Richard Sale on Dignity at the End

Re Pat’s #5 question: I looked for a story on it and found this from the Australian Herald-Sun:

[QUOTE] In video footage of the execution, apparently captured on a mobile phone and spreading across the Internet today, members of the party carrying out the hanging can be heard chanting “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!”

The reference is to Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shi’ite cleric whose father Mohammed Bakr Sadr and whose uncle were murdered by Saddam’s agents, and who has risen to prominence since Saddam’s fall as a politician and militia leader.

One of the execution party calls: “Long live Mohammed Bakr Sadr!”

“Go to hell,” Saddam seems to respond, although the sound is not clear.

Saddam appears angry but remains composed in his final minutes … [END QUOTE]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20995164-663,00.html

Respect for one’s enemy in death is a civilizing custom. I’m not sure it need fully apply to dictators, however.

Bush is so incompetent he couldn’t even hang Saddam right. Hussein also murdered Sunnis. But his trial didn’t include that, which might have helped dampen some of the Sunni/Shia killing. Saddam’s trial didn’t include the gassing of the Kurds either. Hussein was only tried and convicted for killing nearly 200 Shia. The former Baath Party will step up attacks, encouraging more Shi’a attacks. No surprise that Iran is pleased. But Bush will probably use that as another reason to attack Iran. The Saudis will also be further drawn in. [Al Qaeda will like that as well.]

Hussein goes to his grave with all his secrets about the Bush administration too. But truth has a habit of finding its way to the surface, at least I hope it does.

Iraqi national reconciliation just took a big hit.

“Civil war, it is hoped, will redirect Iraqis’ energies away from resistance to the U.S. occupation and into more negative outcomes.”

End of the Strongmen
Do America and Israel want the Middle East engulfed by civil war?
by Jonathan Cook, AntiWar.com, December 20, 2006
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=10189

So despicably cynical, it’s probably true.

Total Dick Cheney and his schmuck associates just sowed the wind and set themselves a precedent. Ford’s pardon put these machers beyond accountability. Saddam’s necktie party put’s them within…big time. Have a big laugh, morans, it’s later than you think.

guess who,

Thanks for sharing that stuff you call thought from that place you call a mind. Rather than seriously engage the content of Cook’s essay, you chose to frivilously wank the overgrown reptillian part of your brain with an ad hominem attack. You serve your masters well. Unfortunately, for you both, it’s no longer sufficient.

Why not try to engage Cook’s thesis (US/Israel deliberately colonize via discord.) in the manner of adults: with the higher, possibly unused, parts of your brain? Give it a try. What the hell, it’s not that difficult.

I have started reading this site months ago and find it to be one of the most informative on the internets but, the man was a stone cold killer and now he gets to settle up with his maker. I get the impression some of you wish we would have sent him to prison in florida and then allow him to go to hospital where he jhst happens to disappear by the way where is “Manuel”anyway?

The guy is gone, and from the looks of it, his execution was typically Iraqi (that is to say, conducted at the Keystone Cops level of organization and dignity). History may even prove that giving him the chop on the eve of the Sunni Eid was one thing that Maliki got right to speed him into oblivion.

The main event–a regional redrawing of the lines along traditional fluid ethinic and religious boundaries rather than the learned pens of French and British diplomats–is just beginning. Col Lang surely got one thing right: For Saddam to have sat this out in his cell with full media access would’ve been cruel and unusual punishment, indeed. And we all know that such is prohibited by the U.S. constitution, if not the Iraqi.

Shirin …..

I know this ….. the Muslim World reached it’s apex at the gates of Vienna in the middle of the 15th century. And it’s been all down hill ever since. And if the shoe was on the other foot, trust me an army from Baghdad would be based outside of Paris, or Montreal.

The Unapologetic Mexican :

http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2006/12/please_dont_let_on_that_you_knew_me_when.html#trackback

If you would like to see the legal shenanigans going on between the US administration and the Maliki puppet government in the runup to the execution, just read this posting by Glenn Greenwald at http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraqis-learn-art-of-legal-workarounds.html

The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”— the name of a volatile cleric whose private militia has spawned death squads that have made an indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis — appending it to a Muslim imprecation for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad. “Moktada,” Mr. Hussein replied, smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?th&emc=th

To make matters worse, it fell just as the first day of the Id al-Adha holiday dawned for Sunnis — a day before the Shiites’ observance was to begin. Shiite politicians did not apologize and some even reveled in the timing. That did a major disservice to reconciliation, many argued.

