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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 01:48 pm
Sydney Morning Herald readers haven’t been this outraged since Saddam received his humiliating dental inspection:
Saddam Hussein is a tarnished US trophy. His depraved executioners symbolise all that sickens the majority opposing the Iraq nightmare …
Ron Sinclair Bathurst
Excuse me; Saddam’s executioners are depraved? Lord knows what Ron might make of someone (hint: initials SH) who murdered and tortured many thousands without trial.
We cannot condone these events without recognising that some part of our own freedoms has now been violated and threatened.
Kathy Bradley Wollstonecraft
Damn; our freedom to run violent dictatorships is now threatened. Kurds will overrun the place.
At the end of his article, your paper had the legend “Bob Ellis is a writer”. Bob Ellis is much much more than that – he is a profound writer. His words are truly magical and so pertinent at a time when the world seems to be going completely insane.
Merv Bartlett Pallara (Qld)
Can’t disagree with that; Bob’s writing would only be pertinent in an insane world.
A great deal of ghoulishness was exhibited by the media in the way the death of Saddam Hussein was reported at the weekend. The images of the noose around his neck, one TV station advertising a phone video of his death, it all seemed determined to portray how he went to his death and how he behaved.
Surely the time to be concerned about his “behaviour” was when he was still in power and had control over the Iraqi people. How did we behave then?
Brenton Mcgeachie Queanbeyan
How did we behave? We invaded Iraq, liberated the country, dragged Saddam out of a spider hole, and handed him over to the Iraqis, who put him on trial and hanged him. A win/win/win/win/win/win, so far as I can tell. Give it a few years, emails We Are Lumberjacks, and Saddamite sobsters will have constructed a new cultural icon:
Kenneth Williams was on to these clowns back in 1981.
- Great t-shirt picture, but shouldn’t there be a little crescent next to that star?Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 01 01 at 11:27 AM • permalink
we’d need to include the full bust
Great idea Grimmy…nothing like a full bust…:).
Shit y’all ain’t seen nothin’ yet, wait till the worlds truly great leftists send their designs in.
In fact, I believe all will see Che’ and Sade’ on the same shirt, now that Grandfather Sade’ has been elevated to his DLMF position. Dead Leftist are the first two initials.
Isn’t there a band already by that name? If not, you’ll see ‘em…and hopefully dead…d-e-a-d.
- Of course the reaction would have been different if Pinochet had been executed.Posted by Torontosteve on 2007 01 01 at 12:37 PM • permalink
- “At the end of his article, your paper had the legend “Bob Ellis is a writer”. Bob Ellis is much much more than that…”
True. He’s an idiot as well.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 01 at 12:48 PM • permalink
- I’d much, much rather stick with this Sade, thank you very much!Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2007 01 01 at 01:04 PM • permalink
- Is it OK to go O/T right now so soon?
I read the link to the SMH letters and came across this little gem
Hidden cost of celebrations
How many Earth Hours will be required to compensate for the environmental impact of the Sydney New Year’s Eve celebrations?
Jean McPherson CardiffHas anyone else here heard about Earth Hours?
Do you pick them up at the local servo? Are they in a package with Carbon Credits?
Is my watch keeping time in Earth Hours? Or am I in a different world time zone?
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 01 01 at 01:10 PM • permalink
- #11 paco
Right! OK I’ll stick to dog years then because these Earth Hours seem rather forbidding and hard to calculate – like how many Earth Hours equal the fireworks display?
Dog years are easy – I know that if I was a spaniel I’d now be 392 years old
Much easier
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 01 01 at 01:21 PM • permalink
- A very thoughtful letter about Saddam Hussein in the Australian todayPosted by aussiemagpie on 2007 01 01 at 01:29 PM • permalink
Surely the time to be concerned about his “behaviour” was when he was still in power and had control over the Iraqi people. How did we behave then?
True. And just what did the left do to show its concern.
Nothing.
The left should be the next to swing from the gallows for crimes against humanity.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 01 at 01:31 PM • permalink
Damn; our freedom to run violent dictatorships is now threatened. Kurds will overrun the place.
Not to mention all those damn swamp Arabs and Kuwaitis. And don’t get me started on all those unraqped brides and unburied children all over the place.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 01 at 03:12 PM • permalink
- Also, in the rest of Marv Bartlett’s letter, he writes
…we are, bizarrely, no better, no more advanced, no more worthy than humanity was at the time of Christ. Two thousand years wasted. How utterly sad is that?
What sort of moron this we’re no more advanced than 2,000 years ago? I guess I forgot about how Julius Caesar used to email during his Gallic campaign, or Alexander the Great used to take his iPod into battle. What a git.
- I greatly fear I responded to the temptation to take a name in vain over at Goldstein’s. Do note the time hack.
