http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-14T210107Z_01_L14100697_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-SADDAM.xml&archived=False

Quote :

"Judge tells Saddam: "You are not a dictator" BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial said on Thursday he did not think the ousted Iraqi leader was a "dictator", prompting a spokesman for the U.S.-sponsored court to defend its impartiality. Abdulla al-Amiri made his comments one day after prosecutors demanded his resignation, complaining that he was too soft on Saddam, who had threatened to "crush the heads" of his accusers. They also complained he let Saddam make long speeches in court. Questioning a Kurdish farmer who testified he had secured a face-to-face audience with Saddam in 1988 and begged him to spare the lives of his wife and seven children, the former president said: "If I'm a dictator, why did you come to see me?" Amiri, who has compared his approach to the trial as that of a referee seeking "fairness", then addressed Saddam politely, saying: "You are not a dictator. It is the people who surround a man who make him a dictator". He did not elaborate. Visibly pleased, Saddam uttered a respectful "Thank you" and then regained his seat in the Baghdad courtroom. Iraqi High Tribunal chief investigator and spokesman Raed Juhi sought during a news conference later to distance the court, set up by U.S. occupying forces, from Amiri's comment. "The court will continue with its neutrality and its course. The judge is only human," Juhi said. "At the end, the judge will decide guilty or not guilty based on the evidence. This has no effect on the case." Saddam and six former commanders face capital charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in the 1988 Anfal campaign prosecutors say left 182,000 Iraqi Kurds dead or missing. Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali", also face genocide charges. Part of the prosecution case is expected to rest on how far Saddam was directly responsible for the actions of his troops. Amiri, who is a member of the majority Shi'ite community which along with ethnic Kurds suffered widely under Saddam's Sunni-led rule, was not available for comment after the trial. FACE TO FACE Earlier, farmer Abdulla Mohammad Hussain told the court how a furious Saddam shouted "Shut up and get out!" when he pleaded for the release of his family, including a 40-day-old daughter, who were rounded up in their village in northern Kurdistan. "He told me to approach him and I begged him for their lives," he said, recounting a visit to one of Saddam's palaces in dramatic testimony during the fourth hearing this week of a trial that began last month. Saddam, who has defended his policies of crushing Kurdish rebels fighting alongside Shi'ite Iran during the final years of the Iraq-Iran war, said he did not remember ever seeing the witness, who described himself as illiterate. "Do you have a receipt that you saw me? The Presidential Palace always issued receipts to those who came to visit me?" Saddam asked of the alleged incident 18 years ago. "No. You took the receipt away from me when I saw you," said Hussain, who is in his mid-50s and wore a traditional headdress. The trial was adjourned until Monday. The initial phase of the trial has featured a litany of often harrowing testimony from Kurdish survivors. Saddam is also awaiting a verdict in a first, separate, trial for crimes against humanity over the deaths of 148 Shi'ite men."

I wonder what this does to our administrations attempts to portray Saddam Hussein as that other famous dictator who rattled sabres over in Germany some years back...

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 7:59 PM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 7:38:25 PM

Probably nothing, unless you think one guy's opinion suddenly topples the definition of dictator.

9/14/2006 7:41:46 PM

One nonspecific guy, no.

The judge of Saddam Hussein's genocide trial in Iraq? Perhaps.

9/14/2006 7:42:43 PM

Well let's get out a dictionary and a red marker and let him start to tell us whatever other subjective valuations he has.

9/14/2006 7:53:13 PM

So you disagree with his definition, then.

9/14/2006 7:54:47 PM

It would have been helpful if he explained what he meant. I don't know what he DOES define as a dictator.

9/14/2006 7:58:54 PM

Evidently, the people who surround a man play some hand in becoming one. We can deduce that. And it's obviously nothing intrinsic about a person either...

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 8:00:29 PM

It's not you, it's those other guys... no, really!

9/14/2006 8:01:01 PM

Quote :

"Evidently, the people who surround a man play some hand in becoming one."

Are you suggesting a dictator could ever act completely by himself?

9/14/2006 8:03:37 PM

Quote :

"it's obviously nothing intrinsic about a person either..."

9/14/2006 8:06:01 PM

I think most people are intrinsically dictators, they just have to fight that urge when they become a leader (or to be come a leader). Bush excepted of course.

9/14/2006 8:11:51 PM

Gamecat I think you're an incredibly brilliant guy -- but when you latch onto things like this, I think you weaken your credibility. Pick your battles, in my opinion -- there are plenty of cases of the administration's incompetence, you shouldn't have to grasp at straws like this.

9/14/2006 8:13:04 PM

So, autocracy is instinctual in your view?

9/14/2006 8:13:30 PM

Yes, but it is usually trumped by thought/logic.

9/14/2006 8:16:53 PM

They cannot work together, in your view?

9/14/2006 8:20:27 PM

Theoretically yes, but the old adage "power corrupts" will hold true in practically 100% of cases.

I think I would make a good dictator for example, because I won't become evil and greedy.

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 8:44 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2006 8:43:43 PM

Ah, ye olde benevolent dictatorship.

Why wouldn't it hold true in the cases where it wouldn't? You've admitted it's at least possible.

9/14/2006 8:50:32 PM

Actually, corporations are microcosms for dictatorships that work. Like Apple, for example, was started by and currently run by Steve Jobs, who by all accounts, was a tree-hugging hippie and a nerd (also a genius). His vision in life when he was starting Apple was largely to change the world for the better and probably also to make money. Plus, they supposedly have good employee benefits. So, they are run by someone who has a reason other than power for doing his job, the employees (like citizens) are mostly happy and well taken care of, and the customers view the product as worthwhile.