“Why couldn’t they have waited for a few more days?” Mr. Pachachi said. “It was a deliberate insult to so many people. It helped Saddam’s friends.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01sunnis.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

Once upon a time…

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/iraq/printable546287.shtml

Something to keep in mind, in that we know that Bush et al. pushed through this execution:

As governor of Texas, Bush okayed more executions than, what, any other governor, or in Texas history? And without proper review. With only the one-sided review by Alberto Gonzales who regularly left out of his papers any mitigating factors.

He is not just a binary man, which is bad enough. He also simplistically gets off on executions, wars, bloodshed. He’s Mel Gibson, but without any artistic ability.

Well said, Chris. And I’m now reading the Glenn Greenwald piece you linked to in your previous post. This: “… we yet again were the primary authors of a violent, uncivilized, and primitive act which — no matter how justified in some ultimate moral sense — was carried out in the most thuggish, wretched, inept, and (we now learn) patently illegal manner. …”

I like how Greenwald is never afraid to “go long” in his posts to flesh out the details and main issues.

Saddam looked a hell of a lot more dignified than George H.W. “Poppy” Bush looked a few weeks ago blubbering and crying like a girlscout when lamenting that one of his sons Lost and election”.

At least we know what moves these Bush people, personal loss among the clan.

-GSD

“…it fell just as the first day of the Id al-Adha holiday dawned for Sunnis — a day before the Shiites’ observance was to begin.”

Just to clarify: Because the Islamic year is based on a lunar calendar, Muslim events, such as the start of Ramadhan, and various festivals like the one we are celebrating now, are timed according the phase of the moon. Traditionally this is determined by the sighting of the new moon by some Islamic authority. (There is a movement toward using scientific methods to determine the new moon, but it has not caught on everywhere yet.) Therefore, it is not possible to predict with 100% accuracy when an `Eid will begin, and you never know for certain more than a day or two before, usually the night before, sometimes two nights before. In addition, there is often a difference of opinion among the different authorities as to whether the new moon has appeared or not, and so in different countries/regions they might be a day apart. This is not a division along the lines of sect – for example, this year Ramadhan started one day later in Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Sunni country, than it did in other predominantly Sunni countries – but because Shi`as generally follow the decisions of the authorities in Iran, it can look that way. Sometimes these things are more reflective of regional politics than of a decision based on religion.

According to some sources the Iranians declared the start of `Eid one day later than most of the rest of the Muslim world in order to accommodate the decision to kill Saddam on the first day of `Eid. This is entirely plausible, though I have not seen any positive proof of it.

There were several ways Saddam Hussein could have been dispatched which would have prevented the US from being perceived in such a poor light.

The simplest and most straightforward way was to have had SH die shortly after capture. After positive identification had been made, he could have been shot in his prison cell, and a press release would have been put out that he had been shot while trying to escape.

This is standard MO in the Middle East. In fact, SH did it to many of his political enemies.

But the legal geniuses in the Bush administration (the same guys who write legal opinions about wiretapping domestically, trying enemy combatants without providing sources of evidence, getting rid of habeas corpus, etc.) wanted to put a veneer of legality to this whole sorry story, so they decided that they had to put on a show trial.

We really couldn’t have sent him to the World Court, because all sorts of embarrassing things like how the Reagan administration provided Iraq with satellite photos during the Iran-Iraq war, turned a blind eye to German firms which sold chemicals to make chemical weapons which were used to kill the Kurds, etc. would have come out.

So this Iraqi kangaroo court was set up, to put up what lawyers and policymakers call “plausible deniability” about the execution of SH. The idea is to make the Iraqi government look like a sovereign government. (How a “sovereign government” allows 150K foreign troops run around in the country following an invasion is another question.)

It would have been better to have SH tried and executed in a US military tribunal. Although it would largely have been a show trial with the fate and sentence pre-ordained, at least the US armed forces have legal professionals who know the US military code of conduct.

Furthermore, he would have been executed in a professional non-partisan manner. As the former commander-in-chief of Iraq, this was something SH would understand and appreciate.

Instead, he was lynched by Sadrist thugs who are in charge of Maliki’s police forces and army. These are the same people who kidnap men, women and children off the streets of Baghdad, and torture them by drilling their eyes, heads, and bodies with electric drills before killing them and dumping their bodies.

