SADDAM HANGS (Mark Steyn)

Steynonline ^ | 12/30/06 | Mark Steyn

[Valin]

SADDAM HANGS

Just in time for Eid, the Iraqis decided Saddam Hussein was one old acquaintance who really should be forgot. Despite The New York Times’ protests that it’s all been too rushed, it’s three years since the mass murderer was pulled from his spider hole. Here’s what I wrote in The Spectator in December 2003, outlining the possible approaches to the trial:

In a nutshell:

A courtroom in Baghdad: good. A courtroom in The Hague: bad.

Iraqi and coalition judges: good. International jet-set judges: bad.

Swift execution: good. Playing Scrabble with Slobo in the prison library for the next 20 years: bad.

Bet on Bush and the Iraqis to get their way. As for whether Iraq has a justice system under which Saddam can be tried, I suggest we look to the great King of Babylonia, Hammurabi, whose Code of Laws, the world's first written legal code circa 1780 BC, stands up pretty well. I'm not a Babylonian legal scholar but I note that Saddam's digging of a subterranean hiding place in his hut appears to be in clear breach of Law No. 21:

If any one break a hole into a house, he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried.

Suits me.

Well, it didn’t quite go that way, but it was close enough, and better than the Hague-Slobo model. And to have convicted, sentenced and executed the dictator is a signal accomplishment for the new Iraq. When I was in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, shortly after the war, a young boy showed me his schoolbook. It was like my textbooks at his age - full of doodles and squiggles and amusing additions to the illustrations. With one exception: the many pages bearing pictures of Saddam were in pristine condition. Even a bored schoolboy doesn't get so careless that he forgets where not to draw the line. When the cowardly thug emerged from his hole, it was a rare moment: in the fetid stability of the Middle East, how often do you get to see a big-time dictator looking like some boxcar hobo and meekly submitting to a lice inspection by an American soldier? Not everyone was happy about it. As I wrote in the Speccie:

Jihan Ajlouni, a 24-year-old Palestinian university student, reacted to Saddam’s capture by warning: “We say to all the traitors and collaborators: don’t rush to celebrate, because there are millions of Saddams in the Arab world.”

Really? Millions of smelly wimps with ratty hair living in holes in the ground? That could cause massive subsidence in the Tikrit area, particularly if they surrender all at once.

But, of course, Mr Ajlouni is wrong. The West Bank aside, his fellow Arabs aren’t that nuts. When the Western world’s Ajlouni Left reprimand the Americans for sticking Saddam on TV with a tongue depressor, they’re worried it will make the Arabs feel humiliated. “I feel extremely humiliated,” agreed the Egyptian writer Sayyid Nassar. “By shaving his beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolises humiliation in our region.”

You should feel humiliated. It is humiliating when you invest your pride in a total loser. For the Palestinians, who never met a loser they weren’t dumb enough to fall for (the Mufti, Nasser, Yasser), Saddam still has an honoured place in the Pantheon of Glorious Has-Beens. But for millions of Iraqis a monster has shrivelled away into a smelly bum too pathetic even to use his pistol to enjoy the martyrdom he urged on others.

That’s easy for me to say. The reality is that, as long as he was alive, there was always the possibility that he would return. When a dictator has exercised the total control over his subjects that Saddam did, his hold on them can only end with his death. A day after his capture, I wrote in the Telegraph:

Saddam, of course, attempted to reclaim his stature, but, in his current position, opportunities are few and far between. In his first interrogation at Baghdad Airport, he was asked if he’d like a glass of water, and replied: “If I drink water I will have to urinate and how can I urinate when my people are in bondage?” If there’s a statue left of him in Iraq, they should chisel that on the plinth.

That’s still a good idea. My old newspaper in London headlined its editorial “Justice For A Mass Murderer”. There can never be “justice” for murderous dictators – there’s simply too much blood. But there can be retribution, and a final line drawn under a dark chapter of history as he’s shovelled into his grave.

He was not without his style. He liked his Quality Street toffees and his Sinatra albums. In the early Nineties, when the Prince of Wales ventured some mild criticism of His Execellency, Saddam gave a soundbite to his son’s newspaper declaring that “we in Iraq do not pay any attention to the likes of the British Crown Prince” on the grounds that he’s “a notorious playboy well known in the cellars of the night and in whorehouses throughout Europe”, which is pretty cute. In the oddest development of his career, he decided late in life he was a novelist and pumped out a bodice-ripper called Zabibah And The King, an allegory of Iraqi history in which he was the king and Zabibah was Iraq, and getting it night and day. It was, oddly enough, a bestseller in Iraq, and was subsequently turned into a musical – a real-life version of Larry Gelbart’s old joke that he hoped Hitler was alive and on the road with a musical in trouble. Saddam was very much alive and on the road with a musical, but it wasn’t in trouble. Au contraire, it did boffo biz. I would love to have seen it: the critics said it did for camels what Cats did for cats. After his third novel was published in 2002, I decided to have a go at writing a Saddam blockbuster myself. This is from Mark Steyn From Head To Toe , and seems oddly pertinent in the final hour of an evil man’s wretched life:

Following the best-selling Zabibah And The King, The Impregnable Castle, and Men And A City, we’re proud to present an exclusive sneak preview of Saddam Hussein’s fourth great allegorical romance! Saddam is the winner of the 2002 Governor-General’s Award for Fiction for last week’s reply to the United Nations (“We hereby declare before you that Iraq is clear of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons”). An accomplished wordsmith in the tradition of Sheikh Spear, George bin Ard Shaw and Louisa May al-Cott, Saddam has given us exclusive rights to this excerpt from his forthcoming novel. (As in his previous allegorical romance, the pliant female Zabibah represents Iraq and the stern King represents everyone’s favourite dictator.)

