Jeremy noted how evidence has shown Saddam Hussein pardoned two men who plotted to kill him, and jailed the head of his secret police when four innocent men were executed.
As part of his defense before the Hague Inquisition, Slobodan Milosevic has presented many documents showing that he never ordered any of the crimes he’s accused of (even more so, that there was no evidence many of the crimes he’s accused of actually happened), and that instead, his government actually prosecuted military and police personnel who were murdering or mistreating civilians, seizing or destroying their property.
Imperial aggression is always preceded by a propaganda campaign painting their target as the new Hitler, and coming up with fresh lies after the original ones have gone stale and rotten. As a libertarian, I’m opposed to both the kind of satrapy Saddam Hussein ran, and to the post-modern, managerial state Milosevic presided over. But the Empire, which has all but eradicated liberty at home and has military presence in just about every country abroad, engages in wanton aggression, torture and hate-mongering, has absolutely no right to judge either of them. Something about the speck in someone else’s eye and a beam in one’s own, as I recall from the religious heritage of America’s founders…