KILLING DICTATORS SELECTIVELY _ PART 276
THE SCORECARD
U.S. IRAQ CASUALTIES THROUGH 2006
KILLED TOTAL 2,999 (As of 12/31/06)
Let's get real, apart for the barbarity and crudity of killing a man subdued
by the state and powerless is cowardly, and most civilized nations except the
good ole USA has rejected it long since. The "crimes against humanity" argument
has been debated since Nuremberg...can a person be a criminal at a time when
they are not breaking the existing law of the land? Immoral, to be sure. If
combatants, subject to the rules of war. If non-combatant, perhaps not. There
were people of conscience - Robert Taft, one of JFK's "Profiles in Courage", was
an objector. People of good will can agree, but if we had to go into Iraq (we
did not), we should have done so quickly, snatched the wretched creature in
charge and shipped him off to Gitmo, or, better, the Hague, or even to the cell
next to General Noriega, I do not object to well-treated, tours of former
dictators. But I take no joy in their deaths once disarmed and degraded.
But the way this execution was carried out is loathsome and barbaric. I must
say Saddam, no worse than our 'allies' in Saudi or Uzbekistan or even Egypt,
really, was a lynching. It was a rush job--the victim was the old person on
camera not hooded (he refused, and he was shouted at by his 'executioners' and -
to his credit, more or less his last words were "Is this how Arabs act?" I
guess so--a few called for silence and dignity, the rest shouted abuse - a lynch
mob, and when they had killed him, danced on his corpse like savages. If this
is the "civilization we are are bringing to the Arab World, I don't think even
Texas executions would tolerate this kind of indignity, all duly recorded on
video. 3000 American G.I.s died for a 'country' that does this kind of barbaric
shit? 12,000 Maimed? For the Shi'ite fanatic Islamic Republic of Iraq? What
trash. Bush should be impeached. And we all should watch the tape, and feel
just a little ill.
I detest him - praising "Palestine" to the end, but I don't degrade, dehumanize
and then kill unarmed prisoners no matter what they SAY. In fact, defiant to
the end, he was almost -heroic. I hated the guy. I hated his regime. But I
wouldn't have treated Eichmann this way, which, by the way, he wasn't. Jews are
*not* savages, which maybe is the point.
GRAPH OF OPINIONS OF EXECUTION
bits & pieces on the Deed
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Thousands of Indians, most of them Muslims, took to the
streets in sporadic protests across the country against the execution of Saddam
Hussein on Saturday, accusing U.S. President George W. Bush of murdering him.
The protests came as New Delhi, which had friendly relations with Saddam's Iraq,
said it was disappointed he was executed and hoped this would not hurt the
process of reconciliation and restoration of peace in that country....
VOICE OF AMERICA - Meanwhile, protests against Saddam's execution have broken
out in several countries around the world - including Iraq, Pakistan and India.
An Iraqi flashes the victory-sign as he rides through the Shiite-majority
Baghdad suburb Sadr City during celebrations of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's
execution
An Iraqi flashes the victory-sign as he rides through the Shi'ite-majority
Baghdad suburb Sadr City during celebrations of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's
execution
Street celebrations, however, were reported in Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum
and other predominantly Shi'ite areas.
Kuwait hailed the execution as fair and just. Iran called it a "victory for the
Iraqi people."
The Hamas-led Palestinian government denounced Saddam's hanging, and Libya
declared three days of official mourning.
Finally, London-based Amnesty International called the trial "flawed," and said
the execution only aggravates the cruel and degrading nature of the death
penalty.
THE GUARDIAN - For the outside world, the most powerful image of Saddam's last
day on earth was the official footage of him being led to the gallows, where a
masked guard placed a rope around his neck - images that within hours had
reached millions on the Internet and fanned protests from overseas politicians
and human rights activists.
Yet for most Iraqis, the more compelling image was a grainier, shakier one
apparently taken by a mobile phone. Broadcast on local television, it showed a
white-shrouded body, neck twisted to one side.
NY TIMES - December 31, 2006 (The semi-mythic "Arab Street")
For Arab Critics, Hussein’s Execution Symbolizes the Victory of Vengeance Over
Justice
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 30 — As daylight broke over the Arab world and news of
Saddam Hussein’s hanging spread over the airwaves and the Internet, the
execution proved just as profound for what it did not change as for what it did.
