Krauthammer: On Killing the King

Washington Post ^ | 08/01/03 | Charles Krauthammer

[Pokey78]

When the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said, fleeing disguised as a woman, was caught, castrated and hacked to pieces by a crowd. When the strongman who took power, Abdul Karim Kassem, was overthrown five years later, he was shot and his body displayed on television. When Najibullah, deposed dictator of Afghanistan, was killed by the Taliban in 1996, he too was castrated, shot and hung, still alive, from a lamppost.

Given the neighborhood, the complaint about the offense to local sensitivities by the American treatment of the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein is hard to fathom. Not that the public display of overthrown tyrants is by any means an exclusively Muslim custom. Think back only to 1989, when the Ceausescus' summary execution was videotaped and their bodies shown on Romanian television, or, most famously, to Mussolini being strung upside down by the partisans.

These shows of public fury are more than just catharsis. They are a form of preventive politics. You want to show that the king is not only dead but humiliated, desecrated, so as to strip him posthumously of the awe and aura he possessed in life.

[Pokey78]

Kraut ping.

[JohnHuang2]

Thank you, friend :-)

[JohnHuang2]

Charles Krauthammer MEGA PING!

[BCrago66]

Krauthammer should work at the Defence Department along side Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. His talents are wasted at the Post.

[JohnHuang2]

Couldn't agree with you more.

[JohnHuang2]

A brilliant thinker.

[Republic]

WOW!!! Nice to read the history here of executions and dead body care of hated leaders in the these Muslim countries---seems the articles on the sensitivity of Muslims are a great big bunch of hogwash. (No surprise here, lol.)

[JohnHuang2]

Hi, Republic -- great to 'see' ya :-)

[Sabertooth]

Thanks for the Kraut pings, gents.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[AdA$tra]

If there is a Kraut list....sign me up!

[Maelstrom]

baddabump

[JohnHuang2]

Welcome, amigo

[jwfiv]

Krauthammer is an onomotopeia...he nails it every time.

Simple common sense is so beautiful...and...FACTS...my goodness...both concepts foreign to our elite media.

CK is brilliant.

(Thanks for the ping, Pokey78.)

[JohnHuang2]

Welcome :-)

[lainde]

bttt

[wcbtinman]

IMHO, this article illustrates why little will change in this country until our leadership feels the same threat. We are headed towards a totalitarian govt by default.

The second amendment is useless unless it poses a real and present threat to those who betray their oath and their country.

Currently, it does not.

[dixiechick2000]

"Which suggests a plan for when we finally find Saddam Hussein. We give him, oh, 30 seconds to contemplate his surrender -- after all, he has had about five months to mull it over -- and then we kill the monster. And the ghosts that still surround him."

Excellent, JH2! I like the way he thinks!

Thanks for the ping, and it's good to see you, my friend.

[JohnHuang2]

" I like the way he thinks!"

Dittos ;-)

G'evening, my friend