The Hanging: Beyond Travesty

The Washington Post ^ | January 05, 2007 | Charles Krauthammer

[21stCenturyFreeThinker]

WASHINGTON -- Of the 6 billion people on this earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed, but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the pre-eminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein.

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy, but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for, and against justice itself.

[Prost1]

I think our Iraq policy is wrong in that we have sided with the Shias all along. I think we would have been better off if we sided with the Sunnis. We took our Saddam, but we should have had a Sunni playbook in place. We did not. Now we have the Sunni Triangle that is the cause of our problems.

Our problems should be with the Shia. It will eventually happen. But, today, they do not see it as an imperative. In the long wrong they will and so the short and long run view is upside down.

Why do I support the Sunni over the Shia. Am I nuts? No, I don't think so. (A nut evaluating himself!) I think that the Sunnis in Iraq are secular whereas the Shia are like the Iranian and are religious dogmatists.

And, the Shia terrority is the land of Schumer (Shumer). That is enough. It would take several posts to elucidate on the importance of this distinction.

[HAL9000]

The above is from April 19, 2005 and CK should have been aware of the President's position.

But that was a different president - Talabani, not Maliki.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Maliki is Prime Minister of Iraq not President.

[ReignOfError]

Europeans remained devoid of this sort of limp-wristed hand-wringing as they executed Italy's Premier Mussolini

The allies didn't execute Mussolini. A communist lynch mob did. That's kind of the point.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether Saddam suffered or what he deserved. What matters both to the Iraqis and to America's interests is establishing the rule of law, not a cycle of sectarian revenge. To the degree that Saddam's execution looks like emotional payback rather than a cool-headed application of the law, it's a setback to that cause.

[HAL9000]

Duh! You are correct, sir.

[Southack]

Nonsense. It sets back no cause of ours. In the Arab culture, it just makes us look like the strong horse.

...and being strong is precisely what the limp-wristed Left fears of the Right. Hence their effete outcries.

[L.N. Smithee]

It is quite a distinction to be the pre-eminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein.

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy, but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for, and against justice itself.

Saying that what happened turned the butcher of at least half a million people into a "victim" is a crime against logic. Like many have written already, I normally like Krauthammer, but it sounds like he was hammered when he wrote this.

[ME-262]

I was unhappy when I heard that Saddam was being hung by the Iraqi government in private. I really thought he deserved to be strung up by an angry mob. I was actually glad his hanging came off like a lynching! Since we all couldn't be there to tell this shit eating dog to "go to hell!", I'm glad someone was there to tell him for me. I just wish somebody would have kicked him in the nuts on the way down.

[endthematrix]

And you don't think the "Baker plan" was an opposite view? It gave more legitimacy to the Shia. All neocons aren't in lockstep. Some desire peace, some want retribution.

[ktvaughn]

Well, I agree with CK. it was a disgusting spectacle from a government that looks bush-league and out of control. Killing Saddam in the way HE killed, in a dark room with taunting and a smuggled videotape is unworthy of a civilized, democratic society. Disgusting savages, the lot of them.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I know it's late for this season but nothing dresses up a Christmas tree like hanging a Saddam ornament.

[JoeGar]

Of the 6 billion people on this earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed, but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure.

Elequently said.

[metesky]

I wonder if Charles thinks the Ceaucescus got a bad deal.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I suppose my plans to make and market a Saddam pinata would be way out of line, then.

Maybe a rear view mirror ornament? Wind chimes?

Hey, maybe we should start a company!

[o_zarkman44]

He could have been charred by fire hung from a bridge. Now that is what I define as inhumane torture.

[headsonpikes]

Personally, I was disappointed that Saddam's head wasn't torn off by the drop.

[onyx]

LOL! and there's always the May Pole.

[supremedoctrine]

Yes, the execution went about as "prettily" as the ongoing chaos of the War: the course of neither could be predicted or engineered to any specificiations, but we were probably hoping against hope that the execution followed a "neater" and less troublesome scenario. Someone on this thread laments all the handwringing and posts pictures to show what happened to Mussolini: an entire gallery of the famous pictures of him hung upside down,posed on the chest of his mistress, both dead, piled-up Fascist fighters in the town square,etc. Of course , it was the partisan COMMUNISTS that found him and did him in, presumbly Italians, just as Saddam's antagonists at his hanging were Iraqis, ( and not US). The picture is always considerably muddier and more troubling than we wish it were: remember the chilling moment near the end of SCHINDLER'S LIST when Ben Kingsley waits with the other Jews at the factory, not knowing that the war is over and that they will survive, and they are approached in a long held shot, of a Russian officer on horseback, looking too splendid for battle, who announces to them "The war is over. You are being liberated by the Russian Army". (Lucky of Russia to get in on so many good times, huh? From there they went to Yalta and were given Eastern Europe) If the connection with this is not clear, I will explain.

[supremedoctrine]

Yes, the execution went about as "prettily" as the ongoing chaos of the War: the course of neither could be predicted or engineered to any specificiations, but we were probably hoping against hope that the execution followed a "neater" and less troublesome scenario. Someone on this thread laments all the handwringing and posts pictures to show what happened to Mussolini: an entire gallery of the famous pictures of him hung upside down,posed on the chest of his mistress, both dead, piled-up Fascist fighters in the town square,etc. Of course , it was the partisan COMMUNISTS that found him and did him in, presumbly Italians, just as Saddam's antagonists at his hanging were Iraqis, ( and not US). The picture is always considerably muddier and more troubling than we wish it were: remember the chilling moment near the end of SCHINDLER'S LIST when Ben Kingsley waits with the other Jews at the factory, not knowing that the war is over and that they will survive, and they are approached in a long held shot, of a Russian officer on horseback, looking too splendid for battle, who announces to them "The war is over. You are being liberated by the Russian Army". (Lucky of Russia to get in on so many good times, huh? From there they went to Yalta and were given Eastern Europe) If the connection with this is not clear, I will explain.