Saddam and Ramsey Clark

A couple of interesting new articles on Iraq. The first one, The Big Black Book of Horrors, is on a recently published book about the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime. Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein presents comprehensive evidence about the crimes against humanity presented by Saddam and his dictatorship.

"The first weapon of mass destruction was Saddam Hussein," writes Bernard Kouchner, who has been observing atrocities in Iraq since he led the first Medecins Sans Frontieres mission there in 1974. "Preserving the memory of the arbitrary arrests that Saddam's police conducted every morning, the horrible and humiliating torture, the organised rapes, the arbitrary executions and the prisons full of innocent people is not just a duty. Without that one cannot understand either what Saddam's dictatorship was or the urgent necessity to remove him."

While I do not think that reading this book would be very pleasant, I hope that it is soon translated into English, for the benefit of all the American anti-war activists who think that President Bush (for all his flaws) is worse than Saddam.

The second one is an opinion piece by Christopher Hitchens - Sticking Up for Saddam - Ramsey Clark admits that his client is guilty. Hitchens demonstrates just how deep into the slime Clark has sunk since his days as Attorney General for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s - representing the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. Of course, even murderous dictators need competent counsel - but I would prefer that that counsel not justify their clients' crimes.

NPR this morning had a piece on Ramsay Clark in which they were trying their best to be absolutely even-handed, and unfortunately in doing so left out some of the damning evidence against him, including his association with the Workers World Party (the real force behind International ANSWER).