Saddam Hussein executed
No one will miss the Butcher of Baghdad, and no tears will be shed for his death. In terms of political analysis, though, there are a couple of ways to consider Saddam Hussein’s execution. First, as Josh Marshall noted in an accurate and poignant piece, is the fact that “this whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur — phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters.”
Hanging Saddam is easy. It’s a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us….
This is the best we can do. Hang Saddam Hussein because there’s nothing else this president can get right.
Second is consideration of how the execution might affect the broader conflict in Iraq. The consensus seems to be, not much.
Any positive reaction among Americans also is likely to muted by disenchantment over the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq.
In Iraq, the execution of Hussein has commanded attention, but it may not outlast the daily struggle faced by most Iraqis.
“People in Iraq today are concerned with very basic things these days. Will this put more food on the table, make the streets safer, put more electricity in the wires?” Serwer asked. “The answer is likely not. So many people will not see this as that big.”
Third is the fact that even the execution seemed to reinforce the sectarian conflict that’s tearing Iraq apart.
The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam’s hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.
The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.
And fourth, while Saddam’s death is a milestone for history of Iraq, the fact that December has been the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2006 strikes me as at least as important.
Most islamic fundamentalists didn’t care for politicians like Saddam and his cynical ploys using religion (unlike a certain group of religoid nuts who take leader worship even more seriously than even North Koreans.)
CB, your right about Saddam’s death just being another one in a long line of them in this spiraling Iraqi Civil War. Just another tiny additional reason for Sunnis to kill Shiites.
Like everything the Admin does, it is mostly for show and not out of any practicality (when it happens is mostly coinccidental.)
What’s the next wonderful PR hearts and minds stumble/ploy for the Bush Admin? About the only thing they haven’t done is feeding hungry Iraqi Muslims pork chops and beer.
I give it 0 points for style and 10 points for execution.
I guess it’s important but I get sick of hearing how religionists are outraged on one holy day or another. I’m not shooting the messenger, but it seems like all religionists can do is get outraged these days. Loosen up, fundies.
I don’t think it will make much of a difference. Saddam’s execution has long been a forgone conclusion. I’m not going to say he didn’t deserve it, but this was first and foremost, a political act. Shiites, Sunnis and Republicans will all try to spin it to their advantage.
Saddam’s execution last night (Eastern Standard Time) had to be a crushing blow to the Bush Administration: after spending thousands of American lives, enabling tens of thousands of American casualties, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and spending half a trillion dollars in Iraq, Bush’s money shot, the death of Saddam, was carried out in secret and announced on a Friday night before the long New Year’s Day weekend when the news will be dominated by the funeral of Pres. Ford–who disagreed with the Iraq–and the weekend extended by one day to commemorate him.
The irony of the Friday news release, which they’ve used themselves to bury bad news for six years, is just the cherry on the sundae.
How much did Bush want the execution to be carried out just before his State of the Union address and to be covered 24/7 by Fox for the three days preceding it? Now the execution will disappear down the memory hole, and he’ll be left with just the fiasco.
Wow. Great writing by Josh Marshall- if the excerpts you chose are fair examples of the piece, it’s a great one.
For Bush the mission is finally accomplished. He held a grudge against Saddam for helping to bring down his father’s presidency and for latter plotting to assassinate the elder Bush. As Maha over at Mahablog has noted, the first acts of the US troops upon entering Baghdad revealed Bush’s true motivation. He had The Saddam statue tumbled in a faux homage to the fall of the Soviet empire and he had a mosaic of his father on the floor of the al Rashid torn up. This was the victory that Bush was personally looking for all along. Perhaps now he will be psychologically ready to leave Iraq. Bush our chief petty officer.
If the war criminals that started this war ever face charges at the Hague, the same fate will probably await them. Deservedly so.
Maybe the timing on the Sunni feast day wasn’t so stupid after all.
And just in case you think we had nothing to do with the timing, Josh links to an AP report that says it was decided in a meeting between Iraqi and US officials: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011736.php. So either we have so little influence on the Iraqi govt that we let them gratuitously worsen the civil war, or the “US officials” were completely clueless about this. My money’s on the second, though both possibilities are depressing.
I can’t resist going over one of my favorite poems, Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). It says all that need be said about the exercise of raw power. (take the time to read it slowly)
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I don’t think Saddam ever did a lot of retirement planning…The real question is:
Can we go home now?
Like I was taught in grade school many years ago: The end does not justify the means.
See a sarcastic visual of George Bush playing a round of “Hangman”…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
“I don’t believe that Saddam’s execution would remotely help bring peace to the country. … Even politically I think it would carry … more negative consequences than positive ones.” – Italian Premier Romano Prodi.
“Every dictator must answer for his actions, every dictator. This does not always happen in history. … (But) I will never defend the death penalty, not even for the worst politician.” – Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Saddam’s execution punishes “a crime with another crime. … The death penalty is not a natural death. And no one can give death, not even the state.” – Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI’s top prelate for justice issues, to the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
“It will not increase our moral authority in the world. … Saddam’s heinous crimes against humanity can never be diminished, but he was our ally while he was doing it. … Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth will make us blind and disfigured. … Saddam as a war trophy only deepens the catastrophe to which we are indelibly linked.” – the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The question is not whether Saddam Hussein is a murderer. That seems to be pretty clear. It is about the issue whether you are allowed to take someone else’s life. … And that is the true reason why Europe opposes this.” – Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht to VRT network.
