More comedy this week from the Saddam Hussein trial in Baghdad. Hussein claimed on Wednesday in one of his patented courtroom outbursts that he has been beaten "everywhere on [his] body" by Americans while in detention and that he has the marks to prove it. He did not display the alleged torture marks and U.S. government spokesman said the claims were false.
This would be funnier if we weren't routinely torturing people, but at least when Saddam is the alleged victim it is still pretty funny.
Hussein claimed that he and his co-defendants had been beaten and tortured repeatedly, and that one was beaten with the butt of a rifle "until he fell down." To that I'm inclined to say, well, fall down sooner then, but I suppose it would still be wrong to beat anyone in custody, even one of these guys. Obviously it is the height of irony for Hussein and friends to be complaining about a few beatings, but at least they have gotten a little more media-savvy than last week, when they were complaining about not getting clean underwear and having to climb up four flights of stairs to get to the courtroom.
In what is evidence either that Hussein's mental state is deteriorating or that we need better Arabic translators, Hussein was also quoted as saying that he was "not complaining about the Americans because I can poke their eyes with my own hands." Okay. Well, if that's what he thinks, he really doesn't understand American men, because we have been well-trained in this by years of watching the Three Stooges, and any efforts to poke our eyes will be met with a smorgasbord of time-tested defense tactics.