The Good Old Days, when a "Show Trial" was REALLY A SHOW TRIAL!!

Some observers who really should know better are condemning the Iraqi government or the US for conducting "a show trial" of Saddam Hussein. What a load of hooey.

The essence of the REAL show trial is that the machinery of the prosecution is relentlessly directed to obtain a result wherein THE DEFENDANT CONFESSES AND APOLOGIZES FOR HIS CRIMES, AND EFFECTIVELY BEGS FOR HIS OWN PUNISHMENT.

Submitted for your approval--some proceedings from A REAL SHOW TRIAL. The show was produced and directed by the famous maestro, Iosif Vissarionovich Djugashvilli, and it was dubbed, "THE CASE OF THE TROTSKYITE-ZINOVIEVITE TERRORIST CENTRE," as staged before "the MILITARY COLLEGIUM OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE U.S.S.R., Moscow, August 19-24, 1936," and the whole spooky thing can be found at: http://art-bin.com/art/omosc20m.html#1

Notice the lack of complaints from the Defendant about rude guards, insufficient time with his defense counsel, lukewarm mint tea...no, it appears the Defendants had only one devout wish: "FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF COMRADE STALIN, SHOOT ME NOW!!":

Vyshinsky: What appraisal should be given of the articles and statements you wrote in 1933, in which you expressed loyalty to the Party? Deception?

Kamenev: No, worse than deception.

Vyshinsky: Perfidy?

Kamenev: Worse.

Vyshinsky: Worse than deception, worse than perfidy - find the word. Treason?

Kamenev: You have found it.

Vyshinsky: Accused Zinoviev, do you confirm this?

Zinoviev: Yes.

Vyshinsky: Treason, perfidy, double-dealing?

Zinoviev: Yes.

Proceeding to explain the motives of his conduct, the accused Kamenev declares:

"I can admit only one thing: that having set ourselves the monstrously criminal aim of disorganizing the government of the land of socialism, we resorted to methods of struggle which in our opinion suited this aim and which are as low and as vile as the aim which we set before ourselves."

in the further process of the examination the accused Kamenev still more clearly and definitely speaks of that which guided the Zinovievites in their activities.

Vyshinsky: Consequently, your struggle against the leaders of the Party and the government was guided by motives of a personal base character - by the thirst for personal power?

Kamenev: Yes, by the thirst for power of our group.

Vyshinsky: Don't you think that this has nothing in common with social ideals?

Kamenev: It has as much in common as revolution has with counter-revolution.

Vyshinsky: That is, you are on the side of counter-revolution?

Kamenev: Yes.

Vyshinsky: Consequently, you clearly perceive that you are flighting against socialism?

Kamenev: We clearly perseive that we are fighting against the leaders of the Party and of the government who are leading the country to socialism.

Vyshinsky: Thereby you are fighting socialism as well, aren't you?

Kamenev: You are drawing the conclusion of an historian and prosecutor.
******************************

Now THAT'S a show trial.

Ohhh, the humanity!!

Regarding the "controversy" about Saddam Hussein's hanging...

The guy was a mass-murdering thug. He was held in comfortable custody for 3 years by the US, who caught him (and who evinced no rush to kill him, but could have at any time) until, after a long elaborate trial an Iraqi court sentenced him, and the Iraqi Prime Minister ordered the sentence to be carried out forthwith. Considering Hussein's hundreds of loyal lunatic gunmen and bombers out in the country, who thought nothing of shooting up a bakery or incinerating a market in a "gesture of support" for the noble prisoner, that decision not to delay was not irrational.

So, at the time of his execution, his guards taunted him. Awwwwwwwwwwwww, the injustice, the pain of it all!! Can't we get a better quality of hangman nowadays? What has happened to the hangman labor-market, where we're reduced to hiring talkative teasers who can't resist poking fun at their client? And one of them even had the gall to record the proceedings on his cellphone! Where has the professionalism of this great calling gone? Where can we find some hangmen of good old-fashioned solemnity and menace?

Good grief.

Let's recall what WASN'T done with Hussein: He wasn't forced to watch videos of his children tortured to death. He wasn't tortured to force him to confess to imaginary crimes. He wasn't shot a few minutes after capture and hung upside down alongside his [also shot] girlfriend. He wasn't shot in the snow, next to his wife, after a 2-hour military tribunal. He wasn't shoved into an industrial shredder, or an acid vat, or molten steel. He wasn't cut into small pieces, placed in a box, and delivered to his surviving family. He didn't have his ears, hands, or other appendages lopped off in public spectacles. Those were just a few of the grim outcomes that awaited several other comparable modern despots, or were ordered BY HIM to be carried out against those he SUSPECTED of disloyalty...and none after public trials replete with defense lawyers, challenges to the court, public statements, and witnesses under oath. Oh, and the mint tea every afternoon.

My, my, just before his trapdoor fell and his neck snapped, his guards teased him and one of them photographed the proceedings. Oh, well.

Is this really a news story?