This is the Iraqi government President Bush, in all his wisdom, has chosen to support. You call this a “democratic government”?

Condi Rice said that this was part of the “birth pangs of democracy in the Middle East.” So far there have been 600K+ human casualties on all sides.

How many more is it going to take?

What some Iraqi bloggers are saying about Hussein’s execution:

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/468/Iraqi_Bloggers_React_to_Saddam_Execution

I’m very happy for Iran. been saying that alot lately

So….what would have happened if…after being found guilty,Saddam was walked to the door and quietly told “You may leave, now. You are a free man.”? Hmmmmm.

susan- No I have a lot of shia friends and have developed an appreciation of Iran. Besides, They deserve a few breaks considering their tumultous history.

sheerah- the new secdef Gates has come down heavily against war with Iran. I doubt bush will over rule him. certainly not with a democratic congress

“There were several ways Saddam Hussein could have been dispatched which would have prevented the US from being perceived in such a poor light.

“The simplest and most straightforward way was to have had SH die shortly after capture. After positive identification had been made, he could have been shot in his prison cell, and a press release would have been put out that he had been shot while trying to escape.”

Sorry, Chris, but that precise scenario was posited by many in the Arab “street” and in the Arab and non-Arab activist community as a likely method the U.S. would use to dispatch him before he could “spill the beans”, “let the cat out of the bag”, “spill his guts”, or some other creative American expression for talk too much. Therefore, that would have merely served to convince us that the U.S. had murdered him in order to silence him.

“This is standard MO in the Middle East.”

Be fair now! Not only in the Middle East. }

“We really couldn’t have sent him to the World Court…”

That is the only way his trial and/or execution could have had any legitimacy.

“…because all sorts of embarrassing things like how the Reagan administration provided Iraq with satellite photos during the Iran-Iraq war, turned a blind eye to German firms which sold chemicals to make chemical weapons which were used to kill the Kurds, etc. would have come out.”

Yup!

“It would have been better to have SH tried and executed in a US military tribunal. Although it would largely have been a show trial with the fate and sentence pre-ordained, at least the US armed forces have legal professionals who know the US military code of conduct.”

They probably thought it would be better to hold their American kangaroo court using Iraqi proxies. If they had used an American military tribunal, it would have been too clear that it was really an American affair. In addition, there would be the question of whether the United States even has standing to try the matter. I am not an expert in these things, but based on what I do know I think that would be a potential problem.

“Furthermore, he would have been executed in a professional non-partisan manner. As the former commander-in-chief of Iraq, this was something SH would understand and appreciate.”

Oh, I believe he appreciated what happened a lot more! After all, it allowed him to go out feeling like a heroic martyr of an obviously illegitimate trial and lynching, and allowed him to end it all by questioning the manhood of his executioners.

“Instead, he was lynched by Sadrist thugs who are in charge of Maliki’s police forces and army.”

A dream come true for the old narcissist!

“This is the Iraqi government President Bush, in all his wisdom, has chosen to support. You call this a “democratic government”?”

Hey, this is liberation, buddy – American style, and that’s the best!

“Condi Rice said that this was part of the “birth pangs of democracy in the Middle East.” So far there have been 600K+ human casualties on all sides.”

Condi Rice is a…..oh, don’t get me started.

“The simplest and most straightforward way was to have had SH die shortly after capture. After positive identification had been made, he could have been shot in his prison cell, and a press release would have been put out that he had been shot while trying to escape.”

Sorry, Chris, but that precise scenario was posited by many in the Arab “street” and in the Arab and non-Arab activist community as a likely method the U.S. would use to dispatch him before he could “spill the beans”, “let the cat out of the bag”, “spill his guts”, or some other creative American expression for talk too much. Therefore, that would have merely served to convince us that the U.S. had murdered him in order to silence him.

>>>Since when has the US ever cared about what the Arab street thought? Everyone knows what the Arab street thinks of US support for Israeli policies, yet it has never had any effect. Why should killing an Arab dictator be any different?
>>>If the US had any intelligent policymakers, they would have declared “Mission accomplished”, saying that “We have captured the dictator, and he died while trying to escape justice like a coward.” Then the withdrawal would begin…
>>>Unfortunately, they couldn’t even do this right.

“This is standard MO in the Middle East.”

