In February 2003, the German justice system (always good for an easy laugh) found Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan student studying in Hamburg, guilty of, among other things, 3,045 counts of accessory to murder in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. In keeping with their reputation as no-nonsense custodians of justice, the Germans meted out the unrelenting sentence of up to fifteen years in prison.
It appears that Germany, who is historically used to being on the other end of war crimes prosecution, had let sympathy for the defendant give way to madness. In all, Motassadeq received a maximum sentence of 43.2 hours in prison for each murder in which he had a part. Furthermore, upon not receiving the U.S. cooperation it desired (and after all the cooperation they’ve given us!) Germany nullified the verdict and its associated sentence. In August 2005, Motassadeq was re-tried, re-convicted, and is now instead serving a seven year sentence for “Membership in a terrorist organization” which, on the great scale of German justice, is the equivalent of “Accessory to the murder of 1,421 people.” You say tomato…
Now given our knowledge of German involvement in this and other significant global events (which, for simplicity’s sake we shall call “World Wars”), we must ask ourselves if we really care whether or not this country sees the U.S. removal of Hussein as a morally justified action.