermott:

"We are three veterans of the Vietnam War who came over here because we don't want war. We assert from here that we do not want the United States to wage war on any peace-loving countries. As members of Congress, we would like diplomatic efforts to continue so as not to launch any aggression. We will visit children's hospitals to see the negative impact of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. We hope that peace will prevail throughout the world."

So how does it feel to be used as a propaganda tool against your own country? McDermott, who was asked that question by CNN's Jane Arraf when he was still in Baghdad, said it feels fine. "If being used means that we're highlighting the suffering of Iraqi children, or any children, then, yes, we don't mind being used."

The adventures of McDermott, Bonior, and Thompson in Iraq were truly stunning.

In October 2002, George Will commented on "Baghdad Bonior."

Hitler found ``Lord Haw Haw''--William Joyce, who broadcast German propaganda to Britain during the Second World War--in the dregs of British extremism. But Saddam Hussein finds American collaborators among senior congressional Democrats.

Not since Jane Fonda posed for photographers at a Hanoi antiaircraft gun has there been anything like Rep. Jim McDermott, speaking to ABC's ``This Week'' from Baghdad, saying Americans should take Saddam Hussein at his word, but should not take President Bush at his. McDermott, in his seventh term representing Seattle, said Iraqi officials promised him and his traveling companion, Rep. David Bonior, a 13-term Michigan Democrat, that weapons inspectors would be ``allowed to look anywhere.''

Bonior, until recently second-ranking in the House Democratic leadership, said sources no less reliable than Saddam's minions told them that inspectors will have an ``unrestricted ability to go where they want.'' McDermott said: ``I think you have to take the Iraqis on their value--at their face value.'' And: ``I think the president would mislead the American people.''

McDermott and Bonior are two specimens of what Lenin, referring to Westerners who denied the existence of Lenin's police-state terror, called ``useful idiots.'' Perhaps Iraqi officials, knowing fathomless gullibility when they see it--they have dealt with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan--actually said such things. Or perhaps McDermott and Bonior heard what they wished to hear.

...McDermott's accusation that the president--presumably with Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice and others as accomplices--would use deceit to satisfy his craving to send young Americans into an unnecessary war is a slander licensed six days earlier by Al Gore. With transparent Nixonian trickiness--being transparent, it tricks no one--Gore all but said the president is orchestrating war policy for political gain in November.

Gore and many other Democrats who supported the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, with which the Clinton administration endorsed regime change, are now engaged in moral infantilism--willing the end but refusing to will any realistic means to that end. Such evasions define today's Democrats, even in domestic policy, as when Tom Daschle and others say Bush's tax cuts are calamitous, but flinch from saying the cuts should be rescinded.

McDermott's and Bonior's espousal of Saddam's line, and of Gore's subtext (and Barbra Streisand's libretto), signals the recrudescence of the dogmatic distrust of U.S. power that virtually disqualified the Democratic Party from presidential politics for a generation. It gives the benefits of all doubts to America's enemies and reduces policy debates to accusations about the motives of Americans who would project U.S. power in the world.

Conservative isolationism--America is too good for the world--is long dead. Liberal isolationism--the world is too good for America--is flourishing.

Also in October of 2002, Joseph Farah provided some fascinating information on David Bonior.

Rep. David Bonior, a 13-term Michigan Democrat – and until recently second-ranking in House Democratic leadership – worked tirelessly for years leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, for rules ensuring Middle Easterners would not receive any unusual scrutiny at the nation's airports.

He was successful – even at getting President Bush to sign a new law to that effect, one that might have contributed directly to the deaths of 3,000 Americans.

Bonior also championed the case of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar, jailed before Sept. 11 because the FBI and Immigration officials suspected the Gaza native was a mid-level terrorist operative, and because he had violated the terms of his visa.

He was unsuccessful in this endeavor. Al-Najjar was ultimately deported to the United Arab Emirates.

Bonior, who lost a bid to become Michigan's governor, also took campaign contributions from Dr. Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida professor said to be Islamic Jihad's front-man in the United States. Al-Arian and his wife, Nahla, donated at least $3,450 to Bonior's campaigns. Al-Arian also raised funds for Islamic Jihad – an ally of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

What did such campaign contributions buy for Al-Arian? We got a clue in June 2001, just three months before the terror attacks on the U.S. During a White House meeting on President Bush's "faith-based initiatives" that month, a uniformed Secret Service officer felt compelled to remove a 20-year-old Muslim intern working for Bonior. Apparently the young man was seen as a security threat – and understandably so. The intern's name was Abdallah Al-Arian – the son of Sami Al-Arian.

And if all this isn't incestuous enough, it turns out Al-Najjar is Al-Arian's brother-in-law.

In a speech to the American Muslim Alliance in 1998, Bonior urged lifting the sanctions on Iraq, claiming they had killed some 700,000 children. More recently, since returning from Baghdad this week, Bonior has revised that estimate downward to 500,000 – even though four years have transpired since his earlier estimate and even while claiming 50,000 children a year continue to die as a result of U.S. actions.

It's hard to believe, with a record of achievement like this, that anyone would take anything Bonior says as credible. It's hard to believe he is still permitted to serve in the House of Representatives. It's hard to believe that he was so high in leadership within his party for so long.

Hard to believe, but true.

Al-Hanooti certainly delivered for Saddam Hussein when he pegged Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson as "useful idiots."

As stated in the New York Times:

The Justice Department said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein’s principal foreign intelligence agency and an Iraqi-American man had organized and paid for a 2002 visit to Iraq by three House Democrats whose trip was harshly criticized by colleagues at the time.

