When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of international law enthusiast and butinski, Justice Anthony Kennedy. Boy, could he teach the Iraquis a thing or two about evolving standards of decency.
Isn’t it weird that when Nicolai Ceausescu was tried and almost instananeously executed and the film was shown on TV, there wasn’t a peep from the usual bleeding-heart suspects?
If the Iraqis had done a Ceausescu on Saddam, it would’ve been another strike against Bush and the U.S. This trial was totally necessary, as tedious and long-winded as it was. It blunted the efforts of Arab nationalists and Islamists to portray us as infidels dispensing victors’ justice.
In his book, General Tommy Franks said that one of the considerations that went into the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom Phase I was the time it would take for the media to sabotage the war effort. The war had to be won so quickly that the media couldn’t turn public opinion against it. It was a given that the media would undermine us. This is the world we live in now.
We need to accept the fact that whatever a Republican president does, it will be sabotaged by the media. It doesn’t matter if it’s the trial of brutal dictator or a war for our very survival. Like the chickens in Animal Farm, the media will always chant “Democrats good, Republicans bad!” even as the enemy descends on them with their scimitars.
Yes, the trial may have been too long and may have afforded Saddam too many opportunities to grandstand but in addition to the message Saddam’s eventual execution may send to his supporters the fact that the entire process was carried out according to Iraqi law sends a message as well. A message that the laws apply to all - no matter how high or low they may be.
When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of international law enthusiast and butinski, Justice Anthony Kennedy. Boy, could he teach the Iraquis a thing or two about evolving standards of decency.
Given Kennedy’s embrace of jurisprudence from almost anywhere, perhaps this will buttress support for capital punishment in the US? Even by hanging?
Don’t forget that there are many others charged along with Hussien and it is, essentially, for their convictions that the trials should continue with or without his disgusting presence. His henchmen should be convicted along side of him (albeit, in his case, posthumously) if only for perspective.
Hanging Saddam has been a long time coming.
The civilian population have been living in the shadow of a caged monster being ever reminded he will come back and slaughter.
Saddam’s hanging will provide the Iranian people with the most tangible evidence they can be free since he was captured. This irrevocable punishment will resonate in their souls and their nightmares set free.
His hanging should be in the same arena he provided half-time soccer game entertainment.
On the one hand, I don’t think Saddam should have ever left his spider hole alive. It would have been much better if someone had just thrown a grenade down there and been done with it. Better yet, they should have pulled a hood over his head and executed him jihadi-style. Brutal I know, but he would have deserved it.
On the other hand, I feel like the moment for this has long passed. From everything we’re hearing, the Shiite death squads and the Sunni AQ types are a much bigger problem than the Saddam loyalists. I have my doubts that the execution will do anything to change the situation on the ground.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be happy to see him die (and I really hope we get to see him swinging from the gallows.) I just don’t think it will change anything.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be happy to see him die (and I really hope we get to see him swinging from the gallows.) I just don’t think it will change anything.
I share your doubt, but also hope that the irreversibility of his removal from society, coupled with the similar removals of his henchmen will concentrate enough minds to shift the momentum in some key areas.
Worldview is determined by symbols, narratives, and praxis. Changing worldviews is what ultimately wins the type of war we are in.
The hanging will be a great symbol in Iraq and create a huge narrative. That the worst of the monsters have been done away with will also say a lot about praxis.
This hanging is for the people of Iraq.
A generation of Iraqis know only the fear of Saddam,
when they witness his death, when they come down from the stadium seats and touch and know him dead, the great monster doom will leave their hearts and they will know they have a chance to be free.
Despite the fact that I think the war that deposed him was ill-conceived and unwise, and his trial was an utter shambles, I won’t be shedding any tears on his behalf. He got what he had coming to him.
What’s really sad is the sympathy Saddam is generating from the typical bleeding hearts in the media, and in para-liberal groups (human rights factions etc).
Saddam is guilty of murder--he killed thousands of people by direct order, and was responsible for horrific crimes against Iraqis (rape, torture, false-imprisonment). It’s just a sad time when real criminals have support, and victims have none.
It’s like the good book says, “woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Does any verse express so clearly the mentality of the MSM and the modern Left?
Despite the fact that I think the war that deposed him was ill-conceived and unwise, and his trial was an utter shambles, I won’t be shedding any tears on his behalf. He got what he had coming to him.
It’s easy to argue that something is “ill-conceived” after the fact; could they have prepared better, of course; but who could have anticipated the depths of depravity of terrorists and assassins there?
What our troops need is support and encouragement, not second-guessing.
Is the period of time it took to try and sentence this murderer to a to-easy death a measure of our moral uncertainty (or of the Iraqi’s)? Was there doubt about his crimes? Or his culpability? It seems a combination of a nascent democracy taking its first steps, fear and the imminence of real violence resulted in this creature serving time in a cell that he should have been spending in the ground.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be happy to see him die (and I really hope we get to see him swinging from the gallows.) I just don’t think it will change anything.
The news reminded me of that line in Doctor Zhivago when Sharif, his wife, and father-in-law find out that the Tsar and his family have been executed. Geraldine Chaplin asked what it meant and Sharif replies, “It means there’s no going back.”
With Saddam’s execution, there will also be no going back for the Baathists and the ex-soldiers fighting in the insurgency. Hopefully, they’ll get the message.