Regards,
Ric
- #23 Don’t forget the slavery, abolished in 2000 BC. No advance there either.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 01 at 04:15 PM • permalink
- I suppose the writer could be arguing (or complaining—with these people it’s hard to tell the difference) that human nature hasn’t changed in 2000 years, but as that’s the standard conservative position, I doubt that’s what he means. Also, admitting that human nature has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years means acknowledging that villains like Saddam Hussein have to be taken care of by traditional means such as capture, imprisonment, and death, instead of kewl new progressive means of Understanding, Hugging, and Explaining Away.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 01 at 04:32 PM • permalink
- Or perhaps just enough progressiveness as would have precluded the involvement in the execution of what Christopher Hitchens calls Shiite leaders “linked to death squads that murder their fellow Iraqis every single day and night).” Because Saddam refused tranquilisers and a hood, mocked Muqtada al-Sadr (as more Western leaders should) and took swipes at Persia (as more Western leaders should), told his al-Sadr loving noose-arrangers to “go to hell” and went out without tears or noticeable fear, his status among Sunnis has now soared. He was more valuable as a pathetic old man stumbling about in his y-fronts. Saddam Hussein’s execution has achieved absolutely nothing.
Yeah, they’re probably a bit disappointed that we’ve failed to transcend into new life forms comprised solely of energy, are immortal and disdainful of petty considerations such as life or death of entire civilizations. You know, like on science fiction shows.
If dere ain’t hooters, I ain’t going.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 01 at 04:54 PM • permalink
- #22 Ian,
Rightys have been known to wear Adam Smith neckties. But I agree that we need a tee-shirt or sweatshirt emblazoned with a photogenic, young conservative icon. Here’s a job for PACO Industries, a Sabine Herold tee-shirt. You might even get her to pose in one for the ad copy. Think of how useful it would be in her eventual campaign for President of France.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 01 01 at 04:54 PM • permalink
- #30 CL, I know you’re against the death penalty and all, but Saddam was always going to be a symbol regardless of whether he was alive or dead.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t be incarcerated in SuperMax along with other terrorists over in the US, and the jihadis would have no compunction about hijacking a plane to fly into said facility, in any case.
Would you prefer he remained as a rallying point for lefties and other assorted travellers (including those of his countrymen who still supported him)?
I think John Howard said it best:
Interviews
09 June 2006
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH JON FAINE,
ABC RADIO, MELBOURNESubject: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; Australian contractor killed in Iraq; East Timor; David Hicks
E&OE;……………………………………………………………………………………FAINE:
Good morning to you Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Jon.
FAINE:
First of all, the official Government reaction to the news about al-Zarqawi having been killed in an American air strike north of Baghdad?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s a terrific fillip for the anti-terrorist cause in Iraq. This man was a brutal murderer. He was the architect of the terrorist insurgency in Iraq. He was personally responsible for many deaths. He was, in a mastermind way, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and for many hundreds of citizens of other countries. I don’t pretend that this means that we’ve dramatically turned a corner. I don’t pretend that this means the insurgency or terrorism in Iraq is going to finish, but it represents the removal of somebody who was a dominant force, and it also represents a significant intelligence achievement on the part of the Americans. It looks as though…
FAINE:
It also seems to be a missed opportunity in some ways. Several callers this morning saying if you’re so secure about knowledge of where he is, even if it puts lives at risk to capture him alive and interrogate him, surely that would be a better option?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think so. It’s very easy to say that after the event. I actually think given that in the past he has eluded capture, and it’s reported that on one occasion he was actually taken into custody and then let go because he wasn’t properly identified, if that course of action had been taken, the one urged by some of your callers, and it had not come off, then just imagine the criticism that would have been levelled at the Americans. I think they have done the right thing.
And the other thing that’s very good is that this has come immediately after the swearing-in of the new Government, and you may have noticed that overnight the new Prime Minister Mr al-Maliki announced the filling of those two remaining positions, the Interior Ministry and the Defence Ministry, two positions that had proved very difficult to fill, and he announced that. So if you take all of those things together, al-Zarqawi’s death, the swearing-in of the new Government, the filling of those two positions, it’s given the new Iraqi Government a degree of momentum. Now I’m not pretending that we should go over the top about this and I thought the reaction of President Bush was very measured and very sensible, if I may say so, that he still pointed out that there was a long way to go.
But this is a big step forward. When you are dealing with a terrorist movement, the leaders of that movement have a certain mystical quality, and true it is that there are plenty of other people who are there to take their places…
FAINE:
And the risk is he becomes a martyr to the cause.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course. But you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. That’s not a reason for letting him go on. He becomes a hero. And I still think when you are dealing with terrorists, a live hero to the terrorists is a bigger threat than a dead martyr.
There is more, but this bit could just as easily be applied to Saddam.
I’d rather a dead martyr than a live terrorist.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 01 at 05:15 PM • permalink
- Does your Bob Ellis have an American cousin?
http://tinyurl.com/wjnmk
(h/t Hot Air)Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 01 at 05:32 PM • permalink
Saddam Hussein’s execution has achieved absolutely nothing.
