Rebecca Weisser has a sobering article about the real atrocities and crimes in Iraq.

Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam's regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism...

...The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam's atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

"There is no secret about these mass graves," Stoyke writes. "Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence."

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Why can the anti-war left not speak for those victims?

[Via Norm Geras]

With apologies for a bit of self-aggrandizement, see Genocide By The Numbers, in which I predicted (with help from former roomie Alan Henderson) a seven-figure death toll. See also VodkaPundit.

Rand,

Why do you even bother asking? You know the answer as well as I do: Leftists kneel before the altar of Big Government, which in its most extreme forms (whether of the Right or Left), wind up slaughtering people by the millions, all in the name of bringing about a paradise of some kind ("Workers' Paradise", "Third Reich", etc., etc.) here on Earth. Answering that question would force them to admit that they worship a monster.

"Answering that question would force them to admit that they worship a monster."

Or possibly that they themselves are monsters, Hale. (Or would be, given the opportunity and the power.)

Saddam ranks only behind Hitler and Pol Pot as the most notoriuous tyrants in the history of mankind. In his reign as the president of Iraq, he has ruled with iron fist and imposed his rules with force. The worst thing is that he killed whoever bothered to cross his path.

"Why can the anti-war left not speak for those victims?"

For the anti-war left, what are 288 mass graves and a million missing Iraqis compared to the 2000 election?

Saddam ranks only behind Hitler and Pol Pot as the most notoriuous tyrants in the history of mankind. In his reign as the president of Iraq, he has ruled with iron fist and imposed his rules with force. The worst thing is that he killed whoever bothered to cross his path.

Wong, even if we restrict our attention to the 20th century, the list is depressingly long. There are a few more names ahead of Saddam Hussein. For example, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Tojo Hideki, and probably Chiang Kai-shek (to name some leaders from the Second World War). There's also a few underlings under the above tyrants that probably should rank ahead of Saddam Hussein as well. The "Young Turks" (responsible for the Armenian genocide) and the leaders of the Rwanda genocide probably would have been comparable to Saddam Hussein though they weren't in power as long.

I suppose my point here is that evil of Saddam Hussein's level isn't that rare and justice for these crimes is too unsure. There's many unpunished examples of it from the 20th century alone. It is good to see Saddam Hussein finally brought to justice, but it's been far too long.

I agree in principle with Hale about the "altar" of big government. I don't think social-ists literally worship this thing, but they have bought into the program. A government capable of supporting massive social-ist programs has the power to do a lot of evil. The two aspects are intertwined. It surprises me how liberals can curse government for it's corruption and evil, then defend the same government for its financial support of token social-ist programs.