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Iraq
U.S. doubts Iraqi leaders after taunting of Saddam
2007-01-04
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The taunts and insults hurled at Saddam Hussein minutes before his execution Saturday have prompted some U.S. officials and Iraqi politicians to conclude that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government is led by Shiite Muslim radicals and cannot be counted on to disarm Shiite militias.
Wowzers. How'd they come to notice that? I mean, it's so subtle...
Several U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington said that, practically speaking, the Bush administration no longer can expect Maliki to tackle the militias because Saddam's hanging exposed the depth of the government's sectarianism.
I've been reading through some of the stuff we have from 2004, contrasting Maliki with Allawi. The diffo's like night and day -- and Allawi's a Sunni.
The scene at the execution "confirms everyone's worst speculations about the government: It is sectarian and incompetent," said a U.S. official who agreed to speak under a promise of anonymity.
Remember the whole idea was to set up a "government of national unity." Governments of national unity boil the problems in the same pot with the solutions.
The militias and Maliki's government are intertwined "so much that you don't know for sure from issue to issue what is the militia and what is the government," the official said.
That's assuming there's a difference between the two. Successful states don't have militias. Force is a monopoly of government.
That assessment underscores the Bush administration's challenge as it considers sending thousands of additional U.S. troops to confront Iraq's growing sectarian violence.
Posted by:Spomort Greling4204

#17  Jules, I don't disagree with a thing you said, and yes I did use a bit of hyperbole, but obviously just to emphasize my point that any flaw in anything associated with the US becomes an obsession, while the true horrors going on are virtually ignored.

I'm not sure whether there would be much practical benefit to a solemn execution, in terms of Iraq's future, but I'm sure it was worth a try to see. Oh well. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I was close enough to this whole process to know that the court or govt. was more likely than not to botch at least the atmospherics.
Posted by: Verlaine   2007-01-04 23:22  

#16  Saddam is as "dead" as the REAL ZARKEY???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-01-04 22:03  

#15  I'd rather he was pushed into a mass grave of terrorism/sectarian strife victims and buried alive, but that's just me
Posted by: Frank G   2007-01-04 21:20  

#14  By the customs of the area, Saddam was executed with decorum and statesmanship. No one should have expected much more than really happened. Get over it.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2007-01-04 19:42  

#13  I should have said "3 permanently warring states".
Posted by: Jules   2007-01-04 18:11  

#12  Verlaine-I don't disagree with you about the ridiculous way the West responded to Abu Ghraib, nor that Saddam's Baath party committed "incredibly barbarous terrorism against Shi'a".

My point wasn't that the execution should've been carried out with the "decorum and elegance" of a Nobel Prize-that's a bit of hyperbole. But it might have helped THE IRAQIS if the execution had been carried out with cool steeliness and statesmenship, rather than appearing like one more, Arab-enraged act of vengeance. It was a world-witnessed, state criminal sentence, which Shi'a were understandably happy about; but the smuggled film recorded tribal vengeance, which does not serve Iraq in the long-term, unless you intend to divide the country into 3 regions. As we have seen in the Arab world, acts of vengeance are always met with counter acts of vengeance. As far as Iraqis are concerned, I think it would been better if his execution were seen as meting out a criminal sentence, rather than as a victory of Shi'a over Sunni.
Posted by: Jules   2007-01-04 18:05  

#11  I stand second to none in having wished that the execution would have been done with the decorum and elegance of a Nobel Prize ceremony. But the moral confusion of western elites has now become so profound that they have truly lost their ability to deal with life on this planet.

Name the high-points of moral outrage in both the Sunni Arab and western media since 2003. That's right - Abu Ghraib (several hours of non-injurious misbehavior by guards who were detected, stopped, and prosecuted rather harshly by their own service), the upsurge in Shi'a death squad activity post-Golden Mosque booming, and Saddam's execution (an entirely legal affair following a trial in which the defendants had almost unlimited scope to challenge the evidence).


Gee, did anything else happen in the time meriting some outrage? Hmm .... let's see. How about a years-long war of incredibly barbarous terrorism against Shi'a, so far with a toll in the many many thousands of innocent lives. Which is the major factor in Iraq's current difficulties, to include the popularity and activity of many Shi'a militias.

What, you haven't noticed the moral outrage and tut-tutting in the west and Arab world over that?

The contempt with which any sane Iraqi Shi'ite would hold the Arab world and west for their fainting spell over the execution chamber histrionics, after years of indifference to massive and horrendous atrocities against them, should be and probably is intense and deep.

Painting the unprecedented delivery of justice to one of modern history's worst criminals as a set-back or stain is a breath-taking demonstration of the moral insanity that characterizes our times.
Posted by: Verlaine   2007-01-04 16:53  

#10  I agree Jules, Iraq is going nowhere fast. I don't have much hope for them or anyone else in the middle east these days. It will take a earth shattering event to change the status quo there.
Posted by: Unique Battle   2007-01-04 16:37  

#9  "Set up" is the right word. And they walked right into it. Thanks, guys.
Posted by: Perfesser   2007-01-04 14:53  

#8  Whether or not Sammy deserved taunting isn't finally the point. Anti-war, pro-insurgent apologists are now armed with some "kangaroo court" evidence they so badly want: the executioners were there to serve Shiite tribal interests, not overall justice in Iraq.

A strong, ethical government prevents displays of vengeful emotionality and tribalism during a criminal execution. Sadly, Iraq's government is neither strong nor ethical. It's right that Saddam has finally been delivered the justice he deserves, but Iraq's chances are only further diminished by what happened in that execution room.
Posted by: Jules   2007-01-04 12:40  

#7  Geez, had we been invited, we would have brought confetti and noisemakers, and "beer elf'ed" Saddam with magic markers after.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2007-01-04 12:34  

#6  Let's just point out to the Euros and their brethren of how 'collaborators' were treated before their execution, sans trials, when the allies liberated the cities in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This boils down to the classical western liberal standard of 'do as I say, not as I do'. Insert photo of Mussolini here.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2007-01-04 12:19  

#5  The hell with Sammy's "dignity". They could've taken turns pissing on his head and I wouldn't care.
Posted by: mojo   2007-01-04 12:07  

#4  Interesting bit of history from Michael Ledeen from NRO, concerning the Saddam hanging.

"I agree with Rich that the Iraqis botched the execution of Saddam. It was not the American way, it was the traditional way. In the course of writing a book about Naples, I read scores of accounts of hangings, and there's a copious English-language literature on such things as well, from which it emerges that Saddam's treatment—the insults, the jibes, the jokes, all those things that offend us—have long been part of the ritual. Remember the final scene in "Braveheart"? When the torturer has the crowd laughing with him about the agonies to which Mel Gibson is about to be subjected?"
Posted by: Sherry   2007-01-04 11:50  

#3  Considering the treatment of Iraqis under said dickhead, taunting before death is the very least he deserved.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-01-04 11:27  

#2  Gah. My mistake. Allawi's a secular Shiite.
Posted by: Fred   2007-01-04 11:15  

#1  I thought Allawi was a Shiite.
Posted by: Brett   2007-01-04 11:14  

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