The arrangements for the trip were described in the indictment of an Iraq-born former employee of a Detroit-area charity group who was charged Wednesday with accepting millions of dollars’ worth of Iraqi oil contracts in exchange for assisting the Iraqi spy agency in projects in the United States.

The indictment did not claim any wrongdoing by the three lawmakers, whose five-day trip to Iraq occurred in October 2002, five months before the American invasion.

Two continue to serve in the House: Jim McDermott of Washington State and Mike Thompson of California. The other, David E. Bonior of Michigan, has since retired from Congress.

“None of the Congressional representatives are accused of any wrongdoing, and we have no information whatsoever that any of them were aware of the involvement of the Iraqi Intelligence Service,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice spokesman.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between the Congressmen's wrongdoing in terms of the trip's funding and their wrongdoing in terms of how they behaved and the things they said while in Iraq.

In my view, there definitely was wrongdoing.

New Video of Dead Saddam

Here.

Foss High School Shooting

Is this the first school shooting of the year?

As far as I know, it is.

TACOMA, Wash. -- A student was shot to death at his high school as classes about to start Wednesday morning, and police were searching for the gunman, officials said.

The student's age and details of the 7:30 a.m. shooting at Foss High School were not immediately released, but police spokesman Mark Fulghum said no one else was believed to be injured. He said police were trying to determine what prompted the attack.

The suspect was believed to be another student, and school district spokeswoman Peggy Holmgren said there were witnesses to the attack.

According to Holmgren, the student was shot just outside a school door, though several students told televisions stations that the shooting was actually in a hallway.

"I thought it was fireworks, but it was probably three shots," Jacki Phongsavath, a junior at Foss, told KOMO-TV of Seattle. "I looked around the corner and saw someone laying on the ground and blood on the lockers."

...The school was locked down after the shooting. By about 8:30, police had secured the building and students were being sent home, Tacoma School District spokeswoman Pam Thompson said. Classes were canceled for the rest of the day.

What's worse?

An Iraqi official taunting the Butcher of Baghdad Saddam Hussein before his execution

OR

A Tacoma high school student being executed on school grounds before classes

Where's the outrage over these shootings???

The fact that Saddam had to endure a taunt before his death is a big deal. The lib media can't stop drooling over the shame of it.

Will this shooting get as much attention?

I guess it's just another day at an American high school. No big deal. Right?

WRONG!

The Cellphone Video of Saddam's Execution

(Al Iraqiya - IRAQ/Reuters)


Courtesy of Google Video, we can all watch Saddam Hussein die.

The hooded executioners place the noose around the Butcher of Baghdad's neck. The final chapter of Saddam's reign of terror is at hand.

Saddam remains defiant. He prays.

There are many accounts of Saddam's final moments -- the bitter exchanges, the taunts, the last words.

(Here and here and here are a few.)


The trapdoor beneath him opens, like the entrance to Hell, and he dies.

The video shows his body swinging. The movement isn't a sign of life, just physics.

Yes, it's gruesome; sort of. It has a surreal quality. I've seen far more disturbing scenes in movies. I know this is different. It's real.

Still, it's not particularly shocking to me. It's a rather quiet demise for this monster.

Should I be troubled by my "so what?" reaction?

Should I care that he was executed and that's against my personal beliefs about capital punishment?

I suppose I should.

I don't.


(Biladi TV/Reuters)

Video of Saddam Hussein being executed

Originally posted as a link on the Something Awful forums, I saved and uploaded it to google video before the it died.

Spare Saddam!

A video grab taken from al-Iraqiya television shows ousted Iraq president Saddam Hussein moments before being hanged in Baghdad. (AFP/Al Iaqyia TV)



A frame grab from Al Iraqiya television shows a noose being placed around former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's neck December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Al Iraqiya (IRAQ)


I think today's editorial in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Death penalty still wrong," was prepared well in advance of Saddam Hussein's execution.

The Editorial Board may have had it ready for print as soon as Saddam was captured in December of 2003.

We all knew this was coming. The board knew that the death of Saddam would provide a perfect opportunity to slam the Bush administration and supporters of the death penalty.

(Unlike the Editorial Board, let's not forget that some Dems are pro-death penalty. For example, Oscar shoo-in, superstar Al Gore is FOR the death penalty. He believes in killing criminals. Just don't melt the polar ice caps.)

I'm not endorsing the death penalty here. I'm pointing out that the Editorial Board's reasoning is weak.

Saddam Hussein was a monster. His execution by the Iraqis he cruelly governed will understandably be cause for celebration in many quarters and perhaps cause for more insurgency in others. And, yes, the world is better off with one fewer tyrant.

But this in no way changes one central truth: Capital punishment remains a bad idea even for really bad people. People like Hussein, for instance. The problem is not so much that such people don't deserve to die as it is that a nation debases itself by stooping to the level of a killer.

The execution of Saddam was not an eye for an eye.

For that to be the case, Saddam would need hundreds of thousands of eyes.

Furthermore, does a nation debase itself when it excuses atrocities and disrespects life by coddling monsters?

...The virgin Iraqi government, designed to be a shining example of democracy in the largely autocratic Middle East, went astray by adopting capital punishment, a practice democracies have shed worldwide as unbefitting them.

"Virgin Iraqi government"?

What does that mean?

Unfortunately, Iraq got no good guidance on the issue from its mentor, the United States, one of the last holdouts against this trend. The Bush administration backs capital punishment enthusiastically.

Remember, Dems enthusiastically back capital punishment, too.

