the fate of saddam

[VonDondu]

I just read an interesting commentary by Juan Cole at Salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/

Among other things, Cole explained the following.

Saddam was found guilty and executed for one specific crime, namely, the execution of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail in 1982. There were numerous other crimes against humanity and acts of brutality that Saddam could have been charged with, but the Shiite-led Iraqi government chose to focus mainly on that one.

Back in 1982, Dujail was a hotbed of activism by the Dawa party, whose members are Shiite fundamentalists. As Cole explains, "In the wake of Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran, Saddam conceived a profound fear of Dawa and similar parties, banning them and making membership a capital crime." For some reason (I'm guessing because he wanted to see his decree enforced), Saddam visited Dujail. While he was there, Dawa agents attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate him. In retaliation, Saddam ordered the execution of the town's young men. 148 were executed.

The current Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is the leader of none other than the Dawa Party. He served for years in exile in the Damascus bureau. What it boils down to is that a Dawa-led government tried and executed Saddam for his crackdown on a Dawa stronghold. As Cole puts it, this "makes it look to Sunni Arabs more like a sectarian reprisal than a dispassionate trial for crimes against humanity."

The date that was chosen for Saddam's execution is also indicative of sectarian strife. As Cole explains, "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." Saddam's execution, which took place on Saturday, was "a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs", and it "was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar." Nice way to say, "We're in charge now."

There's more in Cole's commentary. For example, Saddam used the date of his own execution -- during a Sunni celebration of sacrifice -- as a chance to portray himself as a "sacrifice". Saddam refered to Shiites as "Persians", which is a code word meaning that he didn't believe that they are true Iraqis. As Cole explains, "Despite some smarmy language urging Iraqis not to hate the Americans, Saddam denounced the 'invaders' and 'Persians' who had come into Iraq." In death, Saddam might regain some of the power he lost in life.

It looks like this is only going to lead to more civil war. Is Saddam's death supposed to make things better in Iraq? Does his death make the invasion of Iraq worthwhile? In an alternate universe, the answer to both of those questions might have been "yes", but in this universe, I think the answer to both of those questions is "no".

[Mandalorianx]

dont know if the dead penalty was the right way, in this case. i mean many followed him and now they will might go to war.
beside, i think that letting him be in prison would give him time to think of what he have done(and its hard in some prisons around the world).

sometime dead seems so easy to me.

and what is the point of killing him at exact that time, on a holyday for the muslims(yesterday).

but done is done, just dont wanna know what's next in this.

[Xandax]

<snip>
@Xandax


Any trial must be fair and impartial regardless of political situation. Saddam's trial was a travesty of justice.

"The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders. History will judge these actions harshly." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch

I never stated otherwise either.

I simply think it is naive to think the situation and perception of the trail by the parties (deep) involved/interested in the situation in Iraq, would be different if the trail had been "fair" and "impartial".... if such a thing actually exists when we deal with people.
Irregardless of whether the trail would have been "fair" or not, the supporters of Saddam and the opposers of US/Western world would react similar. Rational behavior is not something these groups of people are famed for.

[Lady Dragonfly]

I never stated otherwise either.

I simply think it is naive to think the situation and perception of the trail by the parties (deep) involved/interested in the situation in Iraq, would be different if the trail had been "fair" and "impartial".... if such a thing actually exists when we deal with people.
Irregardless of whether the trail would have been "fair" or not, the supporters of Saddam and the opposers of US/Western world would react similar. Rational behavior is not something these groups of people are famed for.

I understand what you are saying. Indeed, terrorists and fanatics live in a different dimension. But now they (once again) have got something substantial to justify their actions.
By a fair trial I mean a trial where all aspects of the crime are evaluated in full. Saddam was responsible for the murder of thousands of Kurds who'd never had their day in court. He also persecuted Sunnis; however, he was tried and executed by the Shiite government for the killing of 148 Shiites only. If the trial dealt with the whole spectrum of Saddam's crimes against humanity, the international opinion about the verdict could have been more positive. As it is now, the crude trial and the hasty execution are viewed as revenge. Retaliation is likely to follow.

