The Professionals Respond to Saddam, Part II

George Will, in today's Washington Post:

The tyrant's capture has triggered a predictable chorus from those who have consistently subordinated the interests of Iraq, and other things, to their agenda for aggrandizing international institutions. They say an international tribunal should have a role -- perhaps the role -- in the trial of Saddam Hussein. So it is timely to recall the Nuremberg anomaly.

Can I call 'em, or what? Admittedly, these people are so predictable that saying this would happen is of equivalent predictive value to "I'm going out on a limb here, but the sun's gonna rise. Be sure of it."

Mr. Will calls the inclusion of the Soviets in the Nuremberg Tribunal "grotesque" but also denotes that it was "necessary". The problem here is, of course, that he's right. It would have been very strange to the security situation of 1945 and 1946 for the Western allies to shut the Soviets, no matter how onerous their presence, out of the post-war punitive effort against the National Socialists. Perhaps the Soviet government didn't belong there, but the peoples under Stalin's heel deserved to be heard for what the Nazis did to them, and that was (in retrospect) the only justice they'd ever get, since nobody was going to say "Hitler down and Stalin to go". There would never be an "avenger of the bones" for the millions that Stalin killed, either in the Soviet Union or wherever the Red Army went. But I digress...

It might have been easier if Hussein had died resisting capture -- although that would have allowed the mythmakers, who are legion in that region, to envelop his memory with a nimbus of martyrdom. The fact that he was captured with a pistol he would not use even on himself makes it unlikely that he can seem bravely defiant in his trial.

I'm not so sure a heroic death for Saddam would have been useful. The mythmakers of which Will is correct in taking note of could probably spin Saddam's death even if he died with his trousers down in a sheep pen: "He died fighting the evil Zionist sheep! He gave of his dignity to punish them!"

The attempts of "internationalists" to hijack Hussein's prosecution are partly for the purpose of derogating the importance and legitimacy of nation-states generally. But Iraqi nationhood -- currently tenuous as a political and psychological fact -- can be affirmed by entrusting it with the trial. By serving Iraq's national memory, the trial can be a nation-building event.

Bloody internationalists have got it in for the nation-state for sure; I ran into that kind of thinking in college. Luckily, I could usually get away by being dismissed as the class dissenter when I'd grumble about the abrogation of sovereignty that supranational bodies inherently relied upon.

Final quote:

But perhaps Sunday's euphoria among the majority of next November's voters will cause Democrats to pause on their double-time march toward nominating the one serious candidate of whom it can be indisputably said that, were he president, Hussein would still be a president too.

Heh. Anger-powered Howard may have lots of trouble with the fact that we've actually caught Saddam. Oh well. Perhaps the nation will get around saying that they'd prefer Bush (or Bush Lite) to the Howard 'n Hussein ticket.

Anyways, that's it for the day. I've got a final today that I'm simply not optimistic about, and for which I have precious little reason to be hopeful. I found m'self once again saying, "Dear Lord, if you've got anyone on standby....I could use 'em."

Posted by: Country Pundit at 09:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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