That helped them win control of the House and Senate, acting like conservatives to appeal to mainstream American voters.

I knew a lib media outlet like The JS would blame Bush for Saddam's execution.

The buck always stops with Bush. I wonder if The JS blames Bush for its declining readership as well.

Iraq's use of the death penalty has already drawn criticism from world bodies such as the United Nations, the Vatican and Amnesty International, which considers the punishment a human rights violation. But these organizations are doubly critical of the penalty in Hussein's case because they say his trial failed to meet standards of fairness. The groups cite interference in the judicial proceedings from the executive branch and other problems.

Criticism from the corrupt, genocide-ignoring UN and the politically driven AI is a joke.

Criticism from the Vatican is valid because it's based in teaching that is morally consistent. The Vatican is against the death penalty, but it doesn't trumpet the murder of millions of babies via abortion.

However, to suggest that the trial was unfair is ridiculous. Whatever minor problems there may have been, the evidence against Saddam is clear and overwhelming. How many thousands of people need to be exhumed from mass graves?

His execution also robs the Kurds of some modicum of justice. They first wanted a second trial for Hussein to conclude. The deposed dictator is charged with genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s.

Huh?

Saddam is dead.

Do you think the Kurds feel cheated that they couldn't put him on trial and sentence him to death, too?

Is The JS arguing that the Kurds should have had that opportunity?

That's a pretty stupid argument, considering the board is against the death penalty.

The gallows have seen a step-up in traffic in Iraq this year. Some 53 people took the one-way trip there in 2006. Yes, Iraq has horrible problems with lawlessness. But the executions only add to the cycle of violence.

Fifty-three?

How does that compare to decades of atrocities and death under Saddam?

It's not in the same league, not even close.

The government has a tough time teaching the lesson that the people must stop settling scores with beheadings and other violence if the government itself is settling scores with hangings.

How stupid!

An alleged criminal being put on trial, found guilty, and being sentenced to die is not the same as an innocent person being taken hostage, tortured, and beheaded.

The Editorial Board's inability to distinguish the differences are an embarrassment to The JS.

Hussein said he prefers to die at the end of a rope rather than to waste away in prison. Will his execution make him a martyr?

One thing is certain. An execution diminishes those who enable it.

What's certain is that the Editorial Board prefers to bash Bush rather than highlight the tyrant Saddam's crimes against humanity.

I think the Editorial Board is more comfortable with the mindset of these protesters:



Activists from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) hold a burning doll symbolizing U.S. President George Bush during a protest against the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in Srinagar December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Yawar Nazir (INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)


A demonstrator condemns the hanging of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Bangalore. (AFP/Dibyangshu Sarkar)


An activist from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) writes on a doll symbolizing U.S. President George Bush during a protest against the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in Srinagar December 30, 2006. REUTERS/Yawar Nazir (INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)

SADDAM IS DEAD

Human remains just exumed from the mass grave near Haila, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Photo: Tom Bullock, NPR News


An Iraqi man cries openly and kisses the plastic bag containing the remains of his uncle, who had been missing for more than a decade.

Photo: Tom Bullock, NPR News


A child's garment found in a shallow grave.

CPA photo

Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging for crimes against humanity, but Al Jazeera doesn't want to believe it.

Aljazeera reports:

Unconfirmed reports say that Saddam Hussein has been hanged in Baghdad. More soon.

_____________________________

9:46 pm CT and Al Jazeera still won't confirm Saddam's execution.

_____________________________

At 9:48 pm CT, Al Jazeera reports:

Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, has been hanged, according to a television station in the region.

Reports on Al Hurra, a US-backed station, said that Saddam was executed shortly before 6am (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The former Iraqi president, who was ousted in April 2003 by a US-led invasion, was convicted last month of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the Iraqi government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday.

The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in secrecy amid concerns that it may provoke a violent backlash from his former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war.

Saddam's conviction on November 5 was hailed by George Bush, the US president, as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago.

With U.S. public support for the war falling as the number of American dead approaches 3,000, Washington is likely to welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many allies about capital punishment.

...During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq. His execution means that he will never face justice on those charges.

Saddam insisted during his trial that he was still the president of Iraq. He said in a letter written after his conviction that he offered himself as a "sacrifice".

"If my soul goes down this path [of martyrdom] it will face God in serenity," he wrote in the letter.

"His execution means that he will never face justice on those charges."

Although I don't support the death penalty, that statement is false.

Saddam was tried, found guilty, and received his sentence.

He did face justice. Justice was done.

He now faces the judgment of God.



"I said what I said. I am not guilty."

--SADDAM HUSSEIN (1937- 2006)

Saddam Super Sunday?

(AFP/File/Patrick Baz)


How will the world usher out 2006 and ring in 2007?

Perhaps with the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Creepy.

DUBAI (Reuters) -- Saddam Hussein has been handed over by U.S forces to Iraqi government custody, his lawyers said on Friday, in an apparent step toward his execution.

"I understand they have handed him over," said one defense lawyer who declined to give his name.

This defense lawyer makes it sound like Jesus is being handed over for crucifixion.

Another lawyer said that U.S. officials had asked him to pick up the personal effects of the former Iraqi president who has been sentenced to death.

"The American side called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, referring to Saddam's half brother, who has also been sentenced to death.

I wonder what sort of personal effects Saddam has.

Hair dye?

A Koran?

Look at this, from Reuters/Hollywood Reporter:

"TV plans tasteful coverage of Saddam execution"

Television networks face a killer of a conundrum with the impending execution of Saddam Hussein, whose hanging could be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV.

