Perhaps Saddam Hussein,
the Butcher of Baghdad, has taken advice from
Shakespeare's Dick the Butcher.
In "Henry VI, Part II," Act IV Dick the Butcher
blurts out one of the Bard's most misquoted and
misunderstood lines: "The first thing we do, let's
kill all the lawyers."
Before everyone fed up with our ABA-infested
Congress or run-amok litigation shouts, "Amen, off
with their heads," I recommend a quick scan of the
text. Shakespeare isn't making an Elizabethan lawyer
joke. Anarchy and vicious street violence serve the
purposes of Jack Cade, Dick the Butcher's aspiring
fuhrer. The Rule of Law impedes Cade's rebellion --
and lawyers, judges and juries embody the law.
Cade speaks the language of populist rebellion, but
his "self-determination" is ultimately a terrible
pun. He will dispense with money, feed the
population, dress everyone in the same clothing. But
his goal is power and personal rule. Just before
Dick the Butcher's call for mass judicial murder,
Cade states his intended policy goal: He wants the
people to "worship me their lord." |
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP
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By cracky, Saddam subscribes to that political
philosophy. Remember the term "cult of personality"?
Hitler and Stalin were 20th century practitioners of
self-worship and state terror. Saddam managed to
keep his franchise until the early 21st.
Shakespearean characters might mock the nonsense of
legalese, but the Bard backed the Rule of Law. The
Rule of Man degenerates to whim. When whim combines
with paranoia, megalomania and weapons, the result
is mass murder
With fits and starts, the Rule of Law has tackled
and handcuffed Baghdad's Butcher. Saddam still
doesn't quite believe it. He's still fighting for
the Rule of Me. When Saddam's whims governed Iraq,
the results included a beggared Iraqi economy, wars
with Kuwait and Iran, and mass graves in Kurdistan
and southern Iraq. Saddam's fascist regime not only
poisoned Iraqi society, its cruelty embedded the
human emotional poisons of bitterness, distrust and
constant fear.
The Butcher of Baghdad relied on murder to obtain
and maintain power. Terror was -- and remains --
Saddam's chief policy tool. The United Nation's Oil
for Food scandal signals the Million Man Murderer is
also adept at bribery.
It appears Saddam has calculated that lawyers and
judges are expendable - literally. One defense
lawyer has been murdered, with Saddam's pals the
likely trigger men. The day before his trial was set
to reconvene, Iraqi police arrested a Saddamite hit
squad carrying orders to kill Rahid Juhi, one of
Iraq's pre-eminent jurists and the judge who
directed the pre-trial investigation of Saddam.
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam's former VPs,
signed the assassination writ. Ibrahim is running
the Saddamist side of the Iraqi civil war.
And civil war this is, with Saddam's ancien regime
attempting to terrorize the Iraq populace and pave
the way for an eventual return to power. I've argued
since late 2003 that the Iraq war became a civil war
sometime in the summer of 2003. That's when former
regime elites, Ibrahim among them, began their
terror campaign. In mid-2004, according to the
Baghdad rumor mill, Ibrahim still had access to
tens, and perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars
in hidden cash.
Free Iraq is defeating Saddam's holdout fascists and
al-Qaida's theo-fascists. Beating al-Qaida means
giving al-Qaida the opportunity to beat itself.
That's happening. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's attacks on
three Jordanian hotels has produced an enormous
political victory for Washington and its anti-terror
coalition.
The harsh evil of al-Qaida is front and center in
Sunni Arab media, demonstrating unequivocally that
al-Qaida is Murder Incorporated, and the majority of
its victims are Muslims.
Al-Qaida's biggest recruiting tool was -- and is --
the political failure of the Arab Muslim world. In
this dysfunctional world, tyranny and terror
reinforce one another, with the people of the Middle
East the inevitable victims.
The democratic judicial process holding Saddam
accountable for his murders provides a stark,
confidence-raising contrast with Saddam's regime and
al-Qaida. The era of the tyrant and terrorist is
over in the Middle East.
Saddam can try to kill his lawyers, but he won't
succeed in killing the Rule of Law in Free Iraq.
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