Execution Gives Saddam A Martyr's Crown

[Mark E. Smith]

Telegraph.co.uk
02/01/07

In Washington the air is heavy with recrimination as the implications of Saddam Hussein's
grotesquely botched execution sink in. What should have been an act of justice following
due process had the baying ugliness of a lynching. A judicial execution designed to show
finally that the era of Saddam is over threatens to have the opposite effect. When a
dictator of exceptional brutality is shown dying with dignity and no little courage at the
hands of hooded thugs, the martyr's crown surely beckons. No wonder American officials
are washing their hands of the whole gruesome affair, and Tony Blair is refusing to make
any comment from his Miami poolside.

There is some justice in American claims that it is the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki
who must shoulder the burden of blame for this debacle. He trampled over religious and
legal sensibilities to expedite the execution. The Iraqi constitution (by which the American-
led coalition sets such store) requires President Jalal Talabani and his two vice-presidents
to sign a decree of authorization for any execution. Mr Maliki effectively ignored this
requirement. Even more inflammatory as far as Iraq's Sunni minority is concerned was his
flouting of the Iraqi law that executions should not take place during the Id al-Adha
holiday. For Sunnis, that began on Saturday, the day of Saddam's execution.

If this had been some careless piece of provocation by an inept government, it would be
one thing. But the anti-Sunni chanting of the masked executioners as Saddam died and the
way the whole repellent scene was swiftly put into the public domain suggests something
more menacing. The Maliki government appears to have used the execution to send a
calculated message to iraqi Sunnis that the Shias are the masters now. An administration
whose overriding purpose should be to unify Iraq begins to look like a factional regime
intent on repaying the Sunni minority for Saddam's decades of oppression of the Shias.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/01/02/dl0201.xml

[madeline_con]

1. This helps foment civil war, which we're supposedly not

sure might happen. :sarcasm:

Sunni's are the minority sect of Islam in Iraq, not the entire Muslim world. The chimp has fucked up AGAIN.

[Skittles]

2. he f***ed up badly

I was no fan of Saddam but he came of as dignifed and his executioners came of as thugs - gawd - we still have TWO MORE YEARS of that incompetent bastard

[Briar]

5. Frankly

he was dignified, and his executioners were thugs. The appearance was the reality in this case - which is one reason why they are trying to spin it retrospectively now. Of course, the death sentence is a barbarous brutality in itself.

[bjobotts]

4. Nobody really cares.

The thug is DEAD. He'll be forgotten by the end of the civil war. Bush knows this and even if he doesn't...he certainly doesn't care. The whole thing is disgusting and should have been handled differently by unbiased groups but Bush is the 'Decider'...at least that's what he's been told to say.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Everything Bush touches turns to shit

Mr Bush could be forgiven for thinking that everything he touches in this ill-starred country turns to dross.

Is this America's response to the latest FUBAR episode in this criminal war, blame the Iraqis? It was Bush that refused to abide by international law under which Saddam would have been a POW under the Geneva Convention. Saddam could have been tried by the International Crimes Court at The Hague, but it was Bush who refused to do this.