The timing of Saddam's date with the gallows was unclear, but late Thursday CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel reported that the former dictator, convicted this year in the deaths of 148 people in 1982, would be turned over by the American military to the Iraqi government within 36 hours and hanged before the start of a Muslim holiday on Sunday.

Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped by the Iraqi government, though it wasn't clear whether it would be released to the public or broadcast.

"We will video everything," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouffak al Rubaie told CBS News.

Judging by the Iraqi government's release Tuesday of videotape of the hanging of 13 convicts, it could be a gruesome affair. Meetings were held Thursday in at least two network headquarters over how to handle the potentially graphic images.

ABC and CBS said they wouldn't air the full execution if the video became available.

...The operative word: taste.

"We have very, very strict guidelines with how to deal with that," said Bob Murphy, senior vp at ABC News. "If there were pictures made available of the execution, they would have to be viewed by senior management before we would put them on the air, and we would make a judgement of taste and propriety of what we would show."

Right.

The operative word is "taste."

If there's one thing that the networks lack, it has to be taste.

It's not like network TV hasn't aired footage of someone being put to death before.

In 1998, 60 Minutes aired a Dr. Kevorkian assisted suicide.

How is it that was touted as a humane act?

Granted, a hanging is more gruesome than a lethal injection, and Saddam isn't choosing to die; but I suspect the executives at the networks are salivating over the potential ratings of Saddam's death sentence being televised.

The entire mess depresses me.

Theoretically, I'm opposed to the death penalty.

If I'm to be morally consistent, even a cold-blooded, murderous monster like Saddam should not be killed for his crimes.

But I know if Saddam had ordered the slaughter of my family members, I'd want him dead.

Why should he be allowed to live after committing such atrocities on such a massive scale? Why should he get to continue to eat and sleep and breathe when he robbed life from so many?

He shouldn't; but yet, I can't support his execution.

So I'm a hypocrite.

It's a moral dilemma for me.

Everything is so ugly -- the mass graves, the hundreds of thousands dead, the war, all the death.

RJay has compiled some reminders of Saddam's lifework:

Mass Graves of Iraq: Uncovering Atrocities

NPR Iraq Mass Grave Photo Gallery

Bodies Exhumed from Mass Grave in Iraq

Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves

Human Rights Watch Gallery

Experts: 300,000 in Saddam's Mass Graves

Graves of Mass Evidence

Iraq Mass Graves Field Report – w/Video

How do civilized people respond to such inhumanity?

By giving Saddam good health care, three meals a day, Doritos and Raisin Bran Crunch for the next ten or more years, until he dies of natural causes?

That doesn't seem appropriate at all.

I don't know.

Then there's the idiot media.

The libs in the media claim to care about taste. What a crock of crap!

I bet they wish they could debate about televising footage of President Bush being executed. You know, "Too bad it's Saddam, and not Bush."

Is that unfair? Too harsh?

I don't know anymore.

I hate the war. I hate Saddam more.

I hate all the hate.

So Long, Saddam

Saddam Hussein will not be spending the rest of his days playing golf in Florida while he tirelessly searches for the real murderer of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

The verdict is in. His days are numbered.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's High Tribunal found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity on Sunday and sentenced him to die by hanging.

Former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was found guilty of premeditated murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Three other co-defendants of Saddam Hussein were convicted of murder and torture and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

A fifth defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Saddam and seven co-defendants were charged with crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in the town of Dujail after a failed assassination attempt on the former leader.

Here's more, from Aljazeera:

Saddam's sentence will be automatically appealed and reviewed by a panel of appeal judges, who will decide whether or not to allow a retrial.

If the judgement stands, however, Saddam must be executed within 30 days of the appeals panel delivering its verdict, the chief prosecutor has said.

Saddam, 69 said that he wants to be executed by firing squad. However Iraqi law states that he will be executed by hanging.

...Before the verdict was announced, Iraq's government imposed a curfew in Baghdad, the mixed Sunni-Shia province of Diyala and Salahuddin, the province containing Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

But despite the curfews, Shias had gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district to celebrate what they hoped would be a guilty verdict.

Meanwhile in and around Tikrit small groups of Saddam's supporters held protests and denounced the court's judgement.

Sheikh Al-Nadawi, the head of the Baigat group of tribes to which Saddam belongs, said: "Saddam lived a hero and will die as a hero. The court was set up by his rivals... It is a historical farce."

On Saturday Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, said that he hoped Saddam would be found guilty, but also asked Iraqis to react calmly to the verdict.

"We hope the sentence matches what this man deserves for what he has done against the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people will express happiness in the way they find appropriate," al-Maliki said.

"We call upon the Iraqi people to be calm, to be disciplined and to express themselves in ways that take into consideration the security challenge and the need to protect the lives of citizens," he added.

Speaking before the verdict was announced, Iran also said that it hoped Saddam would be executed.

"Execution is the very least sentence they can hand down to Saddam Hussein," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said.

A rope hangs around a statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's al-Fardous (Paradise) square, 09 April 2003, before US marines came in and pulled the icon down. (AFP/File/Patrick Baz)

Saddam wasn't happy when he heard that there's a noose with his name on it.

AP now has a more detailed report of the courtroom scene when the verdict was announced:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein and two other men were convicted and sentenced Sunday to death by hanging for war crimes in the 1982 killings of 148 people in the town of Dujail, as the former leader, trembling, shouted "God is great!"

After the verdict was read, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"

Once again, we hear the Islamic extremists' "God is great!" rallying cry.