[Xandax]

I understand what you are saying. Indeed, terrorists and fanatics live in a different dimension. But now they (once again) have got something substantial to justify their actions.
By a fair trial I mean a trial where all aspects of the crime are evaluated in full. Saddam was responsible for the murder of thousands of Kurds who'd never had their day in court. He also persecuted Sunnis; however, he was tried and executed by the Shiite government for the killing of 148 Shiites only. If the trial dealt with the whole spectrum of Saddam's crimes against humanity, the international opinion about the verdict could have been more positive. As it is now, the crude trial and the hasty execution are viewed as revenge. Retaliation is likely to follow.

Despite the international opinion being aware that the trail was a sham, only the fanatics and terrorists would retaliate anyway. The "international opinion" will only hurt the US (and possible allies) by opinion, and not manifest itself into retaliation which indicates violent/military/economical sanctions.

Thus I maintain that from a logical point of view, nothing would have changed in the eyes of these people who in fact will use violence and terror if the trial itself had been completely fair. These people uses what they can as justification without rationale and logics, but pure emotional - and whether it is justified by a "sham trial" or not, that wouldn't change the outcome as I see it.

[Lady Dragonfly]

Despite the international opinion being aware that the trail was a sham, only the fanatics and terrorists would retaliate anyway. The "international opinion" will only hurt the US (and possible allies) by opinion, and not manifest itself into retaliation which indicates violent/military/economical sanctions.

At least US (and Iraqi government) could've been spared extra pain in a diplomatic sense. The opinion of Muslim countries matter. Oh well, what measure of diplomatic brilliance would I expect from Bush anyway?

Now they say the U.S. tried to delay Saddam hanging "fearing it would fuel perceptions that the death of the former Iraqi dictator was more about Shia retribution and less about justice -- fears that seemed borne out by an amateur recording of Hussein's last moments.

It was a caution that fell on deaf ears, however, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was determined to put Hussein to death before the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday, which began on Saturday for Iraqi Sunnis and on Sunday for Shiites.

At mid-day Friday, amid reports that the United States had given the Iraqis custody of Hussein -- and public denials that the transfer had taken place -- U.S. officials were in private talks with Iraq's Shia prime minister."

That is if we are to believe that Iraqi government can really say 'no' to a U.S. 'request'.

Thus I maintain that from a logical point of view, nothing would have changed in the eyes of these people who in fact will use violence and terror if the trial itself had been completely fair. These people uses what they can as justification without rationale and logics, but pure emotional - and whether it is justified by a "sham trial" or not, that wouldn't change the outcome as I see it.

You are right, nothing can change the nature of these men.

[dragon wench]

I read [url="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16086.htm"]this piece[/url] by Robert Fisk in The Independent, it doesn't so much as add anything new, but it asks some thoughtful questions.

The whole bloody thing was obscene

Butchery was supposed to have been presented as a solemn execution

By Robert Fisk

01/06/07 "The Independent" -- -- The lynching of Saddam Hussein - for that is what we are talking about - will turn out to be one of the determining moments in the whole shameful crusade upon which the West embarked in March of 2003. Only the president-governor George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara could have devised a militia administration in Iraq so murderous and so immoral that the most ruthless mass murderer in the Middle East could end his days on the gallows as a figure of nobility, scalding his hooded killers for their lack of manhood and - in his last seconds - reminding the thug who told him to "go to hell" that the hell was now Iraq.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it," Malcolm reported of the execution of the treacherous Thane of Cawdor in Macbeth. Or, as a good friend of mine in Ballymena said to me on the phone a few hours later, "The whole bloody thing was obscene." Quite so. On this occasion, I'll go along with the voice of Protestant Ulster.

Of course, Saddam gave his victims no trial; his enemies had no opportunity to hear the evidence against them; they were mown down into mass graves, not handed a black scarf to prevent the hangman's noose from burning their neck as it broke their spine. Justice was "done", even if a trifle cruelly. But this is not the point. Regime change was done in our name and Saddam's execution was a direct result of our crusade for a "new" Middle East. To watch a uniformed American general - despite the indiscipline of more and more US troops in Iraq - wheedling and whining at a press conference that his men were very courteous to Saddam until the very moment of handover to Muqtada al-Sadr's killers could only be appreciated with the blackest of humour.

