Archive for December 27th, 2006
Saddam lost his appeal and will be hanged within 30 days even though there are serious questions about the fairness of his trial.
The State Department has said it believes the trial met international standards of fairness.
Are “international standards” what we aspire to follow? I thought the missions was to create a “democracy” based on our values. Apparently, the means justifies the end.
New York-based Human Rights Watch, an independent advocacy group that opposed the death penalty, said in a Nov. 20 report that executing Hussein before further cases are heard will deny thousands of victims a chance to testify about other alleged crimes.
The group, which called the first Dujail trial “fundamentally flawed,” says the prosecution failed to disclose evidence to the defense in advance and denied defendants the right to confront witnesses. Human Rights Watch also says there were “gaps in the evidence” that undermined the prosecution’s case, according to the report.
That doesn’t sound like a fair trial at all.
. . . former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark was ejected from the courtroom before sentencing after handing the judge a note in which he called the trial a “travesty”.
Saddam Hussein’s defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said the court’s verdict “was expected”.
The appeals court said Ramadan should also face execution
“We were not at all surprised, as we are convinced that this has been - 100% - a political trial,” he said.
Source: Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Bill Online Easily, Fast & Free with PayPal. No Software Needed. Sign Up Now!
LOS ANGELES - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”
The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments — including an angioplasty — in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
Ford was an accidental president, Nixon’s hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was as open and straight-forward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial.
President Ford took over the job as President during a very turbulent period. The Vietnam war was winding down and we had just gone through the whole Watergate scandal. He was highly criticized for the Presidential pardon of Richard Nixon, issued in the wake of Watergate, however, his goal was for the healing to begin and the scandal put behind.
Read the rest of the article here.