Then you have cases like Enron, where the corrupt of the corporation grows so thick, they implode, taking a lot of people with them.

The difference between the 2 companies is the leadership. The leadership of Enron in that case was probably after one thing, and one thing only: money. Where Jobs, as a hippie, was also motivated by changing the world for good. Google is another company with an Apple-esque vision and leadership.

On a national level, that kind of synergy between the different forces on a country would be impossible to maintain, mostly because a large section of our country would be unwilling to compromise with other nations so that they view our "products" as worthwhile, which is necessary for the balance.

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 9:05 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2006 9:01:47 PM

Exactly. So it looks like a benevolent dictatorship is at least theoretically possible, judging by our corporate examples like Apple.

Here's where I think it may break down, though. At some basic level, another entity with a stick, has to be able to protect Apple while it's able to change the world for the better by employing people the proper way (in a way that gives them high morale). Why? Because Microsoft has it's own ideas. So does IBM. Not all of them align with Apple's vision.

Without that entity with a stick, who prevents Microsoft and IBM from firebombing Steve Jobs' house? Who prevents corporate espionage between the companies? Who punishes corporate espionage between the two companies?

---

You sort of addressed some of the above, but I'll leave it anyway.

Quote :

"moron: On a national level, that kind of synergy between the different forces on a country would be impossible to maintain, mostly because a large section of our country would be unwilling to compromise with other nations so that they view our "products" as worthwhile, which is necessary for the balance."

What makes you so sure that it'd be impossible to maintain?

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 9:07 PM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 9:05:55 PM

Quote :

"What makes you so sure that it'd be impossible to maintain? "

The 3 main components I mentioned that keep a corporation stable are:

1) Good leadership
2) Happy employees (like happy citizens)
3) Happy customers (like happy other-countries)

For a dictatorship, and good leadership is the most plausible aspect, because it relies on a single individual (mostly). It's keeping an entire country of people happy, as well as people in other countries happy that is the problem. People inherently have different point of views on things. This is biological, and due to differences in intelligence and hormones and such that affect perception. This perception gulf is going to cause people's beliefs to inevitably diverge, even if they start off at the exact same point. A dictator can't counter this without fascism (not necessarily violence, like Saddam and many others chose, but maybe banishment, like they did back in the fairy-tale days) or giving up his power. So, eventually, you'll have to strike 2 off the list. This doesn't happen for a company because people choose to work with a company, and fundamentally accept their vision and goals. If you can make a country where people MUST choose to be there, then a dictatorship could work.

THen 3 will stem from 2. When stuff starts to go bad with 2, and the dictator has to take his fascist actions to correct them, this is sometimes include "annexing" neighboring land or resources, which is going to disrupt 3.

9/14/2006 9:18:03 PM

Quote :

"I wonder what this does to our administrations attempts to portray Saddam Hussein as that other famous dictator who rattled sabres over in Germany some years back..."

Falco was a great man. Where do you get off calling him a dictator?

9/14/2006 9:23:18 PM

^^ That strikes me as a clear definition of why it'd be difficult, and probably unlikely to maintain. But not impossible. The Internet has the capacity to create a truly global culture, while preserving a locality's ability to preserve its independence. In other words, the Internet could unite the Tom Friedman's examples of the "Olive Tree and Lexus" in his famous essay on globalization.

^ Amadeus?

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 9:45 PM. Reason : .]

9/14/2006 9:44:50 PM

yeah he's right

saddam was such a nice caring leader... I even saw him on TV shaking hands and kissing babies

9/14/2006 9:47:02 PM

I disagree with the internet thing. It just makes the fall of 2 come more quickly. People on the internet, even though they are communicating from around the world, still disagree, even more bitterly, that people in meat-space.

9/14/2006 9:47:05 PM

They don't have to, though.

And what's the "fall of 2?"

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 9:59 PM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 9:59:28 PM

Item 2 in the list I made, the divergence of peoples beliefs.

Did you mean that people don't have to disagree? It's true, they don't, but they will. Literally every message board with a politics section (which is most of them) has copius amounts of disagreement. This, if anything, would help to resist a dictatorship.

9/14/2006 10:09:11 PM

Quote :

"Questioning a Kurdish farmer who testified he had secured a face-to-face audience with Saddam in 1988 and begged him to spare the lives of his wife and seven children, the former president said: "If I'm a dictator, why did you come to see me?" Amiri, who has compared his approach to the trial as that of a referee seeking "fairness", then addressed Saddam politely, saying: "You are not a dictator. It is the people who surround a man who make him a dictator". He did not elaborate."

I watched BBC and this is how they translated the bolded bits:

How could this Kurdish farmer have come to see me if I am the dictator you say I am and also against the Kurds? So in BBC's version, he was addressing the court/judge, and not the witness.

You are not a dictator; it is the people who surrounded you who made a dictator out of you. It is not specifically you, this happens all over the world. Some extra bits here by the judge, as opposed to what reuters reported.

9/14/2006 11:37:19 PM

I liked the other judge better

No wonder the prosecution is asking for this guy to be removed

[Edited on September 15, 2006 at 12:30 AM. Reason : 2]

9/15/2006 12:12:23 AM

Hmm. I don't like that at all.

I don't like being suspicious of the interpreters working for our news services dicking around like that. Can you tell me, 0EPII1, if you know anyone who can translate Saddam's words independently? The fact that two different networks aired drastically different interpretations bothers me.

9/15/2006 1:05:39 AM

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610260010

10/27/2006 11:41:07 AM