2006-12-30
Revenge served clammy
It is not necessary to have any sympathy for Saddam Hussein -- who was a revolting thug -- to see the futility of his rushed and widely publicized execution. Alive, the only people to whom he presented a danger were those who might be mentioned in the evidence he could give in trials that will now not be conducted. Dead, he is a monument to his failed trial and the fictional government that has now taken its useless revenge on him. Some people will now try to turn him in a martyr, which can only further increase the level of violence in the world. As far as deterrent effect, his killing ought to prevent the survival of the sort of political movement he developed about as much as the hanging of Mussolini did.
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3 comments:
I agree with everything you wrote here, and let me only add - the day on which he was executed will certainly make him martyr for every Sunni on this planet, and many Muslims all over the world. It was necessary to keep him silent, as you say, but why to execute him TODAY? Why not 2-3 days later?
The scheduling is another sign that the people arranging this whole business do not know what they are doing, do not understand the cultures they are dealing with, and will face consequences they were not capable of anticipating. The whole business just stinks, and is depressing.
Well I can only hope he won't be a martyr to EVERY Sunni on the planet. I must say the account of his death is that he was very dignified and that is something that people in the Middle East respect, even if they don't like him. They should really have waited, until Eid was over. Which would have been a wait of like a week. It would have been wiser.
I have no sympathy for Saddam, none, and feel he deserved to die for the stuff he did, but I still think this was handled very badly indeed. I also think he should not have been hung, or executed if war criminals from Europe didn't face the same penalty. That is bound to excite comment from various quarters.
Seesaw you are totally right that the timeing was very very bad and stupid and worse yet, people in the Bush administration KNOW this, it's not like they don't have people who'se job is to tell them these things.
The local government has something to answer for too. The people in that government are Iraqis they should know better and I think they may come in for more than even the U.S. in terms of blame and anger.
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