And I repeat, it achieved the death of a tyrant who had killed or ordered the killing of millions of innocent people. But oh, to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, we should have urged the Iraqis not to mete out the justice they felt he deserved.
I’m glad he’s dead. I’d have been just as glad if he choked on his breakfast cereal or had been shot in his spider hole. I’m not picky.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 01 at 06:07 PM • permalink
- LOL, Andycanuck—“he had very good coping skills.” There you see the result of decades of the Therapy Culture on the American psyche.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 01 at 06:09 PM • permalink
- #33: How about if we print up a t-shirt with Sabine Herald’s name, but use Laetitia Casta’s photo? Think anybody would get wise? Or care, really? Or maybe Laetitia Casta could be our conservative icon, in her own right? She served as the symbol of France (“Marianne”), but moved to, I believe, the UK to avoid French income taxes. In fact, I’m getting an inspiration, here: a calendar – “The Babes of Tax Avoidance”.
- C.L.: The judges at Nuremberg included the representatives of another tyrant, Joseph Stalin; does that mean that the verdicts were tainted and the capital sentences handed out to the Nazis were unfair? I do not know how some of these Germans died when they climbed the gallows, but if some of them had given the Nazi salute and defiantly shouted “Heil, Hitler!”, I am not aware that it emboldened any appreciable numbers of Germans to continue supporting a guerilla Nazi movement.
I, too, am somewhat conflicted about the death penalty, but believe that mass murderers are in a class by themselves and richly deserve their fate. Execution is an extreme end, but torture and genocide are extreme acts of inhumanity which call for a dramatic act of justice. Saddam’s death does not bring back the life of a single one of his victims, to be sure, but it insures that this particular wicked man will never work his evil will again, and it is a warning to other tyrants – and perhaps a beacon of hope to their subject people – that there is at least a chance that justice and freedom will prevail elsewhere, too.
- Bob Ellis and his ilk ought to be sent down to Cronulla on a hot summer weekend to ‘reach out’ to the poor misunderstood men of no description. With any luck, they’ll get served out the same as the French students who marched through the banlieus in support of the muzzies…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 01 at 06:52 PM • permalink
- #38 Saddam also talked to him about happier times when his children were young: how he told them bedtime stories and how he would give his daughter half a Tums when she complained of a tummy ache.
Lest anyone forget (nobody here will, of course), Saddam also turned his sons into sadistic psychopathic killers worse than he himself was, and murdered his daughters’ husbands after guaranteeing their safety. The thing that always gulls the gullible is how charming and ordinary serial and mass killers can be.
- If he was alive, then some moonbat Lefties would mount a David Hicks-style campaign to free him from evil Western oppression.
Bingo. Saddam would be this decade’s Mumia. The fact that his victims number a few orders of magnitude higher was just gravy for the delusional head-tilters as quoted by Tim.
If anything, Saddam’s death means the (usually attention span-deprived) leftoids will have to pick a less formidable symbol for their anti-U.S. position now. I certainly don’t buy the whole “but we’ve just created a martyr” notion…for the Islamists it hardly matters whether Saddam is alive or dead, and leftists prefer to weep over living symbols, not dead ones. After all, nobody’s going to think you’re showing compassion if you cry over a guy who’s already been dead for several years. On the other hand, a poor, well-meaning dictator cruelly incarcerated by the Evil Satan…
- C.L. I am ambivalent on capital punishment but after many years of discussing it with my SMH-reading moonbat brother, I know that some people, left and right, are firmly against it.
Generally such people cannot be swayed and it is not my intention to try and convince you.
But I would like you to consider these points:
If someone wants to change the world to one where there is no capital punishment, they should actively debate it with the leaders of those states where it is still legal, not petition leaders of states where it has been abolished. Howard can’t stop the Indonesians or Iraqis from exercising their punishment laws.
In extreme cases like Saddam’s, the death sentence is still the only way of effectively stopping the monsters from continuing with their killing.
If it’s OK under the rules of war to kill an enemy (without trial), what is wrong with killing him after a trial?
The only way? So, he was still killing whilst the Americans had him captured?
So let’s say that while Saddam was alive and captive, some of his dead-enders took a school full of children hostage and demanded his release. How many childrens’ lives would it be worth to keep us free of the “taint” of executing Saddam?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 01 at 10:25 PM • permalink
- Maybe some traqditional Islamic justice handed out to deposed despots would have been more to the lefties liking.
Idi Amin, Died a wealthy man in exile in Saudi Arabia
Mobutu Sésé Seko, Died in exile in Morocco
Lansana Conté, still in power.
Pol Pot, died never brought to justice.And I could go on. Most dictators, if they are not killed in the coup that removes them live out their lives in wealthy exile.
Why wouldnt you be an ex “president for life” if that is the normal punishment for crimes commited.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 01 at 10:55 PM • permalink
- #57 Skeptic
I would be surprised if you are unable to concede that some of Saddam’s cronies would always have held out a hope that while he (or alternately his sons) were alive, he might be restored to power, if one or all, of the various enemies brings down the elected government.