[basil]

to read later

[Chode]

two hits... outstanding!!! didn't think i'd even get one.

this toilet earth is my favorite.

[Tees Mom]

Wow, "History takes time, you are spot on..I, like you, believe that our enemies are just waiting for Pres Bush to exit office, they are waiting for the "talkers" to take office, George W has convictions, history will judge him as such, as my really good friend said to me "Nine eleven ossified GW and nothing else on his plate matters.

[Rummyfan]

When the Western world’s Ajlouni Left reprimand the Americans for sticking Saddam on TV with a tongue depressor, they’re worried it will make the Arabs feel humiliated.

“I feel extremely humiliated,” agreed the Egyptian writer Sayyid Nassar.

GOOD!!!!

[Rummyfan]

PRESIDENT BUSH GETS A LOT OF criticism for his handling of Iraq and the larger war on terror. Much of it is deserved.

My criticism would be that we have not been harsh enough. Fallujah should have been wiped off the map, and al Sadr should have been dead two years ago.

Other than that...

Way to go President Bush and our magnificent armed forces!

[Rummyfan]

And CNN kissd his butt to keep their Baghdad bureau open while he was in power. Nothing but a bunch of propogandists!

[300winmag]

In his first interrogation at Baghdad Airport, he was asked if he’d like a glass of water, and replied: “If I drink water I will have to urinate and how can I urinate when my people are in bondage?” If there’s a statue left of him in Iraq, they should chisel that on the plinth.

ROFLOL!!!! I suggest they make a Saddam Hussein bobblehead with that on the base. Then give them away by the millions to Iraqis and airdrop them all over the islamic world.

[wideawake]

(1) Of course, as soon as there is a major terror attack after Bush leaves office, it will be blamed on Bush.

Not like some rightly give Clinton his culpability regarding 9/11 - because Clinton was obviously soft as a marshmallow on terror, even granting presidential pardons to terrorists.

No, they will blame Bush for any new attack because he was too hard on terror - that he really made the terrorists too angry and went too far with the whole anti-terror thing.

(2) Am I wrong, or is this the first time in history that a genocidal dictator has been deposed, arrested, given due process, convicted in a duly constituted court of law and executed according to legal protocol?

Lenin and Stalin both died of natural causes or were murdered (depending on which account you trust), Kun was killed in a gulag, Mao and Ho Chi Minh and Cromwell died of natural causes, Hitler, Allende and Pol Pot offed themselves, Ceausescu and Robespierre and Mussolini were summarily executed without trial, but I can't think of a single case where a dictator was actually brought to justice according to the norms of international law.

That in itself is a singular achievement in modern history.

[HighlyOpinionated]

That in itself is a singular achievement in modern history.

Democracy in action in Iraq. And the Libs and Dhimmicrats said it couldn't be done.

Now, if we can just get them to reciprocate in the area of freedom of religion.

[Valin]

Lenin and Stalin both died of natural causes or were murdered (depending on which account you trust), Kun was killed in a gulag, Mao and Ho Chi Minh and Cromwell died of natural causes, Hitler, Allende and Pol Pot offed themselves, Ceausescu and Robespierre and Mussolini were summarily executed without trial, but I can't think of a single case where a dictator was actually brought to justice according to the norms of international law.

That in itself is a singular achievement in modern history.

It is, isn't it.

I had to look up Kun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Kun
Béla Kun
(snip)
Béla Kun was accused of Trotskyism and killed in the late 1930s, during Joseph Stalin's purge of the Communist old guard. This charge was utterly unjustified, as Kun was by this time a fanatical Stalinist, who, until his arrest in May 1937, strongly supported Stalin's actions.

[Watery Tart]

He has gone on to meet his authentic Lebanese reward:

[Borges]

How about Tojo?

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for the Steyn pings (plural)!

[wideawake]

How about Tojo?

He was tried, convicted and executed by an international tribunal.

But his is a weird case, isn't it?

After all, he never seized power or held power - he was appointed prime minister by the Emperor (under a constitution very different from the UK's - the PM was very much the Emperor's servant in imperial Japan) and was actually living as a retired private citizen in disgrace when he was arrested.

The Emperor had fired him for incompetence in prosecuting the war effort. Not for the war crimes he had committed.

The Emperor was constitutionally and morally responsible for everything Tojo did in his name - the Emperor could have intervened and fired Tojo at any moment. Tojo was a fall guy who served as a scapegoat for the Emperor so the Emperor could be rehabilitated and allowed to remain on the throne in the New Japan by transferring all the blame for his regime's crimes onto his war ministers and generals.

Tojo richly deserved his fate - but Hirohito got away with genocide.

[Borges]

Apparently Truman wanted Hirohito tried for War Crimes but Macarthur objected feeling that the Emperor was a symbol of Japanese cohesion and unity and would help with rebuilding Japanese morale after the war.

[Dr.Deth]

" Pres Bush told us in his address right after 911 that there will be actions that will not be known for many years, and there will be other things that will never be known. This could be one of the "things" that would never be known.

Of course, it still doesn't keep some of us from "speculating" and hoping that's true."

There's nothing I can tell you that's first-hand knowledge, but I've heard some stories about other low-tech, high-concept terror plots like 9/11 that have been thwarted. Wouldn't want to give the terrorists any ideas by spelling them out, but they sound extremely plausible. I'm quite sure that history will judge Bush a lot differently than, say, that boob Dan Rather thinks, on his new High Def Pravda show.