Be fair now! Not only in the Middle East. }

>>> You’re right. I did not mean that it was done exclusively in the ME and not anywhere else; I was just using that for illustration purposes.

“Furthermore, he would have been executed in a professional non-partisan manner. As the former commander-in-chief of Iraq, this was something SH would understand and appreciate.”

Oh, I believe he appreciated what happened a lot more! After all, it allowed him to go out feeling like a heroic martyr of an obviously illegitimate trial and lynching, and allowed him to end it all by questioning the manhood of his executioners.

>>>Let’s face it, in death Saddam won. He was able to outwit all the US politicians and policymakers, as well as the Sadrists. He showed them to be the thugs which they are.

>>>This makes one thing clear: there is no relationship between the number of people a dictator or politician murders, and how he will be remembered. I doubt that George W will be remembered fondly even though he did not kill as many people as Saddam. Even though there are two years left in his term, most Americans already believe that he is the worst president in US history. (It was so painful for his father George HW that he broke down crying that his smart son, Jeb, would never have a shot at the US presidency. That is the Bush family definition of “pain”.)

>>>In my mind’s eye, I can see Saddam having one of his shoulder-shaking laughs with a cigar in his hand. He must be thinking “Those idiots thought they won, and I lost. Hahaha… The Sunnis will be singing of my glory for a thousand years.”

“The guy is gone, and from the looks of it, his execution was typically Iraqi (that is to say, conducted at the Keystone Cops level of organization and dignity).”

Would that it were so, but the Keystone cops level of organization and dignity is a hallmark of OUR SAD NATION thanks to Bush. From heckuva job Brownie to best defense secretary evah, to the swinger in the UN, the Bush administration has systematically stolen all honor and respect from the USA.

SPIN:

1) Have you all noticed the spin being put out now by the U.S. media — including NBC reporters I heard today — that the U.S. was reluctant about the execution but the Maliki gov’t insisted.

Uh, just a few days ago, wasn’t the meme that the U.S. insisted?

2) Then there’s the spin re the cell phone video. Surely the cell phone holder was seen by others. Now the big focus in the media — including the CNN report this afternoon — is on an investigation into who took the cell phone video. Not what the video actually showed.

And, most critically, what the cell phone picked up that the “official” video completely omitted: THE AUDIO.

So now they’re going to investigate who took the video, and blame the messenger? And U.S. news orgs. like CNN are compliantly making that the focus, rather than what the video/audio exposed?

I think nobody is thinking what exactly is happening. I know Jewish media and US Govt. which is also run by Jews are trying to say that middle eastern’s are bunch of criminals and terrorists lets just kill them all. After 9/11 Jews attack it was very easy to redirect hate towards muslim countries instead of let people think what Israel is doing in Palestine and Lebnon. But this whole story is all about west and Islam should hate each other and then Freemasons can start their own religions as we all know that Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush families are member of Secret Society. Secret Society was America to be weak so they can break this country into 5 pieces and then USA will not be alble to stop them. Who started that Secret Society at first place hundred years ago in year 8 one Jewish King go do some research. We should try to stop that civil war happening in US but I don’t think we can stop because Freemasons are very powerful people if you will even try to you will end up in jail as terrorist. You still did not get it? I knew that…. God Bless You Guys.

I think this is bullshit — more blaming the messenger. They knew who’d be at the execution. They knew who had cell phones. This is DIVERSION!

FROM CNN:

2 MORE ARRESTS EXPECTED AMID HUSSEIN EXECUTION PROBE, IRAQI OFFICIAL SAYS
They taunted him as a tyrant, screaming that he go “straight to hell” in the final minutes before he was put to death. And someone even recorded scene with a cell phone. Now Iraqi official want to know who tormented Saddam Hussein at his execution. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered an investigation. Today, it appears three people could be arrested in connection with the probe. At least two arrests are expected soon, Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie tells CNN. This after Iraqi officials said that a security guard present at the execution had been detained for questioning. “He is being questioned to see what his motives were,” says Sadiq al-Rikabi, who’s Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s adviser. The suspect is “the same person that leaked the footage to Internet sites and television stations,” al-Rikabi said. The release of the video has sparked anger among moderate Sunnis and other Iraqis, and prompted criticism for the way al-Maliki’s government handled the former Iraqi leader’s execution, which took place Saturday morning.

http://www.cnn.com/situationreport