If you can admit that, then it follows that those monsters have been irreversibly robbed of that hope.
Does this not therefore seriously weaken one of the (many) factions which opposes democracy?
I myself am generally opposed to the death penalty but perhaps tyrannical mass murderers should be a rare exception. Sometimes we can be so humane we become unintentionally inhumane.
- #57. Skeptic.
Oh and by the way, your argument at #57 is rubbish. Just because the hypothetical threat you describes exists, that does not invalidate the point that Rob Crawford made.
I.E. That the execution removed a hypothetical threat. You have in fact strengthened his argument by indicating that numerous hypothetical threats need to be dealt with.
Yet you seem ready to throw your hands in the air and give up just because another threat can always be identified.
Are you thinking strategically or emotionally?
Hypotheticals now? Blah blah blah semi-edited—The Management
Hm. Say I decided to ban idiots who started pointless arguments that can only lead into a circular dance of “well let’s just say I take your argument and stretch it into realms of ridiculousness because I’ve decided to show off.” Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 01 at 11:30 PM • permalink
- The judges at Nuremberg included the representatives of another tyrant, Joseph Stalin; does that mean that the verdicts were tainted and the capital sentences handed out to the Nazis were unfair?
The analogy would be more exact if the Stalinists were about to take over governance of West Germany, in which case the deplorable tragedy of the new boss being so much like the old boss may have caused significant concern throughout that country, yes. Moreover, would the Nuremburg verdicts have been seen as just or wise if the criminals were tried for the deaths ordered after the attempt on Hitler’s life but not for the Holocaust?
The way Saddam’s execution was timetabled and warranted almost certainly made it illegal according to Iraqi law – the Kurdish Talabani having refused to sign the decree because he is opposed to the death penalty and furious that Saddam wasn’t punished for genocide against his people. So we now have a government in Iraq that ignores the letter of the law in order to kill someone for political reasons and seems to be hopelessly riddled with button men for the Iranian mullahs – whose writ now extends to Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Hypothetical threats? After this execution disaster – now being “investigated” in Iraq and embarrassedly ignored by Washington and Whitehall – the threats from Sunni vendetta merchants will be numerous and far from hypothetical.
Like me, Christopher Hitchens is militantly in favour of regime change in Iraq. He calls the pro-execution argument that Saddam could have been returned to power “extreme foolishness and stupidity”. The reason there were no ‘free Saddam’ hostage dramas during the last three years is that not even the most fanatical Ba’athist believed for a second that the Americans would ever free Saddam Hussein and not all Sunni players wanted him freed anyway. Besides, if a 69 year-old can’t be kept banged up by the Coalition then we may as well pack up and leave now.
- It’s pretty sad that a mass murdering dictator is being transformed into victim by world media.
The POTUS is constantly villified by world media which includes the latest stream of blaring headlines about our 3000 dead military signifying a “grim milestone in Bush’s War”.
This morning, I was reading the on line version of The Telegraph (UK), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Next to the story of about Saddam was the 3000 death toll story. Along with that article was a photo of Pres. Bush who was obvioulsy standing at Arlington Cemetary or possibly another military cemetary. He was standing in the middle of rows and rows of graves with white crosses. I tried to find this photo again on their site but couldn’t.
It was another attempt to villify the president. I can’t keep shrugging this crap off. Propaganda and PC is literally kicking our asses. I’m FED UP!
Signed,
Extremely pissed off person
- Bloody Hell, I can’t believe it. Read this rubbish.
Now instead of Hussein being a murderous tyrant he was an avid reader of poetry that fed little birds from crumbs saved from his meals.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 01 01 at 11:36 PM • permalink
- #65: Ah, but the Stalinists did take over East Germany and East Berlin. So were the capital verdicts handed out to various Nazis “half just”? And if Saddam was, technically, convicted for the deaths of a relative handful of people ( a few hundreds, was it?), instead of the hundreds of thousands for which there was evidence against him, how would justice be better served by waiting for him to be tried for all the deaths for which he was clearly responsible? Would exculpatory evidence that may have freed him from suspicion in a thousand deaths here or there have invalidated the justice of capital punishment for the other hundreds of thousands of deaths concerning which there was really no dispute over his responsibility, not even by his own attorneys? No, if your objection is simply that capital punishment is wrong under all circumstances, then let us leave it at that. I can respect that view, although I do not agree with it.
- I would like to see C.L. and Skeptic actually argue their case, such as it is, with Iraqis who are satisfied with the fate meted out to Saddam Hussein. Because after all, it was their call, not ours.