Saddam initially refused the chief judge's order to rise; two bailiffs lifted the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing.

Before the hearing began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.

Chief Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."

Former US Attorney General and Saddam Hussein defense attorney Ramsey Clark is ejected from the courtroom during the reading of the verdict in the ousted dictator's trial.(AFP/Pool/Scott Nelson)


What is with Ramsey Clark?

I think he's as nuts as Saddam.

He has disgraced himself as a former U.S. Attorney General, and as an American, and as a human being.

Clark should cut the dramatic outbursts. It's over.

Saddam's days of Doritos and Raisin Bran Crunch are coming to an end.

I wonder if he has any regrets.

More of the Saddam Files

Finally, the public is getting to access the documents captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Here are other documents that have been released.

There is so much material.

Browsing through it is at once fascinating and frightening.

ABC has devoted some time to reporting on a few of the revelations.

MSNBC also sucked it up and finally acknowledged the existence of the documents, with an AP report on its website.

The report explains:

The release of the documents, which is expected to continue for months, is designed to allow U.S. lawmakers and the public to investigate issues such as what Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime said about weapons of mass destruction.

Why aren't more media outlets carefully sifting through these documents and reporting details?

Why aren't they being splashed?

NewsMax has a report from the Associated Press that covers a news conference held by Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra, announcing the release of the information.

It's a blogger's dream come true: Millions of pre-Iraq war intelligence documents are now being posted online and two Republican congressmen are asking for their assistance in digesting them.

They can thank Sen. Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican, and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., for helping to make it happen.

The two said during a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday that they lobbied the White House and intelligence leaders to release millions of pages of documents and audio recordings captured during current and previous U.S. military operations in Iraq.

The first dump started Wednesday night via a Pentagon Web site at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, and the release is expected to continue for months. "We are hoping to unleash the power of the Internet, unleash the power of the blogosphere to get through these documents and give us a better understanding of exactly what was going on in Iraq prior to the war," Hoekstra said.

This is more than a blogger's dream come true. It should be a dream come true for the members of the press as well.

Access to the Saddam Files, literally millions of pages, have to shed some light on the status of Iraq's arsenal before the war and its plans for it.

Perhaps the enormity of the document dump is overwhelming and it will take time to report on the information.

Perhaps the lib media are afraid to discover evidence that might prove Bush right.

Perhaps they prefer to stick with the "Bush lied" template.

It's probably easier to ignore the material than having to refute facts contained in the documents that might run counter to their set in stone opinion that Bush misled the country into an unnecessary war.

I really don't get it. Some of the lamest non-story stories, like Plamegate, are elevated to incredible heights and considered of critical importance to the functioning of our democracy.

The Saddam files, on the other hand, don't seem to be causing much of a stir.

It's pathetic when you think about it.

Update: The Saddam Files

It looks like the release of the Saddam Files is imminent.

Finally, after months of waiting, the America people will soon have access to more of the 3,000 hours of audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and 48,000 boxes of records from the regime's activities.

According to Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, John Negroponte has loosened his grip and the Administration has agreed to release the documents.

Hayes writes:

The Bush administration has decided to release most of the documents captured in post-war Afghanistan and Iraq. The details of the document release are still being worked out, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions. Those details are critical. At issue are things like the timeframe for releasing the documents, the mechanism for scrubbing documents for sensitive information, and most important, the criteria for withholding documents from the public. But some of the captured files should be available to the public and journalists within weeks if not days.

...Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who has been steadfast in his resolve to see these documents released, said today that "this is a bold decision in favor of openness that will go a long way towards improving our understanding of prewar Iraq . . . By placing these documents online and allowing the public the opportunity to review them, we can cut years off the time it will take to gain knowledge from this potential treasure trove of information."

Hadley and John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), informed House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra on Saturday. The three men all attended the white-tie Gridiron Club dinner, a mainstay of the Washington establishment in which journalists and politicians poke fun at one another and themselves in a series of songs and skits.

..."Saddam Hussein and his henchmen systematically destroyed much of the good stuff," says Hoekstra. "We want to see what he missed." Indeed, in one memo found in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the director of Iraqi Intelligence commands recipients to burn their offices. Paul Bremer, in his book My Year in Iraq, describes reading a similar memo. He writes: "Operatives were to engage in sabotage and looting."

Michael Tanji worked for four years on media exploitation for the DIA, rising to division chief. He believes that with proper resources devoted to digital media exploitation, even some of the information the Iraqis intended to destroy can be recovered.

"It is the release of captured digital media, more than paper documents, that will likely provide the most comprehensive view on what was going on in Iraq; the state of any WMD programs as well as the true nature of what was on the mind of Saddam's trusted class," says Tanji.

...No one can say with any certainty what will come from the document release. Intelligence officials with knowledge of the exploitation process estimate that less than 4 percent of the overall document collection has been fully exploited. It's reasonable to assume that documents in the collection will provide support to both supporters of the war in Iraq and critics. Summaries of the exploited materials, listed in a U.S. government database known as HARMONY, suggest that the new material will at least complicate the overly simplified conventional wisdom that the former Iraqi regime posed no real threat.

There are mounds of materials to go through, with less than four percent having been analyzed. No definitive picture of the inner workings of Saddam's regime and its threat to U.S. security is anywhere near being assembled.

Nevertheless, the long overdue release of the documents to the public will shed at least some light on Saddam's Iraq.

The libs will have to give up their beloved "there were no WMDs" mantra, or at least suspend it for a while. They will no longer be able to chant that Bush misled the country about Iraq. Now, there will be evidence that challenges the Left's "Bush lied" rallying cry.

