Political Execution as Theater

From the Nation

John Nichols

Convicted in a show trial that certainly appeared to have been timed to finish on the eve of last month's US elections, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged in a show execution that just as certainly seems to have been timed to be carried out before the end of the worst year of the Iraq War.

Hussein was a bad player -- a totalitarian dictator who, with tacit approval from the U.S. and other western nation during the 1980s, killed his own people and waged a mad war with Iran. He needed to be held to account. But even bad players deserve fair trials, honest judgments and justly-applied punishments. The former dictator got none of these.

According to Human Rights Watch, which has a long and honorable history of documenting and challenging the abuses of Hussein's former government, the execution early Saturday morning followed "a deeply flawed trial" and "marks a significant step away from respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iraq."

"The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders," says Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. "History will judge these actions harshly."

For fifteen years, Human Rights Watch had demanded that Hussein be brought to justice for what the group has rightly described as "massive human rights violations." But the group argues that Hussein was not brought to justice.

In addition to objecting at the most fundamental level to the use of the barbaric practice of state-sponsored execution--which is outlawed by the vast majority of the world's nations--Human Rights Watch notes that Hussein was killed before being tried for some of his most well-documented acts of brutality.

The group notes the trial that did take place was fundamentally flawed.

A niney-seven-page report by Human Rights Watch, issued late last month, details the severe problems with the trial. The report, based on close monitoring of the prosecution of the former president, found that:

•"(The) Iraqi High Tribunal was undermined from the outset by Iraqi government actions that threatened the independence and perceived impartiality of the court."

• The Iraqi administrators, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers lacked sufficient training and expertise "to fairly and effectively try crimes of this magnitude."

• The government did not protect defense lawyers--three of whom were killed during the trial--or key witnesses.

• "(There were) serious flaws in the trial, including failures to disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants' right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge's demonstrations of bias."

• "Hussein's defense lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from the November 5 verdict. However, the trial judgment was only made available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond."

The report did not study the appeals process, But the speed with which the tribunal's verdict and sentence were confirmed suggests that the Iraqi Appeals Chamber failed to seriously consider the legal arguments advanced by Hussein's able--if violently harassed--legal team.

"It defies imagination that the Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense's written arguments in less than three weeks' time," said Dicker. "The appeals process appears even more flawed than the trial."

There will, of course, be those who counter criticism of the process by pointing out that Saddam Hussein did not give the victims of his cruel dictates fair trials or just sentences. That is certainly true.

But such statements represent a stinging indictment of the new Iraqi government and its judiciary. With all the support of the United States government, with massive resources and access to the best legal advice in the world, with all the lessons of the past, Iraq has a legal system that delivers no better justice than that of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

This is the ugly legacy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq: An awful mess of a country that cannot even get the trial and punishment of deposed dictator right, a justice system that schedules the taking of life for political and propaganda purposes, a thuggishly brutal state that executes according to whim rather than legal standard.

According to Britain's Telegraph newspaper, "There was no comment from the White House, which was determined that the execution should appear to be an Iraqi event." The central role played by the US government in the process was not lost on the Telegraph, however, as the newspaper noted that: "the transfer of Saddam from American to Iraqi custody meant his death was imminent."

The term "transfer" is of course being used in a loose sense, as Hussein was hung not in an Iraqi prison but within the American-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad.

Now that the killing is done, the governments of Iraq and the United States have confirmed what may have been the worst fear of those who condemned both Saddam Hussein and the US invasion and occupation that removed him from power. The crude lawlessness of Hussein has been replaced by the calculated lawlessness of a new regime.

Big Buck GOP Ripping Off Everyone in Sight!

Legislators: Cash gift rule needs changing

By John Tompkins The Facts

Published December 7, 2006

Cash or check?

Public officials should be forced to report the monetary amount of gifts given to them by donors, even though an advisory opinion from a state commission says they don’t have to, local legislators said.

So far, four bills have been pre-filed for the upcoming 80th Legislature that would require just that, said Tim Sorrells, deputy general counsel for the Texas Ethics Commission.

The bills come behind an advisory opinion issued last week by the ethics commission, which states legislators and public officials do not have to report the amount of a monetary gift from a donor, merely what kind of gift it is, check or cash, Sorrells said.

“There’s nothing in that statute that requires them to report the value of that gift,” he said. “The language is just not there.”

If none of the four bills currently filed changes the reporting law, State Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, said he would write his own bill to force public officials to report gift values.

“Clearly that is unacceptable,” he said. “We might as well throw the statute out.”

The commission did interpret the law correctly and didn’t make its decision based on public outcries, Janek said.

“The ethics commission is in a tight spot,” he said. “I applaud them for staying in the confines of the law.”

An ethics commission advisory opinion is not a creation of law, merely an interpretation of existing law, Sorrells said.

“Everything is allowed that was allowed before,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything in the law.”

The case stems from a June 2005 disclosure filed by Dallas businessman Bill Ceverha, a member of the State Employees Retirement System board, which oversees a nearly $20 billion fund for 250,000 retired state workers.