And that, as far as I am concerned, is the end of the argument. The rest is just apple polishing for God. I get the feeling He isn’t impressed with suck-ups, but what do I know.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 01 at 11:53 PM • permalink
- Jaysus, talk about strange. Those who oppose the death penalty – like, for example, the lawful, Kurdish PRESIDENT OF IRAQ – are “apple polishing for God”. Meanwhile, Tehran’s step ‘n fetchits in situ were heroically acting for the people of Iraq. Me, I’d rather suck up to God than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
- Well golly, now I’m sucking up to Amaheaderjunket. I give up—there is no penetrating the armor of spiritual pride of the anti-death-penalty folks. Rare are people such as Steve H., who can talk sense on this issue.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 02 at 01:15 AM • permalink
- Ric Locke, let’s not puff up the ego of people like C.L. by making ridiculous claims. I doubt that the Sadrists even know who he is, so he can’t possibly be pushing them into anyone’s arms. He’s just talking out of his hat on an internet forum.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 02 at 01:16 AM • permalink
- Oh, thanks Ric. I knew there was something missing from my analysis of Iraqi affairs. Turns out it was me driving the Iraqi Shiites into Tehran’s hands all along.
D’oh.
And apparently “spiritual pride” is evident in those of us who support the lawful President of Iraq – and, by the way, the American officials who tried desperately to avoid this symbolic disaster – over the death-squad goons of Muqtada al-Sadr. It really is getting hard to differentiate the lefties from the WoT loyalists.
Speaking of the UK Telegraph, it has an excellent editorial on this subject:
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…
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.
President Talabani’s attempt to insist on a full trial for genocide and the application of the rule of law regarding the carrying out of the death sentence – without sectarian partiality – may have been Iraq’s last independent act before a de facto Iranian takeover. That’s why this was so important, for those looking for arguments from realpolitic rather than apple-polishing religiosity.
- ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz….Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 02 at 01:52 AM • permalink
- C.L.
I’d be happy to carry on the discussion with you, but your passionate defense of someone who was clearly the potential “Hitler” of our time is nauseating and not worthy of debate.
I’ve seen your comments…paragraph upon paragraph of Psuedo-Intellectual bullshit with no begining or no ending, no solution, no rebellion. Just psycho-babble that makes you feel superior even though you have no solutions
Here’s a hint…make your point.
HAPPY NEW YEAR AGAIN TO ALL! 🙂
- CL, a few comments.
Pres. Talabani has as a matter of policy refused to add his signature to death sentence approvals since he took office. However, as he himself publicly points out, he has no problem with his two deputies on the Presidency Council signing off, which under Iraqi law is sufficient to authorize the punishments.
This has been the arrangement used for the capital sentences carried out after trials at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), which number – I think – in the low 20s to date. Executions carried out under regional courts – I believe they have occurred in al-Kut and Mosul, at the least – may or may not require the Presidency Council’s approval, I don’t know.
The absence of Talabani’s approval for Saddam’s execution does not affect its legality and was no surprise – as you probably know, Talabani is a long-time opponent of capital punishment, on principle. I tend towards that view myself, in civilian courts in peacetime, though in this case I’m a bit more sympathetic to the course taken.
If Talabani was upset that Saddam would not be alive for the balance of the Anfal proceedings, or indeed subsequent prosecutions if there are any (there are 4 more cases in the investigative pipeline for which the Tribunal has Coalition support, and up to 6 more being investigated by the Tribunal on its own, or so says the court), that is no surprise, but there is no legal significance to it. There are many, including Coalition advisors and non-Kurdish Iraqis, who had hoped the tyrant would have to sit through all the major trials (Anfal, 1991 uprising, Kuwait war, Revolution courts, and the marshes). Most of these folks, however – and I include many US officials close to the process – well understood the substantive as well as emotional and political reasons that many in the Iraqi government viewed an earlier execution favorably.
The execution was perfectly legal, as far as one can tell, the appeals/cassation chamber of the IHT having issued its reaffirmation of the Dujayl verdict and sentences. An amendment to the Tribunal’s statute passed by the interim parliament in August 2005 requires that any capital sentences upheld through resolution of the final appeal be implemented within 30 days of that resolution. So to all appearances, the legal technicalities were all observed as far as holding the execution when it was held.
The manner in which it was held – and I don’t feel comfortable that I have a clear picture of all that happened in the execution chamber, and certainly don’t know that the inappropriate words or behavior of some of the guards were unprovoked, or not met by attempts to prevent or stop them – is of course a separate matter, and not a legal one.
Even in this, however, I have trouble entering the artificial reality of most people who rely on the media for their understanding of Iraq today. For them, the “civil war” started last March – when, following the Golden Mosque bombing, some of the Shi’a community (though not all) finally lost its patience and over-rode the counsel of forebearance offered by Ayatollah Sistani, to greatly expand what had been sporadic sectarian violence against Sunnis. But for the Shi’a, we must remember that they have been the targets in a Sunni-authored or abetted non-stop war of incredibly barbarous terrorism since at least late 2004. You may not have heard of the Sunni parliament members whose cell phones yielded numbers from Ansar al-Sunnah and al Qaeda in Iraq – or seen the daily Rev. Farrakhan-style non-apology apologies for enormous acts of violent depravity offered by the likes of the Assoc. of Muslim Scholars. The sectarian war against the Iraqi Shi’a that began long ago entered a phase since 2004 arguably as barbaric and horrendous as any launched by the former regime. This is the actual context in which some guards apparently EXCHANGED inappropriate language with the condemned.
