Seeking the Lowest Level

Riverbend and Digby both note more than a bit of irony in the Saddam Trial:

Hullabaloo
I was only half listening a minute ago as NBC's Jim Meceda in Bagdad was describing how a woman was stripped and tortured and then taken to Abu Ghraib and terribly abused. I turned quickly to see who this latest person was who had come forward to accuse the US of inhumane treatment --- only to find that it was a witness testifying at Saddam's trial. Wow.

Riverbend
One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.

It makes one wonder when Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest will have their day, as the accused, in court.

Then we've got the spectacle--in the gawker sense of the term--of Condoleezza Rice traipsing around Europe, in the words of The Rude Pundit, "like a rabid mongoose," while the horrific treatment of Khaled Al-Masri is finally getting some attention (because he STILL can't enter this country to file a claim based on false imprisonment)...and, as the link demonstrates, Masri is not alone.

Scum might rise to the top--but it's still scum.