[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20061106" target="_blank">Justice</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> November 06, 2006

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity yesterday. If all goes as planned, he will be hung within the next 30 days. <br> <br>It puts him in very scant company. Historically, most dictators of his ilk have tended to escape persecution, either dying in office or escaping into a peaceful exile. But it\'s nice to know that at least one of the 20th Century\'s worst killers won\'t escape justice.

[Phoib]

He will first have his automatic appeal, which can continue indefinatly. Only after that, they will hang him.

[Blue_Nose]

Is there any way we can arrange to have Mr. Newsbot post the actual cartoon in his posts, along with the commentary?

[Psudo]

Saddam Hussain is in the 1,000,000+ category of J.J.'s History's Worst Dictators page. I don't have any qualms with him dying. Heck, I think the murderer of a single individual should die, let alone a murderer of over a million.

[Kjorteo]

What are the qualifications for that list? Unless I'm missing a lot of history, it seems to lump actual genocidal dictators in with various heads of state and military that just happened to be there when a nasty war broke out.

Take Kaiser Wilhelm II, for example. Forgive me if there was some genocide of which I am unaware, but the only thing he did of which I am personally aware was be the king of Germany during World War I. I suppose that, if you were creative enough, you could say that he (arguably) started the war, and then count all the casualties of it against him, but that starts a rather questionable precedent. What about the American Civil War? 360,000 Union and 258,000 Confederate troops died, well over the 10,000 mark required to get on the list. Depending on whose fault you think it is, does that mean that Abraham Lincoln/Jefferson Davis/Ulysses S. Grant/Robert E. Lee should be on there?

Or, let's say we only count civilians. Again, I'll question what Kaiser Wilhelm is doing on the list in that case, but we'll play along. We're fast approaching the 50,000 mark on Iraqi civilians killed in the invasion. Again, if you're allowed to blame the heads of state or military for that, George W. Bush and/or Donald Rumsfeld should probably be on that list.

I guess I would only count actual genocide (either massacring one's own people, or invading a country and massacring the people there,) but maybe that's just me? I'm interested in hearing what standards J.J. used.

As for Saddam's execution (that was the actual point, before I got carried away on this, right?) I have mixed feelings. He was convicted of genocide, which means he's technically a genocidal dictator, so I shouldn't feel too bad that he's going to pay. However, I do question the relative fairness of his trial, and the fact that he was more or less a convenient target in the first place. But hey, playing along and assuming he did it, yay for justice, I guess?

[JJ]

It's basically a list of those who have initiated or intensified war, famine, or genocide due to their policies. Kaiser Whilem was very much the initiator and perpetuator of World War I, he was not some puppet figurehead like the monarchs of today. The war only really ended when he was deposed.

The same goes for King Leopold. The very vicious colonization of the Congo was very much his independent prerogative. Hirohito is a bit more disputable, but since he was never put on trial for his role in WW2, it's not known how much of a role he played. There are several important historians who argue he was a lot less of a bystander than his apologists argue, though.

I don't believe that there is much concrete proof that 50,000 civilians have died in Iraq, but if 100,000 can be proven to have died, I guess there would be a strong case to add Bush, for the sake of consistancy.

[Kjorteo]

I'm not sure what you would consider proof. I mean, it's not like there's a guy who personally examines every single corpse and gives tally marks, so estimates tend to vary. There is this, though. The graph is kind of neat. It appears to just be summary of the figures of all the various organizations who took it upon themselves to keep track. How accurate any of this is, though, I have no idea.

Meanwhile, I'm fairly sure the American Civil War figures are more or less accurate, if only because it was long enough ago that historians have had plenty of time to research it by now. Who would you say initiated or intensified that one, though?

[Hatter]

The Iraq war, it depends whether you believe the Iraqi body count or the lancet study. The Iraqi body count goes off of well... bodies, lancet did it by death certificates, and I think, despite the 600 thousand death difference, it would be unfair to rule either of the numbers out. You cant even go off of what scientists say these days because they all have an agenda too, well more accurately, I have an agenda so I am not going to tell you what to believe.

And I definitely think Lincoln and Jefferson Davis should be put up on the list under the same logic that Lenin was put on it.

Then again, it’s technically a list for dictators, but Russia had intended to be a democratic state but the reliance on militarism (which was necessary at the time if they didn't want the union to collapse) would not allow it, then Stalin kept it even after it was necessary.

Oh, and congratulations on the game! I would imagine you would’ve got more money than you needed though.

Edited to make correction: Jefferson Davis was head of the state, not Robert E. Lee.

[Hatter]

On the comic, anyone else see the timing a of the announcement a little convenient for a certain party?

I don't believe in the death penalty, so I don't really support the outcome, and I think there are other people who should be put to trail on the ICC but it is either irrelevantly late, or it is just never going to happen. I'm not going to say who I am talking about, and don't assume I mean Bush (which may or may not be true), I have decided to heavily moderate my views in this forum.

[JJ]

The chart is supposed to be the 20th Century. If I included all of history ever it would never get done.

[hoshie]

JJ wrote:

The chart is supposed to be the 20th Century. If I included all of history ever it would never get done.

Hey JJ,

I've been a fan of Filibuster for at least the last two years. There is a small error with your chart of tyrants. You list Slobodan Milosevic as a Communist. However, Milosevic was a Socialist. See the BBC for more.

Keep up the good work!

[Kjorteo]

JJ wrote:

The chart is supposed to be the 20th Century. If I included all of history ever it would never get done.

...Charles Taylor, then?

[Psudo]

Wow, I got quite the thorough criticism started, didn't I?

Neither The Union nor The Confederacy were ever dictatorships, so I don't see how the civil war could qualify.

Hoshie, Slobodan Milosevic was a capital-C Communist before 1990, in that his political party had the word "Communist" in the name. That's valid enough for an informal list.