In short, the Sunni are exhibiting their insane chauvinism more than justified outrage by objecting to the indecorous circumstances in the execution chamber. You and I and others on the outside rightly are angry and disappointed at the scene – but for Iraqi Sunnis to pose as aggrieved parties for this trifle amidst their CONTINUING support for mass murder against their countrymen is, well – something one only really sees in the Sunni Arab world. I am completely unimpressed with the Telegraph, Hitchens, or anyone else who plucks this tiny glitch out of the ocean of cynical criminality that still predominates in Iraqi Sunni society and attempts to use it to paint the overall process as unjust.
The execution atmospherics were regrettable. To make more of them than that is preposterous, and just another example of the hallucinogenic moral inversion (with apologies to Prof. David Goldhagen) that most of the world exhibits in relation to any undertaking of the United States since 11AM on September 11, 2001.
- Really, all one needs to take from CL’s arguments is that even though his apparent position is “opposition to the death penalty based on core principles”, he’s forced to make purely utilitarian arguments (“the execution served no purpose”, “the Sunni Street will be enraged”) which are either pure assertion or the usual baseless speculation hitherto only found in leftoid MSM articles. Okay, there are also the flimsy and ill-conceived criticisms of the process used, but those strike me as pretty desperate at this point in the thread.
So once people disagree with your utilitarian claims (and plenty obviously do), what’s left of your argument, CL? People here have been holding out the “let’s agree to disagree if it’s all based in your opposition to the death penalty” olive branch, but evidently that’s not enough for you for some reason. Small wonder that Andrea and some others think you’re merely trying to assert your moral superiority here. That’s a bit disappointing considering your general political outlook, but then it’s not happening for the first time, either, so I can’t say I’m all that surprised.
- Ah Kenneth Williams.
Round the Horne.
Best BBC radio proggy ever. Close to best radio proggy ever. Period.Williams with that unmistakeable, unique, totally pompous/hilarious, insufferable one-off, magnificent voice/delivery.
Now it seems he was also smart/clever and most unlike a current BBC chap as one could imagine. Pip. Pip. I mean, “well, realllly…”
- No, kcbiskit. The “Hitler of out time” is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his friends are now running Iraq. Those who back the President of Iraq – the man who didn’t want Saddam executed and didn’t want him to escape being held to account for genocide against the Kurds – are now being lampooned by the right. On the other hand, the murderers linked to the Mahdi Army – and who ran a dog’s breakfast of an execution – are cheered for their splendid work. Here, IceCold, are your “hallucinogenic moral inversions”.
Incidentally, the execution was not an “undertaking of the United States.” The US wanted to secure from Talabani a decree for the hanging but he wouldn’t give it. The religious prohibition was also worked around creatively. It was the Americans who pressed hard for the Presidency Council to speak with one voice on this most important matter but it didn’t happen. To squeeze more juice out of the historical analogy introduced by others, what we have seen is the equivalent of a captured Adolf Hitler being executed for the Beer Hall Putsch while that whole Holocaust thing is put off to a later date. No wonder the Kurdish Talabani is irate. Nor is the mismanagement of the execution itself a small thing – it is a religiously charged PR disaster that will inevitably cost lives.
My argument isn’t utilitarian, PW. It’s an absolute principle. I have no idea what you’re talking about re olive branches. There are just different arguments being presented respectfully here between Bush-backing WoT hawks, in whose number I count myself. My policy on the death penalty is always an ‘agree to disagree’ approach because I know the people holding the contrary view hold it for explicable reasons. So there’s no reason to invent a narrative that has me rejecting entreaties from others.
Andrea’s argument that I’m sucking up to God is just about the most absurd thing I’ve read for months. Apparently it’s fashionable on the right to decry the surrender mentality of formerly Christian Europe while at the same time condemning a Christian who won’t surrender his principles regardless of what anyone says. Submit, goes this argument, or you’re on the outer as a pious apple-polisher – a sort of hybrid of George Galloway and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Well I won’t submit to anyone, sorry.
- “it is a religiously charged PR disaster that will inevitably cost lives.”
Is there anything in Iraq, up to and including street maps of questionable accuracy, that isn’t? I mean, in a few years we’ll be saying that about door-to-door insurance sales or those bastards who phone you to ask if you want to change phone companies.
- IceCold has nailed it.
Rebase has a fair point that a couple of grenades down that spider hole were all he deserved.
The whole anti-west campaign is hinging on our inability to defend ourselves or pursue an assault with all available force. We are hamstrung by decades of re-education about doing the fair thing. This time we should do what has to be done, or we are all in deeper trouble with every year that goes by while we argue about civilities. These guys are past masters at brinksmanship, rule breaking and circumvention – not to mention pure bastardry. Arguing rules, laws, Geneva Conventions, International Law (not worth a cracker here), is all about as effective as playing Nearer My God To Thee while the Titanic sinks.