Ceverha reported a gift, described only as a check, from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, the largest Republican donor in the state. Both men later said the check for $50,000 was supposed to help cover legal fees Ceverha incurred defending himself against a lawsuit related to his role as treasurer of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s Texas fundraising operation.

State law requires public officials to report every political donation and amount made to their campaigns. The ethics commission’s decision addresses personal gifts made to public officials.

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, filed a lawsuit against the ethics commission asking them to ask for more meaningful descriptions of monetary gifts. The ethics commission was wrong in its decision and it gives legislators every reason not to report the monetary value of a gift they receive from a political donor, he said.

“It shows how spineless our reporting laws are,” Burnam said. “They’ve opened up a loophole.”

Reporting the value of a gift should be as regular as reporting campaign donations, said State Sen. Mike Jackson, R-Houston, whose district includes part of Brazoria County.

“There ought to be a little bit more explanation about what it is,” he said. “The concept ought to be open, and people should report that.”

Though he said the law needs to be changed and he supports bills that would require more information on gifts, no legislation is stronger than the public’s demand to know what kind of money their legislators are receiving, Bonnen said.

The fear of the public finding out an official is taking an undisclosed sum of money from a donor is usually fear enough to make the official write down the amount, he said.

“That’s a stronger standard than any legislation,” Bonnen said.

Texan Bob Perry spends $16 M for GOP candidates

Dec. 6, 2006, 10:02AM
Builder puts $16 million into election process
Bob Perry is nation's biggest campaign donor

By CLAY ROBISON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Election after election, Bob Perry spends tens of millions to help the GOP maintain all the special breaks for developers and the filthy rich. When will Texas citizens make their elected representatives STOP him? When will the US congress and president STOP his purchase of election after election? Pete

TOOLS

RESOURCES

WINS AND LOSSES

Some recipients of Bob Perry's giving in the 2005-06 election cycle and how they fared in the campaign:

Winners

• Republican Party of Texas: $780,000

• Texans for Lawsuit Reform: $601,000

• HillCo PAC: $545,000

• Gov. Rick Perry: $380,000

• Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: $285,000

• Sen.-elect Dan Patrick,

R-Houston: $55,000

• Rep. Sylvester Turner,

D-Houston: $50,000

• Sen. John Whitmire,

D-Houston: $45,000

Losers:

• Joe Nixon, R-Houston : $262,500

• Talmadge Heflin, R-Houston: $95,000

• Martha Wong, R-Houston: $59,500

Sources: Texans for Public Justice, Chronicle research

AUSTIN — Houston home builder Bob Perry poured $16 million into state and federal races during the recent election cycle, apparently making him the biggest individual political contributor in the country for 2005-06, a money-tracking group reported Tuesday.

A legislator from San Antonio hopes the report will boost his proposal to place limits on big donors, but similar efforts have failed in the past.

Perry has been a leading political donor in Texas for several years, but the $6.7 million he gave to state candidates, mostly Republicans, and political action committees over the past two years was a 44 percent increase over 2003-04, according to Texans for Public Justice.

Additionally, he put $9.3 million into federal elections, mostly through conservative groups that bought ads attacking Democratic congressional candidates throughout the country, TPJ reported, citing Congressional Quarterly's PoliticalMoneyLine.

"Texas is the Wild West of money in politics. Texas needs limits," said Andrew Wheat, TPJ's research director.

Wheat said Perry's total contributions may be the largest ever by an individual donor from Texas, other than what a wealthy candidate has given to his own campaign. Laredo businessman Tony Sanchez spent about $60 million of his own money on his unsuccessful race for governor in 2002.

Nationally, New York billionaire George Soros gave $23.5 million, mostly to liberal organizations, in the 2004 election cycle. Soros spent less this year.

Perry spokesman Anthony Holm said the home builder gives to Republicans and "pro-business, pro-jobs" Democrats because they support governmental policies promoting job creation.

"Bob Perry's political donations are all transparent and spent in public," Holm said.

"TPJ operates in the shadows. TPJ is funded by secret donors," including plaintiffs' lawyers, he added.

Texans for Public Justice says it is nonpartisan, but it frequently draws fire from conservatives for its periodic reports criticizing the role that large donations play in the electoral process. TPJ Director Craig McDonald said his group receives some funding from plaintiffs' lawyers but gets most of his support from philanthropic and other foundations.

85 biggest givers

About a month before the Nov. 7 election, the group released a report listing the 85 biggest donors to Texas candidates and committees, up to that point in the election cycle. Perry and his wife, Doylene, topped that list, which also included a number of other business people and several prominent plaintiffs' lawyers, including Fred Baron of Dallas, Mikal Watts of Corpus Christi, Walter Umphrey of Beaumont and John Eddie Williams of Houston.

Perry was singled out in this follow-up report because he's "the biggest donor in Texas," McDonald said.

Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, has prefiled HB111 for the legislative session, which convenes in January, to limit total political contributions by one individual in state races to $100,000 per election cycle.