Germany “rejects the death penalty. … The death penalty is, however, foreseen and possible under Iraqi law. There is no indication that these court proceedings in Iraq, including the appeals process, were not conducted in accordance with the legal principles there.” – Thomas Steg, spokesman for the German government.
Denmark “supports the establishment of a democracy and an independent judicial system in Iraq. But we do not support the death penalty.” – Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.
“Imposing the death penalty, which is indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after the unfair proceedings of the Dujail trial.” – Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program for Human Rights Watch.
“Putting into action such an inhumane sentence casts aside the aspirations of the Iraqi people for the transformation of their country.” – Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Russian Council of Muftis, to the RIA-Novosti news agency.
This is sad on so many levels, and it will prove to be yet another disasterous miscalculation by Commander Codpiece and the Keystone Cops-Corps of Generals he misleads.
This execution was transparently to serve the wishes of Iraq’s corporate masters, the war criminals’ energy enterprises headed by the two US oilmen currently in charge around there (as were the strictly-limited criminal charge for which Saddam was tried and convicted) . Saddam had to be gotten out of the way quickly before US historical ties to his regime got some play in the news cycles.
Mission Accomplished.
The entire dwindling Republican Party faithful must be very proud today. No one with any depth of intelligence is fooled and the American public is not as stupid as the Republicans like to believe (see November elections).
Robert Fisk | A Dictator Created Then Destroyed by America
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/123006Z.shtml
“Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam’s weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.”
At least two bombings Saturday in Iraq kill upwards of 50 Iraqi civilians, and December becomes the deadliest month of 2006 for U.S. troops, with 108 killed.
David Kurtz at TPM:
Looking at the photo the NYT is leading with on its homepage, I am struck by the motley bunch of executioners. Hooded to protect their identities, they look like a gang of toughs from a B movie–or, on further reflection, like the hooded terrorists who in the earlier days of our occupation were murdering hostages like Nick Berg, on camera, for maximum shock value.
From the NYT:
Before the hanging was carried out in Baghdad, Mr. Bush went to sleep here at his ranch and was not roused when the news came.
Well of course not, the Deciderer done deciderered already about this, didn’t he???
Fucking assholes – “I’m just fine with the death penalty, so long as it’s nice and neat and clean and doesn’t happen anywhere near me – just like I like my wars.”
Glenn Greenwald’s comment:
From the White House press release:
Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.
Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.
The President is certainly right that it is is a good thing that Saddam Hussein was given a trial, represented by lawyers, with an opportunity to contest his guilt, before being deemed to be guilty. That is how civilized countries function, by definition. In fact, allowing people fair trials before treating them as Guilty is one of the handful of defining attributes — one could even say (as the American Founders did) a prerequisite — for countries to avoid tyranny.
That is why it is so reprehensible and inexpressibly tragic that the Bush administration continues to claim — and aggressively exercise — the power to imprison and punish people without even a pretense or fraction of the due process that Saddam Hussein enjoyed. The Bush administration believes that it has the power to imprison whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, without even giving them access to the outside world, let alone “a fair trial.” The power which it claims — which it has seized — extends not only to foreign nationals but legal residents and even its own citizens.
Like everything in the Iraq Debacle the death of Saddam took place with an amateurism and haste that leaves the impression something is wrong. The Kurds never had their grievances against Saddam adressed in a court of law and feel that justice has gone unserved for them. The rush to execute before the holiday gives the impression this was a hit rather than justice being carried out … and the trial, well, resembled a typical event orchestrated with all the competence of Bush appointees.
What’s worse, I feel that he was put to death for doing the same things the Bush Administration is doing over in Iraq. Saddam was convicted for seking revenge for a failed assasination attempt … and so did Bush in invading Iraq. So where’s the justice?
Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing hundreds of thousands, but was hanged after being convicted of killing 148. Now that we freed Iraq from this brutal dictator, that many are killed every couple days.
As Ken Starr is remembered for his contributions to the literature of oral sex, so will Dubya be remembered for last night’s “snuff” film.
The spectacle of Saddam’s hanging is pornography pure and simple…
Ain’t it funny that Saddam Hussein was on death row for a few months and most people on death row takes years before they are ever excuted?
I mean, that has got to be a new record, right?
mission accomplished. those won’t be the words they use, but…..
now bush can say we had two goals-bring saddam to justice, and bring democracy to iraq.
mission accomplished. now we can go home.
The invasion of Iraq, based as it was on lies, abrogation of the rule of law, and the manipulation of a hysterical post-9/11 public, has always seemed like a lynch mob to me. And now we’ve finally had the hangin’.
Paul Wolfowitz just creamed his jeans.
Saddam’s execution appeared similar to the executions shown on Al Jazeera where the men in ski masks chanted and one person cut the head off the poor unfortunate while the others in ski masks held him. I’m not saying Hussein didn’t deserve to be executed, only that he should have been tried in an international court like Milosevic and then hung. Hussein’s execution appeared to be the US handing him over to his enemies and they hanged him for revenge while they chanted. Just one more thing poorly done in the aftermath of the Regal Retard’s decision to go to war.