Ramsey Clark, what a putz

[motion]

You won't find me posting much about politics, and I'm fairly middle-of-the-road, but what a friggin traitor. I can't think of anything so dishonorable coming from such a high-ranking public servant.

[Mulhollanddose]

To fact that this guy is an ex-United States attorney general speaks volumes about the liberals and what they are truly about. Clark is a communist and the democrat party has long welcomed and sheltered communists at the highest levels of the party...The exposition of this fact by Nixon and McCarthy infuriates the left to this day.

[tabs]

What has that Traitor R Clark done now? I must have missed something?

[Nathans_Dad]

Ramsey Clark is one of the lead counsels defending Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I would comment, but I try to be civil on this board...

[nostatic]

so wait...we're supposed to be bringing "democracy" to Iraq. And part of our system of justice is providing counsel at a trial of one's peers. So what exactly is traitorous? He's obviously a media-whore, but according to our system of justice *everyone* deserves legal representation.

[dd74]

If there was a chance he could do so, would Clark defend Hitler?

[Mulhollanddose]

Ramsey Clark has never met a socialist dictator he doesn't love. He wraps himself in the cape of human rights crusader, leads the anti-war/anti-American crusade, and now defends one of the greatest monsters of the last century. I will never understand the soft spot liberals have in their dark hearts for oppressive dictators...no wonder they love and hold in high esteem the collectivist dictators of the UN.

Ramsey Clark joins a long procession of leftist scum who are bent on destroying this country and relinquishing our soveireignty to the most corrupt organization on the planet.

[Halm]

I have no poblem with Clark helping defend Hussin. I do have a HUGE problem with him questioning the legitimacy of the trial.

[Hugh R]

I think Clark should subpoena Ted Kennedy, John Carrey and Nancy Pelosi and others as Saddams defense witnesses. After all aren't they on the Senate Armed Services Committee and other committees that were in the know. I can see Ted Kennedy right now defending his statements that Saddam did not have WMD.

[ChrisBennet]

Wow, that's as bad as that traitor John Adams defending the British soldiers who participated in the "Boston Massacre". Since when are people we don't like allowed to have a fair trial? We need to show the world and the Iraqis that our brand of freedom is just as "efficient" as as any dictator's. Criminey, next people will demand we outlaw the secret police, warrantless searches, imprisonment without charges and torture.

-Chris

[stevepaa]

Originally posted by Hugh R
I think Clark should subpoena Ted Kennedy, John Carrey and Nancy Pelosi and others as Saddams defense witnesses. After all aren't they on the Senate Armed Services Committee and other committees that were in the know. I can see Ted Kennedy right now defending his statements that Saddam did not have WMD.

Same thing could be said for Rice and Rumsfeld, etc.

But what the heck does Jim Carrey have to do with this?

[Nathans_Dad]

"At the start of Monday’s session, Saddam walked into the court with a smile, carrying a copy of the Quran and greeted everyone there. Most of the defendants and several of the defense lawyers, including Clark, stood up out of respect when Saddam entered."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10318347/page/2/

[Nathans_Dad]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9970081/from/RS.3/

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Men and women were tortured for days and babies were left to die in an interrogation facility that featured a meat grinder for human flesh, the first prosecution witness to face Saddam Hussein told the court on Monday.

After weeks of delay and legal arguments over security and the legitimacy of the court, the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants heard graphic witness testimony of torture and summary execution.

Saddam and the other defendants are charged with crimes against humanity. They have pleaded innocent.

"I swear by God I walked by a room and on my left I saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath," said 38-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who said he had been kept in Room 63 at the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.

Hassan, the first witness to face Saddam in court, said he was 15 when Saddam visited the village of Dujail in July 1982 and Shiite militants tried to assassinate him.

Speaking technically as an individual plaintiff alongside the state, Hassan said he and his family were among hundreds of people rounded up in a security operation run by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti after an attempt on Saddam's life in the village.

Barzan, one of Saddam's three younger half-brothers and the former head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, is one of Saddam's seven co-accused in the case relating to the killings of 148 mostly Shiite Muslim men from Dujail.

‘No one escaped torture’
"Barzan was present. He had red cowboy boots and blue jeans and a sniper rifle," Hassan, a stockily built man with a round face and gray beard, told the heavily fortified court in central Baghdad.

He said Saddam, from the Sunni Arab minority, asked a 15-year-old boy if he knew who he was. "He said 'Saddam.' Then Saddam hit him in the head with an ash tray," Hassan said.

With Barzan constantly interjecting from the dock and calling the testimony lies, Hassan said he was among hundreds of people taken from the Shiite village to the Hakmiya intelligence headquarters, run by Barzan.

He said it was while he was climbing the stairs there that he saw the meat grinder.

"No one escaped torture," he said. "They would put a mask on my eyes and because I was young it would fall down. I saw women being tortured."

"My brother was given electric shocks while my 77-year-old father watched," Hassan said.

"They told us, 'Why don't you confess, you will be executed anyway,' " he said. "One man was shot in the leg with two bullets. ... Some people were crippled because they had their arms and legs broken."

He said they were held in Hakmiya for 70 days.

While they were there, a woman told a guard that her infant baby needed milk or he would die. "He died and the guard threw him from the window," Hassan told the court. "Pregnant women gave birth in the prison. Their babies died."

[nostatic]

two words: due process

[Nathans_Dad]

I agree Saddam should get his trial...I just question a former Democratic Attorney General of the United States calling the sovereignty of Iraq into question and "rising in respect" for a mass murderer...

[nostatic]

another hallmark of our justice system: innocent until proven guilty

And defense attorneys do whatever they can to get their client acquited. Within the bounds of the system (bent though they may be).

Look, I think the guy is a POS (both of them), but you can't have it both ways. The system should not be subverted...

[Nathans_Dad]

Agreed. Good point. You're right of course...but he's still a jack*ss...

[motion]

I was under the impression that as a defense attorney, you cannot represent a client if you know or believe that he is guilty. An ethics thing. Am I wrong? Does Clark really believe Hussein is innocent?

[nostatic]

Richard, that's a fine line that the attorney walks. Maybe someone who is a PD will chime in, but from conversations with my ex (who is a JD, but does patent law), the defense attorney is required to do the best he/she can for their client. What they "know" depends on the situation, and usually is obtained on a need-to-know basis. Since Clark didn't see Hussein commit these atrocities, how can he "know" he is guilty?

If the client maintains his innocence to his counsel, counsel has to act on that, and provide the best defense they can. No matter how disgusting. This crap happens all the time in court. Just not of the magnitude of SH's offenses.

[rrpjr]

This is what Ramsey Clark said in a recent BBC interview about Hussein’s order to kill 148 Shiite men and boys when his motorcade came under gunfire in 1982.

“He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt.”

So, he believes the killings did occur and that Hussein is guilty – but that extenuating circumstances of warmongering should excuse him.

That’s quite a defense lawyer.

Note that Clark is a leading face on the anti-war movement and the man who represents the ANSWER coalition dedicated to undermining the war effort.

Can it get any more absurd?