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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Sometime today Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging. In hanging Saddam Hussein the Iraqi authorities, complicit with the United States, have validated his life's work. They have demonstrated, as he spent his life demonstrating, that might makes right and official murder is a proper tool of governance.
I will not go so far as to say that the Iraqi government has "become" like Saddam Hussein, because to my knowledge they did not torture him to death or execute him arbitrarily. After all, he did receive a trial for his monstrous crimes. Nevertheless, the moment the trap door opened beneath his feet, Saddam Hussein's world view was vindicated. Instead of spending the rest of his life in a cell, eventually becoming a footnote with only the memory of his crimes to keep him company, Saddam was given the chance to think to himself one last time "I was a great leader once, and now I am a martyr."
And that is the greatest injustice of all.
and though he wasn't a leader anyone here in USA loved, I felt suddenly so very sad. I mean this whole massacre of Iraq was to kill a man that had held the country together and had nothing to do with USA interests, au contraire as Papa Bush knew. He should have been given life imprisonment and we all should worry about what this latest US action will bring forth.
This was neither justice nor revenge. This act of murder speaks volumes of the US and its peoples.
theFred
the BBC says that he was convicted specifically for deaths in a supressed uprising from 1982, when we were still pals with Saddam.
If George Bush jr, so hungry for the trappings of gravitas, had said that he wished Saddam's sentence be commuted to life in prison, it would have immediately been thus commuted. Does anybody doubt that? And our president would even get the chance, several hundred thousand needless deaths later, to demonstrate that Jesus really is his "favorite philosopher", as he once claimed.
I am not surprised at the mickey mouse antics at the trial, the ineptitude and rancor of the sectarian judges, or the selection of a less-than-strategic choice of case to condemn him for, but I am surprised that his execution comes during a holiday that is sure to seal his label of "martyr" to his fellow Sunnis. Yeesh.
What possible good could come of this?
Although I feel only a tiny measure of satisfaction at Saddam's demise (and that is overwhelmed by sadness at the unspeakable cost we and they have suffered in the course of the event), I believe he got what he deserved.
Most of the witnesses against Saddam gave hearsay evidence.
His crimes against humanity are clear. The above statement obscures this fact, and I wish Mr. Cole had not made it. Still, I wish that a policy of containment had been pursued, because it hasn't been worth it. That's all.
As I understand it, the Sunnis in Iraq will now riot because a Sunni (Sadam was a Sunni) was killed by the Shites. And, naturally, after the blood-letting by the Sunnis, the Shia will retaliate.
When Sadam was overthown, the celebration in the streets seemed to be general. I was given to understand that while Sadam was a Sunni and the whole government was Sunni, the people who were Sunni suffered as much under Sadam as the Shia and the Kurds. Sadam was an equal-opportunity oppressor.
The fact that the Sunnis have apparently forgotton how much they suffered and now will apparently make Sadam's execution as another excuse for religious violence is stark testimony to how bad things have gotton in Iraq since we overthrew the government.
And, the really sad part is that this result was predictable. That's one reason why Bush Sr. refused to go into Baghdad despite all the urging of him to go there. But, Bush Jr. wouldn't listen. And, he's still not listening now.
The timing of this execution wasn't just a slap in the face of Iraq's Sunni Arabs but also of its Kurds who will be denied the trial for which they have waited so long.
PM al-Maliki can be accused of many things but being a shrewd politician or a principled man aren't among those things.
"The political ineptitude of the tribunal, from start to finish, was astonishing."
The political ineptitude of this entire enterprise has been astonishing. Politics is said to be the art of compromise. To men like Bush and Saddam, it isn't any sort of art. Rather, it is about "victory," "winning," and control. By any means necessary. Shock and Awe and blunt force trauma.
1. Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead! Now let's come back to Kansas, and let the people of Oz create their own future. I do not care if this somehow helps the American Republican Guard. It would be wonderful if this gives them an excuse to leave Iraq.
2. Let's not seem to be on Saddam's side here at Salon. Plenty of Iraqis right down Michigan Avenue from me will tell you how bad he was.
3. Impeach W. Bush and Cheney and their pals for torture.
The White House spokespeople are claiming that Geo. W. Bush already was in bed when Saddam swung, and they claim that they did not bother to wake him up to tell him about it!
Another reason to impeach him! Do you want a President who goes to bed at 8pm? Do you even want a President who thinks it's worthwhile to pretend he goes to bed at 8pm?
You know darn well Bush was up choking on pretzels and looking at the TV and taking calls from fundraisers. What a dumb lie!
Okay, Hussein is dead, so? Does this mean that we won't be reading headlines about the Iraq civil war tomorrow? Does this mean that Iraq families are more politically free? Are Iraqi women free to walk the streets safely? Hussein was a monster, but no worse than many leaders with whom the U.S. currently has amicable ties. And to give him credit, he managed to meld three groups who hate each other into a functioning government that held together through all the sanctions. I suspect that any Iraqi celebrations about his death is muted by fear about the future without someone like him as a leader. The world is a slightly nicer place with him dead, but is Iraq better off now than when he was leader? And more importantly, can it be made better off, or is is going to descend into a shattered nation like Afghanistan?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
