Speaking of Violations

Marcus at Harry's Place has a great post about the Saddam images that were published in the Sun on Friday:

Saddam Hussein reacts to his being photographed in jail by suing the Sun, the British newspaper running the pictures. He complains his privacy has been violated. Lawyers are already arguing about the strength of the case.

He's suing? Oh, please! What about those of us forced to see the pictures? I mean, I support tort reform as much as anyone. Still, if being subjected to the image of Saddam Hussein in briefs doesn't justify a class action lawsuit, I don't know what does?

Marcus, of course, makes a much more important point: that the conditions of Saddam's confinement are far different than those his prisoners experienced:

Last summer Mr Muhammad had the top joint of the second finger of his left hand smashed off with an iron bar for insulting Saddam, an offence for which five years were added to his sentence.

Large-scale executions were a regular occurrence. The first that Mr Muhammad remembered was on March 27, 1991, during the uprisings in Iraq that followed the coalition victory in Kuwait.

“There was no rioting in the prison, just a feeling of unease,” he said. “Then that day hundreds of men from a special unit arrived. They took all the prisoners from their cells and made them parade in the yard facing the walls. It was the first time I had been in daylight since my imprisonment.When we all had our backs to them, standing in the sun, they opened fire on us. Over a hundred men lay dead and dying. The rest of us were made to stand up again and they kept us paraded there until 8pm, when we were returned to our cells.”

As far as I'm concerned, these are the only images to keep in mind with regard to Saddam Hussein.