Of course, that means that the lib media will do everything they can to discredit and dismiss and ignore the information that will be gleaned from these documents.

I expect to see a lot of selective blindness from the libs.

Negroponte and the Saddam Files

An oft-repeated Dem talking point is that the Bush Administration is shrouded in secrecy.

When it comes to the Saddam Files, Bush doesn't want to keep any secrets.

For weeks, months now, President Bush has been pushing for the release of tapes and documents that were captured after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. He wants the information made available to the public, but John Negroponte continues to fight its release.

In an article for the Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes writes:

On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the meeting was beginning, Mike Pence spoke up. The Indiana Republican, a leader of conservatives in the House, was seated next to Bush.

"Yesterday, Mr. President, the war had its best night on the network news since the war ended," Pence said.

"Is this the tapes thing?" Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.

Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "One of your Republican predecessors said, 'Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.' There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?"

Bush replied that he wanted the documents released. He turned to Hadley and asked for an update. Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents" and that DNI lawyers were deciding how they might be handled.

...Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out."

On February 15, 2006, ABC's Brian Ross had an exclusive report on "Saddam's Secret Tapes." Twelve hours of the more than 3,000 hours of tape were made public.

At the time however, the story was completely overshadowed by that far more pressing story, Vice President Cheney's hunting accident.

Bush has been trying to get the information out to the American public for months, according to Hayes.

Hayes writes:

On November 30, 2005, he gave a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy. Four members of Congress attended: Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee; Sen. John Warner, the Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee; Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona; and Pence. After his speech, Bush visited with the lawmakers for 10 minutes in a holding room to the side of the stage. Hoekstra asked Bush about the documents and the president said he was pressing to have them released.

Says Pence: "I left both meetings with the unambiguous impression that the president of the United States wants these documents to reach the American people."

Negroponte never got the message. Or he is choosing to ignore it. He has done nothing to expedite the exploitation of the documents. And he continues to block the growing congressional effort, led by Hoekstra, to have the documents released.

Negroponte continues to stonewall, claiming that the documents have historical value, but nothing to offer in terms of intelligence. That's his justification for withholding the documents.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Even if the documents are only of historical interest, why not release the historically interesting documents?

Why prevent the public from access to what's on the tapes?

Hayes points out that the tapes aired on ABC raise questions.

Left unanswered was what the analysts made of the Iraqi official who reported to Saddam that components of the regime's nuclear program had been "transported out of Iraq." Who gave this report to Saddam and when did he give it? How were the materials "transported out of Iraq"? Where did they go? Where are they now? And what, if anything, does this tell us about Saddam's nuclear program? It may be that the intelligence community has answers to these questions. If so, they have not shared them. If not, the tapes are far more than "fascinating from a historical perspective."

Good questions, questions that should be addressed.

Hayes also relays:

Officials involved with DOCEX--as the U.S. government's document exploitation project is known to insiders--tell The Weekly Standard that only some 3 percent of the 2 million captured documents have been fully translated and analyzed. No one familiar with the project argues that exploiting these documents has been a priority of the U.S. intelligence community.

Negroponte's argument rests on the assumption that the history captured in these documents would not be important to those officials--elected and unelected, executive branch and legislative--whose job it is to craft U.S. foreign and national security policy. He's mistaken.

Now, Negroponte has altered his rationale for not releasing the documents. He came up with a new explanation, one that is the inverse of his previous excuse.

Perhaps anticipating the weakness of his "mere history" argument, Negroponte abruptly shifted his position last week. He still opposes releasing the documents, only now he claims that the information in these documents is so valuable that it cannot be made public. Negroponte gave a statement to Fox News responding to Hoekstra's call to release the captured documents. "These documents have provided, and continue to provide, actionable intelligence to ongoing operations. . . . It would be ill-advised to release these materials without careful screening because the material includes sensitive and potentially harmful information."

This new position raises two obvious questions: If the documents have provided actionable intelligence, why has the intelligence community exploited so few of them? And why hasn't Negroponte demanded more money and manpower for the DOCEX program?

Sadly, these obvious questions have an obvious answer. The intelligence community is not interested in releasing documents captured in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq. Why this is we can't be sure. But Pete Hoekstra offers one distinct possibility.

"They are State Department people who want to make no waves and don't want to do anything that would upset anyone," he says.

This is not idle speculation. In meetings with Hoekstra, Negroponte and his staff have repeatedly expressed concern that releasing this information might embarrass our allies.

...Hoekstra says Negroponte's intransigence is forcing him to get the documents out "the hard way." The House Intelligence chairman has introduced a bill (H.R. 4869) that would require the DNI to begin releasing the captured documents.

Obviously, President Bush wants the information released. He doesn't believe that potential embarrassment for our allies is an issue.

Why make Hoekstra go about getting the documents the hard way?

If the Saddam Files have the potential to influence public opinion on the war, then they are important and should not be held hostage by Negroponte.

Bush believes "that people who see the documents in 10 years will wonder why they weren't released sooner. 'If I knew then what I know now,' Bush said in the voice of a war skeptic, 'I would have been more supportive of the war.'"

Whatever their impact, Negroponte should listen to the President and open the Saddam Files now.

I can't help but think of the climactic courtroom scene in A Few Good Men.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth.
Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth.

There's no question that the information should be released so that the public can determine its significance.

The American public deserves answers. I have no doubts that the public CAN handle the truth.

Saddam Loses in Landslide

No need to wait for exit polls. The results of Iraq's election are in:

Saddam lost.

The Iraqi people won.