Note how the best "our" Iraqi government's officials could do by way of reply was to order an "enquiry" to find out how mobile phones were taken into the execution room - not to identify the creatures who bawled abuse at Saddam Hussein in his last moments. How very Blairite of the al-Maliki government to search for the snitches rather than the criminals who abused their power. And somehow, they got away with it; acres of agency copy from the Green Zone reporters were expended on the Iraqi government's consternation, as if al- Maliki did not know what had transpired in the execution chamber. His own officials were present - and did nothing.

That's why the "official" videotape of the hanging was silent - and discreetly faded out - before Saddam was abused. It was cut at this point, not for reasons of good taste but because that democratically elected Iraqi government - whose election was such "great news for the people of Iraq" in the words of Lord Blair - knew all too well what the world would make of the terrible seconds that followed. Like the lies of Bush and Blair - that everything in Iraq was getting better when in fact it was getting worse - butchery was supposed to have been presented as a solemn judicial execution.

Worst of all, perhaps, is that the hanging of Saddam mimicked, in ghostly, miniature form, the manner of his own regime's bestial executions. Saddam's own hangman at Abu Ghraib, a certain Abu Widad, would also taunt his victims before pulling the trap door lever, a last cruelty before extinction. Is this where Saddam's hangmen learned their job? And just who exactly were those leather-jacketed hangmen last week, by the way? No one, it seemed, bothered to ask this salient question. Who chose them? Al-Maliki's militia chums? Or the Americans who managed the whole roadshow from the start, who so organised Saddam's trial that he was never allowed to reveal details of his friendly relations with three US administrations - and thus took the secrets of the murderous, decade-long Baghdad-Washington military alliance to his grave?

I would not ask this question were it not for the sense of profound shock I experienced when touring the Abu Ghraib prison after "Iraq's liberation" and meeting the US-appointed senior Iraqi medical officer at the jail. When his minders were distracted, he admitted to me he had also been the senior "medical officer" at Abu Ghraib when Saddam's prisoners were tortured to death there. No wonder our enemies-become-friends are turning into our enemies again.

But this is not just about Iraq. More than 35 years ago, I was being driven home from school by my Dad when his new-fangled car radio broadcast a report of the dawn hanging of a man at - I think - Wormwood Scrubs. I remember the unpleasant look of sanctity that came over my father's face when I asked him if this was right. "It's the law, Old Boy," he said, as if such cruelties were immutable to the human race. Yet this was the same father who, as a young soldier in the First World War, was threatened with court martial because he refused to command the firing party to execute an equally young Australian soldier.

Maybe only older men, sensing their failing powers, enjoy the prerogatives of execution. More than 10 years ago, the now-dead President Hrawi of Lebanon and the since-murdered prime minister Rafiq Hariri signed the death warrants of two young Muslim men. One of them had panicked during a domestic robbery north of Beirut and shot a Christian man and his sister. Hrawi - in the words of one of his top security officers at the time - "wanted to show he could hang Muslims in a Christian area". He got his way. The two men - one of whom had not even been present in the house during the robbery - were taken to their public execution beside the main Beirut-Jounieh highway, swooning with fear at the sight of their white-hooded executioners, while the Christian glitterati, heading home from night-clubs with their mini-skirted girlfriends, pulled up to watch the fun.

I suggested at the time, much to Hrawi's disgust, that this should become a permanent feature of Beirut's nightlife, that regular public hangings on the Mediterranean Corniche would bring in tens of thousands more tourists, especially from Saudi Arabia where you could catch the odd beheading only at Friday prayers.

No, it's not about the wickedness of the hanged man. Unlike the Thane of Cawdor, Saddam did not "set forth a deep repentance" on the scaffold. We merely shamed ourselves in an utterly predictable way. Either you support the death penalty - whatever the nastiness or innocence of the condemned. Or you don't. C'est tout.