- Sod off, CL.Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 02 at 08:34 AM • permalink
- These guys are past masters at brinksmanship, rule breaking and circumvention – not to mention pure bastardry.
And that’s just the Iranian Anschluss enablers at Saddam’s execution.
Happy to, Rob. I’ll let you and the Whole World Who is Not in Denial get on with celebrating the creation of yet another in several hundred years’ worth of Mesopotamian martyrs – a man whose most jihad-inspiring post-capture foray hitherto was a public appearance in his underpants.
- Dear God, give me patience.
Saddam is not a martyr! A martyr, as far as my feeble brain can discern, is one who chooses to die for one’s faith or principles.
Saddam was not a martyr, and all the lefty/pally/self-righteousy bleating and bemoaning can change that.
The report that he cursed the US and announced that Palestine is Arab was made up for propaganda purposes. Saddam didn’t proclaim shit before his vertebrae snapped, crackled and popped.
Christ, C.L., I thought better of you than that you would believe in the New York Times’ reportage of anything but the local weather.
- CL, you don’t really understand my moral inversion point at all. It is, of course, about the debility that has most of the world in prolonged hysterical uproars over self-policed, self-corrected, itsy-bitsy misdeeds committed by people in US uniform while simultaneously silent about or rationalizing massive, monstrous atrocities by US adversaries. The preposterous current Sunni Arab “outrage” over Saddam’s execution is a minor example.
And you don’t understand the situation on the ground, either. Talabani was not going to approve Saddam’s death sentence under any circumstances. This was settled months ago. The Presidency Council’s approach to this topic was established months ago, and has been used in CCCI cases, and was understood to be the approach that would be used with Saddam.
Many including myself would have preferred that Saddam be around to take part in the “big three” cases – but that wasn’t going to happen. Especially with the amendment to the IHT statute passed in summer 2005. There was no *legal* way to prolong the process.
Zal was apparently arguing for a reprieve of a few weeks at most. Unwise, as has have been many moves he’s made since he’s been there, but understandable. A non-issue in the larger picture.
You can take comfort in your caricature of Iranian influence inside Iraq – in fact many fairly pro-war US conservatives have surrendered to this simplistic pessimism for some time – but recall that in this case, that means joining the ranks of Ba’ath Arab know-nothings who pretend that Saddam’s crimes in Dujayl weren’t actually demonstrated in a court of law in which the defense had more than ample opportunity to test the evidence. About the only major category of crimes the “Iranian excuse” wouldn’t cover would be those under the Revolution Courts case – so in theory Saddam could walk off without taint of criminality for 1991, Anfal, the marshes, and Dujayl because he was only fighting Iranian influence, you see.
Those who think Iran will be able to control Iraq don’t know Iraq very well, to put it mildly.
- There’s a bit of the usual idiocy in all this.
The assumption that since an issue is not discussed endlessly in the media, night and day, day and night, the POTUS, US military, and all the political heads and military commands of all our allies must be totally negligent or unknowing/uncaring of the issue.
This is a bit beyond retarded.
There is also a near complete inability to actually recall what has gone on prior to this day that was well covered in the media but was either not considered worth attention at the time by the contentious posters or something that their minds lack the ability to recall.
The US went after Sadr hard and brutal. We had him rolled up into a couple tightly contained areas and had shed a fair amount of blood of our own doing that. The US military stepped up early on and took this issue seriously and went at it with a vengeance.
Then the Brits started with their bullshit about how the US always gets it wrong, cant “win the peace” and that whole “softly softly catchee monkee” idiocy got started. The Iraqi gov was encouraged by our allies to get pushy on the issue and the US backed off.
Coalitions are always the least favorable command structure during times of war.
And yes, to be fair, this may come back and bite us in the ass in the long run the same way that the US refusing to go along with Churchill’s Balkan offensive in lieu of invading france ended up benefiting the USSR and helped set the groundwork for the Cold War.
On the plus side, I doubt there’s any real possibility of either Iran or Syria coming out the other side of this tunnel in anything other than smoking ruins.
So, yes, it’s messy and a bitch and frustrating and a mess. But, no one that’s paying any real attention or that is not sunk under the weight of idiotic delusion, really believes there’s any way to finally get through this mess to a stable end without first having to break and remake each and every single arab/muslim country/state/nation/area and force that sick, sad, dysfunction into something at least vaguely human-like.
On the plus side, I doubt there’s any real possibility of either Iran or Syria coming out the other side of this tunnel in anything other than smoking ruins.
Teaser! Don’t get a girl’s hopes up!
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 02 at 07:45 PM • permalink
- IceCold, for the second time, Saddam’s execution wasn’t carried out by Americans – in uniform or otherwise. Your moral inversion “point” is meaningless here, except as a device for conflating phenomena. Nor have I (or Christopher Hitchens) been “silent” about or rationalised Saddam Hussein’s monstrous behaviour. Do you think we can retire the ‘OMG – someone’s thinking differently – he must be a leftie Robert Fisk double-agent’ stuff. Because it’s stupid and pathetic. The President of Iraq didn’t want Saddam executed and the execution itself was such a botched disaster that the judge present to render it lawful actually threatened to leave and call the whole thing off.