From the Washington Post:

It was a day of great hope for hundreds of Iraqis -- some of whom traveled hundreds of miles -- as they cast ballots at the Best Western Tysons Westpark, the only polling place in the Northeast.

Voting will continue through tomorrow locally and at seven other polling places nationwide. Organizers predict that tens of thousands of the 240,000 eligible Iraqi voters in the United States will help select members of Iraq's new government this week.

...Heymin Abdul, 27, was among thousands of Kurds who moved to the United States in 1997.

Hussein's forces "have been killing us" in Iraq, said Abdul, who settled in Harrisonburg, Va. "Torturing us. They did anything to try to destroy the Kurdish. We thank God for the U.S.A. that we're successful now . . . to rebuild our country and stay in peace."

Karim Hama, 31, also traveled from his home in Harrisonburg to take part in the election, hoping to have a hand in helping Iraq build a democracy.

"We've come here to make sure what happened in [Iraq's] past never happens again," Hama said through a translator.

Ayad Alsaidi, 39, of Fairfax was sporting four small Iraqi flags attached to his head with an Ace bandage.

"It comes from my heart," said Alsaidi, who wore a sign around his neck that read "freedom yes." "I'd like to thank the U.S.A. for giving freedom to my country. That's why I'm here today. . . . I want Iraq to be a wonderful place. No more problems."

Several women arrived at the polls dressed in sequined gowns that they said are traditional Kurdish clothes worn during times of celebration.

Kawsrat Mahmoud, 21, wore a long, blue, spangled dress with a matching head scarf. It's the same dress she wore to the polls in January when Iraqi immigrants were offered their first chance to vote in generations.

"I feel like I'm being born again," said Mahmoud, who immigrated to Fairfax from the Kurdistan region in 2001.

These Iraqi voters in the U.S. proudly participated in the elections of a free Iraq. They should be proud. It is a historic election.

Today in Iraq, the polls are open. Brave Iraqis are ignoring threats of violence and voting. In some cases at great personal risk, they are engaging in a process that all too many Americans take for granted--casting votes to determine the makeup of their government.

This is a glorious day for the Iraqi people and all free people of the world. It's a victory over tyranny and terrorism.

Al Jazeera writes:

Al-Qaida in Iraq and other Islamist groups have vowed to disrupt the vote but their statements have been more muted in tone than in January, and the run-up to the election has, by Iraq's standards, been calm.

Despite voters having to walk to vote because of security restrictions, turnout is expected to be high - perhaps 70% to 80% compared with 59% in January and 64% in October's referendum on a new constitution.

...At the Arab Banner primary school in the predominantly Shia downtown district of Karradah, Saleh Hadi, a 71-year-old car mechanic who is married with eight children said that "this is what Iraqis want. Democracy, God willing, glory and peace".

Thanks to the vision of President Bush and the leaders of our coalition partners, and thanks to the resolve and bravery of our troops, Iraq is no longer held hostage by Saddam Hussein.

As President Bush said yesterday, "[W]e're helping the Iraqi people build a lasting democracy that is peaceful and prosperous and an example for the broader Middle East."

American troops, coalition troops, and Iraqi troops deserve our gratitude and praise for taking the dream of democracy and helping to make it a reality for the Iraqis. Through their sacrifice, they have made our world safer.

Did Saddam get an absentee ballot?

He probably would boycott the election anyway, unless he could cast a vote for himself as a write-in candidate.

No more landslide victories for Saddam.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS SADDAM

A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, conducted on November 29 and 30, produced some interesting results.

Whenever I mention a poll, I need to qualify my comments. I don't consider polls to be indicators of the truth. I think some are about as reliable as one's horoscope for the day. That said, they can be used as a springboard for discussion.

Overall, Bush's approval rating is up six points since November 8 and 9. Do you think that could have something to do with the Dems' defeatism on Iraq? I do.

The Dems' calls for immediate troop withdrawal and timetables have backfired. They pushed too far too fast and blew it, exposing themselves as political opportunists rather than principled, competent leaders.

One of the most stunning findings of the FOX poll follows:

Do you think the world would be better off or worse off if the U.S. military had not taken action in Iraq and Saddam Hussein were still in power?

Better off -- 27%

Worse off -- 52%

(Same as) -- 8%

(Don’t know) -- 13%

Fifty-two percent is a majority. Most people polled believe that the ousting of Saddam Hussein was good for the world. I find it troubling that the majority is as slim as it is. At least, most do support what our troops have done. However, when the numbers are broken down, an extremely disturbing, though not altogether surprising, portrait is unveiled.

Seventy-eight percent of Republicans consider the world to be better off because the U.S. military removed Saddam Hussein from power.

Among Dems, 41% think the world would be better off if the U.S. had not intervened and Saddam Hussein were still in charge of Iraq.

Eight percent of the Dems questioned see no difference and 18% don't know. Only 34% of Dems think the removal of Saddam Hussein was a positive thing.

That's shocking.

Just 34% are willing to admit that the world is better off with this brutal, murderous tyrant out of power.

Forty-one percent are somehow capable of ignoring the hundreds of thousands of atrocities committed during Saddam Hussein's barbarous reign.

Do all these Dems know something that I don't?

To my knowledge, Saddam gave no indication that he was ready to change his ways. He wasn't on the verge of turning into a benevolent leader. Saddam had no plans to end the massive human suffering that he had systematically inflicted on his people.

From the U.S. Department of State:

-- Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.

-- According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."

-- Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

-- Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

-- Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

-- Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds.

-- The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths.

-- 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.

-- Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.

-- According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south."

-- Refugees International reports that the "Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran."