Hezbollah’s supporters in Beirut woke up on Saturday morning ready for another
day of protests aimed at bringing down the United States-backed government of
Fouad Siniora. Even in Iran, where the Foreign Ministry called the execution a
“jubilation for the thousands who lost family members in the Iran-Iraq war of
the 1980s, officials pledged to continue pursuing their nuclear ambitions and
denounced the United Nations Security Council’s efforts to curb them, Iran’s
official news agency, IRNA, reported.
Throughout the Arab world, opposition movements are still on the run, many pro-
democracy activists are either imprisoned or have simply given up, and the very
targets of the American campaign to transform the Middle East, like Hezbollah,
Iran and Syria, are more emboldened than ever.
Almost four years after United States troops entered Iraq with a broader foreign
policy goal of ushering in a “new Middle East, one built on democracy and rule
of law, the execution of Mr. Hussein on one of the holiest days in Islam marked
the unceremonious demise of that strategy, many Arab analysts said.
“If you compare the results to the objectives the U.S. claimed to realize,
whether it was democracy or control of the region, their policies have evidently
failed, said Nawaf Kabbara, professor of political science at Balamand
University in Beirut. “They were not able to spread democracy, control anything
or make any serious breakthrough. It is a failure on all levels.
For those Arabs who celebrated America’s embrace of the rule of law, the quick
execution, coming before the conclusion of other trials against Mr. Hussein for
crimes against humanity, left a bitter taste of stolen justice. Even Mr.
Hussein’s staunchest enemies expressed a sense of bitterness at the end.
“It is evident that they were not after justice, said Hilal Khashan, a
political science professor at the American University of Beirut. “It was a
political decision, because as soon as they got a sentence on him they executed
him. What mattered was his death rather than finding justice.
For those distrustful or disdainful of American intentions, the notion that the
execution fell on Id al-Adha, one of the most sacred holidays of the year,
seemed to symbolize the triumph of vengeance over justice.
“It looks like they just wanted to take revenge in a vulgar way; that was their
gift to the Shia for the feast, said Khalid al-Dakhil, assistant professor of
political sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, referring
to Shiites, who were oppressed under Mr. Hussein and now control Iraq.
“Bush and al-Maliki thought they could benefit from this, but this is going to
backfire, he added, referring to President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki of Iraq. “Saddam’s execution is going to feed sectarianism and
contribute to more bloodshed.
Id al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice, is ultimately a commemoration of the
Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael for God; instead he
slaughtered a goat, and Muslims today slaughter goats, sheep and even camels to
re-enact the event. As the blood of slaughtered sheep stained the streets of
many Arab cities on Saturday, however, many found it hard to ignore the analogy
of Mr. Hussein himself as a sacrificial lamb.
“Executing the martyr Saddam Hussein on the first day of Adha in one of the
holiest months of the year is meant to defy the feeling of Muslims, to invoke
sectarian strife and to confirm that Bush’s policy as vindictive and aggressive,
said a statement by the union of the Islamist-dominated professional
associations union in Amman, Jordan.
“The phony slogans about freedom and democracy are fake, the statement
continued. “The professional associations mourn the death of the hero, the
martyr Saddam Hussein, and stress that the day of liberating Iraq is near.
Even those who believed Mr. Hussein was guilty expressed doubts about his trial,
and about whether Iraq’s rebuilt justice system was really the kind of civil
institution that could support a true democracy.
“Saddam Hussein was guilty a thousand times over, but still the Americans and
the Iraqi government managed to run a shabby trial, said Jihad al-Khazen, a
columnist and former editor of the pan-Arab newspapers Al Hayat and Asharq al
Awsat. “If they organized a fair trial with international observers that could
have served as a model for other countries. Instead they messed it up, and I
think Saddam in the eyes of many people will now be seen as another martyr.
Many in the region seemed to view the execution as a harbinger of further
sectarian conflict. This was the first time in modern history that a Sunni
dictator had been executed by a Shiite, some analysts noted, a symbolic step
that was widely expected to incur Sunni retribution throughout the region.
American embassies throughout the region warned citizens on Saturday to avoid
protests and be prepared for unrest.
Reporting was contributed by Rasheed Abou al-Samh from Jidda, Saudi Arabia; Suha
Maayeh from Amman, Jordan; Mona el-Naggar from Cairo; and Nada Bakri from
Beirut.
