Saddam's First Court Appearance

I am no fan of Saddam Hussein (Saddam Insane) but I have to say that I was impressed with his first performance in court. I was also impressed with the performance of the Iraqi judge, who stood up to Saddam and admonished him for calling the Kuwaitis a pack of “dogs” (which is a grave insult in the Arab world, as dogs and animals are considered unclean). Both were impressive in their demeanor, but from a communications standpoint, Saddam’s facial expressions, tone and arm movements were extremely effective in getting his message across. Why are evil leaders such good communicators?

The reactions of the Iraqi people were quite revealing as well. Many eyes were glued on the TV sets in Iraq and other people were listening very closely to their radios. Most of the reactions were anti-Saddam, there were smiles and hope for a better future. Not all Iraqis were pleased to see Saddam in the dock. His supporters blamed the coalition for humbling Saddam and the Iraqi people, but the reactions that I saw on Fox News, CNN, CBS and other networks were decidedly anti-Saddam.

It’s their nation and their prisoner, but I had hoped that the provisional government would merely hold onto Saddam until an elected government comes into power after January. Until that time, (and I remind you that I am no fan of Saddam), this is still an installed government...until there are democratic elections, Saddam IS still the President of Iraq, if only on paper (and thank God for that!).

We invaded Iraq, captured Saddam and made him a prisoner of war. WE did not vote him out of office, we conquered his nation. It should be pointed out that we did not invade Yugoslavia and remove Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes. He lost the election for the Presidency of Serbia, and then refused to give up being President. He was driven out by the Serbian people demonstrating in the streets of Belgrade, was arrested and turned over to the United Nations for trial.

In my opinion, the best thing that could happen would be for the interim Iraqi government to keep Saddam and his associates locked up until after national elections and then have the new representative government take over the prosecution. Saddam had no attorney present at the arraignment and he made the Iraqi judge look really bad by forcing the judge to acknowledge that the court had been created by the occupation forces.

Saddam’s been in jail since December, seven more months behind bars won’t be a big deal. It’s going to take investigators and his own defense team time to get their acts together.