-- The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime, from the "central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in the oil-rich region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."

-- "Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of the regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 27, 2003)

-- Under the oil-for-food program, the international community sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine, but the regime blocked sufficient access for international workers to ensure proper distribution of these supplies.

-- Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people that had been diverted by Iraqi military forces.

-- The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors. From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq.

-- The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for "the sheer number of executions," the number of "extrajudicial executions on political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."

Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary executions, including:

-- 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984;
-- 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998;
-- 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign";
-- 22 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000;
-- 23 political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001;
-- At least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001;


Only 34% of Dems polled see the removal of the monster responsible for all of this death and misery to be good for the world.

Sixty-six percent of Dems actually rue the fact that he is no longer in power, or see it as irrelevant, or are too spineless to take a stand at all.

Again, I don't believe that polls are capable of revealing absolute truth. Numbers are easily manipulated. Questions are loaded. Samples are skewed.

Taking all of that into account, I still find it amazing that any human being of any political persuasion would have no problem with allowing a mass murderer and torturer to continue terrorizing the people of his country and present a threat to others.

These people obviously have no moral issues with condoning brutality and inhumanity of the worst sort. They are truly lost souls.

I think the 41% of Dems that believe the world would be better off if Saddam was still in command of his terror regime should volunteer to live under the tyrant's control.

Do you think for one moment that any of them would offer to do that?

What percent of the self-proclaimed enlightened, sophisticated, intellectually superior Left would agree to such an arrangement?

ZERO!

Cranky Saddam

It seems like Saddam's day didn't get off to a good start. Maybe he didn't have his Froot Loops. Ramsey Clark should look into that. As Al Gore likes to point out, the U.S. military routinely tortures its prisoners.

Torture would explain Saddam's crankiness.

Poor Saddam.

From the BBC:

Saddam Hussein's trial has begun in Baghdad with the ousted Iraqi leader defiantly questioning the validity of the court before pleading not guilty.

He refused to confirm his identity telling the presiding judge: "Who are you? What is all this?"

All eight defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of ordering the killing of 148 Shia men in 1982. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

After just over three hours, the trial was adjourned until 28 November.

Saddam Hussein's defence team had said they wanted a postponement to prepare their case, but Reuters news agency quoted the chief judge as saying the main reason was witnesses had not shown up.

The trial began in an imposing marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, in the heavily fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital.

TV pictures showed Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants being led into pens in the courtroom.

The 68-year-old former leader was wearing a dark suit with an open-necked shirt and carried a copy of the Koran.

As he was being led in by two guards, he gestured with his hand to slow them down.

Asked to confirm his name by the chief judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, Saddam Hussein refused.

Amid some verbal sparring with the judge, the former Iraqi leader stated: "I preserve my constitutional rights as the president of Iraq. I do not recognise the body that has authorised you and I don't recognise this aggression.

"What is based on injustice is unjust ... I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect."

Later, as the trial adjourned, he was involved in what appeared to be a scuffle with the guards who wanted to grab his arms to escort his out.

But this appeared to be for the benefit of the media, reports the BBC's John Simpson from inside the courtroom.

Right from the start this was a battle for control of the courtroom and beyond that, for Iraqi public opinion, our correspondent says.

As the proceedings went on, Saddam Hussein interrupted the prosecutor several times, accusing him of lying, but the judges decided not to silence him.



In Dujail, a few demonstrators gathered in the main square chanting: "Saddam Hussein should be executed, him and his whole family."


In Dujail, where the 143 executed men were rounded up, relatives of the victims hold up their pictures during a demonstration against the former president.


But in the former leader's home town of Tikrit, supporters vowed loyalty to Saddam Hussein with a banner saying: "We sacrifice our blood and soul for you, Saddam."


Supporters of the deposed leader rally on his behalf in his hometown of Tikrit, northern Iraq.


Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba defended the decision to put the former leader on trial.

"Iraqis have not forgotten yet that the reason why the country is in such a mess, it's because one man stole the will of 27 million people for 35 years and pushed them into wars and misery," Mr Kubba told a news conference.

But human rights groups have expressed concerns.

A Human Rights Watch report says the Iraqi Special Tribunal "runs the risk of violating international standards for fair trials".

Amnesty International has sent three delegates to Baghdad to ensure Saddam Hussein receives a fair trial, and to oppose the death penalty if he is found guilty.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International can relax for a while.

With the adjournment until November 28, Saddam can rest comfortably for over another month.

I think it's important to remember that Saddam is not the only one who deserves to be treated fairly. The surviving family members of the people he slaughtered deserve justice as well.

If they are to be taken seriously, the human rights organizations acting as advocates for Saddam should show at least as much concern for the victims' families as they are showing for Saddam. Do these groups really want to see justice done or do they simply want to shelter a murderer?

It wasn't wise for the judges to allow Saddam to browbeat the prosecutor. Furthermore, the guards that Saddam scuffled with when he left the courtroom should not have let him have his way.

If how things went in court today are an indication of things to come, it appears that Saddam will not be cooperating. Instead, to the extent that he's able, he'll be calling the shots.

If this trial is to be considered legitimate, the judges need to remedy that before November 28. They must control Saddam and demand order during the proceedings.

Clearly, Saddam's confinement hasn't changed him. The deaths of his sons didn't cause him to reevaluate the course of his life. He has no remorse for his reign of terror. In his mind, he's committed no crimes. He still thinks of himself as Iraq's leader.

Apparently, once a brutal dictator, always a brutal dictator.

I don't think Saddam is a good candidate for rehabilitation.