The whole thing disgusts me. But, for now, I'll give Newsweek's astute Fareed
Zakaria, familiar to our TV viewers, the last words:
Zakaria: America’s Mistakes on Saddam’s Trial
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
Jan. 8, 2007 issue - The saga of Saddam's end—his capture, trial and execution—
is a sad metaphor for America's occupation of Iraq. What might have gone right
went so wrong. It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein was not your run-of-
the-mill dictator. He created one of the most brutal, corrupt and violent
regimes in modern history, something akin to Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China
or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. Whatever the strategic wisdom for the United
States, deposing him began as something unquestionably good for Iraq.
But soon the Bush administration dismissed the idea of trying Saddam under
international law, or in a court with any broader legitimacy. This is the
administration, after all, that could see little advantage to a United Nations
mandate for its own invasion and occupation. It put Saddam's fate in the hands
of the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians who had
been victims of his reign. As a result, Saddam's trial, which should have been
the judgment of civilized society against a tyrant, is now seen by Iraq's Sunnis
and much of the Arab world as a farce, reflecting only the victors' vengeance.
This was not inevitable. Most Iraqis were happy to see Saddam out of power. In
the months after the American invasion, support for the Coalition Provisional
Authority topped 70 percent. This was so even among Iraq's Sunni Arabs. In the
first months of the insurgency, only 14 percent of them approved of attacks on
U.S. troops. (That number today is 70 percent.) The rebellious area in those
early months was not (Sunni) Fallujah but (Shiite) Najaf.
But during those crucial first months, Washington disbanded the Iraqi Army,
fired 50,000 bureaucrats and shut down the government-owned enterprises that
employed most Iraqis. In effect, the United States dismantled the Iraqi state,
leaving a deep security vacuum, administrative chaos and soaring unemployment.
That state was dominated by Iraq's Sunni elites, who read this not as just a
regime change but a revolution in which they had become the new underclass. For
them, the new Iraq looked like a new dictatorship.
Why Washington made such profound moves with such little forethought remains one
of the many puzzles of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Some of the
decision making was motivated by ideology: Baathism equaled fascism, so every
school teacher who joined the Baath Party to get a job was seen as a closet
Nazi; state-owned enterprises were bad, the new Iraq needed a flat tax, etc.
Some of it was influenced by Shiite exiles who wanted to take total control of
the new Iraq. Some of it simply reflected the bizarre combination of ignorance
and naivete that has marked the policies of Bush's "tough guys."
The administration has never fully understood the sectarian nature of its
policies, which were less "nation building" than they were "nation busting" in
their effects. It kept insisting that it was building a national army and police
force when it was blatantly obvious (even to columnists) that the forces were
overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurdish, mostly drawn from militias with stronger
loyalties to political parties than to the state. The answer to these
fundamentally political objections was technocratic: more training. But a
stronger Shiite Army made—makes—the Sunni populace more insecure and willing to
support the insurgency.
Iraq's Sunnis are not the good guys in this story. They have mostly behaved like
self-defeating thugs. The minority of Sunnis who support Al Qaeda have been
truly barbarous. The point, however, is not their vices but our stupidity. We
summarily deposed not just Saddam Hussein but a centuries-old ruling elite and
then were stunned that they reacted poorly. In contrast, on coming into power in
South Africa, Nelson Mandela did not fire a single white bureaucrat or soldier—
and not because he thought that they had been kind to his people. He correctly
saw the strategy as the way to prevent an Afrikaner rebellion.
It has now become fashionable among Washington neoconservatives to blame the
Iraqis for everything that has happened to their country. "We have given the
Iraqis a republic and they do not appear able to keep it," laments Charles
Krauthammer. Others invoke anthropologists to explain the terrible dysfunctions
of Iraqi culture. There may be some truth to all these claims—Iraq is a tough
place—but the Bush administration is not quite so blameless. It thoughtlessly
engineered a political and social revolution as intense as the French or Iranian
one and then seemed surprised that Iraq could not digest it happily, peaceably
and quickly. We did not give them a republic. We gave them a civil war.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16409404/site/newsweek/
EXECUTION FOR PUBLIC PRURIENT AMUSEMENT
COMPLETE ILLICIT FILM
He was a tyrant, but THIS is lynch-mob 'justice'. Out now.