Villarreal sponsored a similar bill in 2005, but it died in a House subcommittee.

"I think there is more public clamor for change," he said, noting that another mega-contributor, San Antonio businessman James Leininger, a leading advocate of spending tax dollars on private school vouchers, also received much attention this year for large political donations to legislative candidates.

Under Villarreal's bill, a person could give the entire $100,000 to a single candidate or committee but would be unable to donate to anyone else.

Among candidates this year, Perry gave 92 percent of his money to Republicans and 8 percent to Democrats, TPJ reported. HillCo PAC, the political action committee of an Austin lobbying firm that represents Perry's company, Perry Homes, received $545,000.

HillCo partner Bill Miller said money has been part of the democratic process since time immemorial.

"What's the difference between him giving his money and John O'Quinn giving a seven-figure contribution?" he asked.

O'Quinn, a plaintiffs' lawyer from Houston, gave Democratic nominee Chris Bell $1.5 million in the recent gubernatorial race.

After contributing $3.8 million to state candidates and committees in the 2002 election, Perry was instrumental in the Legislature's creation in 2003 of the Texas Residential Construction Commission, an agency criticized by consumer advocates as a builder-protection agency.

clay.robison@chron.com

Neocons Dying Out

Elliott Abrams: The Last Neocon Standing

With the neocons in disarray, Elliott Abrams may be their best hope for keeping President Bush onboard.

A disgusting crew.....Pete

By Michael Hirsh and Dan Ephron

Newsweek

Dec. 4, 2006 issue - It's been a rough season for neoconservatives, the group that has dominated U.S. foreign policy since the attacks of September 11. They've been largely run out of the Bush administration, beset by infighting, and mocked by a foreign-policy establishment that hailed their power just a few years ago. Last month was particularly brutal. They looked on helplessly as Democrats took both houses of Congress. They had to grit their teeth when President Bush met with Washington dealmakers James Baker and Lee Hamilton, whose bipartisan group is charged with extricating America from the mess the neocon-influenced policy created in Iraq. Then, insult to injury: they watched their cold-war nemesis in Central America circa 1986, Daniel Ortega, rise again to be president of Nicaragua.

The neocons are reeling, but they're not dead yet. A few stalwarts are digging in their wing-tips. And there's already a small backlash against the backlash. At the State Department, supposedly the bastion of realism, some officials are sounding defiant. "There are a lot of people throughout the ranks who believe in the democracy agenda," says one senior official who would only discuss policy issues anonymously. "If the result of the Baker report is that we have to make any deal necessary ... to get out of Iraq, I don't think that's going to fly." Their hopes, and the hopes of neocons everywhere, may rest on the shoulders of Elliott Abrams, the number-two official at the National Security Council—who remains in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East, a linchpin of the neocon agenda.

Abrams, who declined an interview request from NEWSWEEK, has his work cut out for him. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Abrams handles the Middle East, though not Iraq. Earlier this year, Abrams pushed for an $85 million expansion of TV and radio programming beamed into Iran to gently promote regime change. Now, toppling the mullahs might be off the table. The same goes for the policy of pushing reforms on Arab allies like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who has kept a key opposition figure in jail for more than 11 months and scaled back rights. Michael Gerson, who served until recently as Bush's speechwriter (and who is now a NEWSWEEK contributor), says Abrams must be troubled by the swing. "People who support the democracy agenda are deeply concerned that Mubarak is significantly backtracking," Gerson says. And Abrams has to cope with the fallout of his push for Palestinian elections—the rise of Hamas, and the breakdown of the peace process. But Abrams has one powerful advantage. "Bush has enormous regard for him," says a senior administration official who would not speak about their relationship on the record. "One, because he knows Elliott is keeper of the flame. And also, he's the only one who doesn't draw any attention to himself." (Abrams has been somewhat press-shy ever since he admitted to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-contra affair two decades ago; he was later pardoned.)

The biggest dogfight is still ahead: whether to cut a deal with regimes like Iran, North Korea and Syria. Bush's approach has been to counter threats from oppressive regimes by trying to change them. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and the punditocracy's best-known neocon, says it's hard to imagine the president turning his back on all that. "I think Bush is the last neocon in power," he says. "The truth is, it was always Bush."

Kristol acknowledges the neoconservatives are turning on each other. Francis Fukuyama, the "End of History" sage, has broken with the neocons publicly and believes that they are discredited. Richard Perle, the former Pentagon adviser, now says he probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq at all (Perle refused to talk to NEWSWEEK). Kristol dismisses what he calls the "confessional mode" of his old friend Perle. But Kristol also believes the infighting is natural. "Every intellectual group, every political group, goes through a period of mini crackup and reassembles in slightly different ways," he told NEWSWEEK. "For a group that's discredited, an awful lot of people are spending an awful lot of time discrediting us." Kristol's allies are looking to Abrams to pick up the pieces.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15896208/site/newsweek/?rf=snwnewsletter