I agree with Grimmy that Iran and Syria also need to be ruthlessly broken and with no sentimental concern for what the world’s peaceniks think about it. Unfortunately, the Mahdi Army bums who are now apparently officials of a sort in the present Iraqi “government” will probably make the overall campaign harder, not easier. Meanwhile, the “Ba’ath Arab know-nothings” know enough to realise that the Western world’s formerly profound belief in the “Iranian excuse” points to an historical irony that leftist nitwits will use to undermine the war. That irony – indeed, that signature leitmotif of previous American foreign policy in the region – was that Iraq was a bulwark against Iran. As Iranian terrorists have been captured fighting in Iraq, I find your argument that only naive quitters believe Tehran now has an influence in Iraq to be bizarre.
As is your second conflation about what such a realistic appraisal means for an observer’s attitude towards Saddam’s crimes. To wit – if I have this right – acknowledging Iran’s new influence in Iraq means accepting that Saddam could or should have “walk[ed] off without taint of criminality for 1991, Anfal, the marshes, and Dujayl”. As stretches go, that’s Richard Simmons on crack.
- My personal take on this whole trial and execution thing is probably more than a little different from most here.
I see it as a big bunch of dumbshit designed to impress retards.
I know I’m being all rude and lowbrow but that is how I see it.
Saddam’s guilt is beyond question. The whole trial thing only served to cause some more men their lives and give the enemy more fuel for their bent minded propaganda mills.
Saddam should have been mussolini’d, his carcass dragged through the streets and hoisted for all to see. Zero dignity, zero opportunity to further his “strong man” image.
I can not see those who need such things as trials in such instances as any better than those retards to lost to adhering to “pattern” that they’d sit at a booth in a burning restaurant and die because the waitress never came around to drop off their check, and decent folk just don’t eat and run.
Anyone speaking up for Saddam is an enemy. That’s as simple and true a thing as saying those who shove turds in their mouths are shiteaters.
I am not accusing anyone here of any of the above, since I really cant be bothered to read the comments above in any great detail. Arguing over bullshit is bullshit.
One thing that we’re sloooooowly working our way to is the realization that the day the shooting started was the day that debating became irrelevant.
- #76 Andrea, no, the Sadrites don’t know who CL is. But they watch TV (now that they have electicity a few hours a day) and they read.
Ooooooh they were so beastly to poor misunderstood Saddam! Can you imagine how that has to sound to a guy eating with one hand because the Ba’ath cut the other one off, looking across the dinner table at the chair where the daughter stolen for Uday’s sexual pleasure used to sit?
The media, the international pseudoLeft, and such misguided jerks as CL pound pound pound on the issue—such cruelty! Such evil! Such vileness!—toward Ba’athists and Sunni. Torture, mutilation, murder, rape, slavery can not be mentioned, might as well have never happened if they happened to Shi’ia (or the few Sunni opposing the Ba’ath) before the Americans took over. Posing a Ba’athi prisoner with women’s panties on his head is vile, evil, unforgivable. The better than 600 bodies found buried in the exercise yard go totally unmentioned, totally forgotten, except for their relatives and friends. Seen from that point of view, the cri de coeur of CL about the base and cruel method of execution of the Dear Leader fits perfectly.
And of all the people of any prominence, only Muqtada al Sadr contradicts that narrative. That is the source of his power; that is why he is able to sell his followers to the Persians (the fact that he’s willing to do so is because he’s stupid.) The rest of the world insists on being kind, being generous, being civilized toward the people who tortured, mutilated, murdered them and stole their daughters and wives as sex slaves. And all the talk about “getting Mookie” simply adds to that.
So congratulations, C.L. The source of al Sadr’s power is the relentless favoritism, amounting to deification, of the international media and speudoLeft toward the Freedom Fighters of Iraq, i.e., the Ba’athist revenants and their al Qaeda subcontractors. By adding your voice to theirs, yes, you help drive them into Mookie’s arms, and thence to the maw of the mullahs. Enjoy.
Regards,
Ric
- I guess we can put C.L. down for one of the shirts.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 03 at 08:26 AM • permalink
- “On the plus side, I doubt there’s any real possibility of either Iran or Syria coming out the other side of this tunnel in anything other than smoking ruins.”
We should’ve dusted those bastards off years ago.
Number one reason to stay on in Iraq: to give us bases from which to crush the Baathists in Syria, and the mad mullahs in Iran.
Might as well quit screwing around, and get on with it. Every day we wait is a stain on our honor and a disgrace to the memory of all the Americans (and citizens of our allies) who have been killed by Syrian and Iranian backed terrorists.
And, we ought to do the same to their leaders as the Iraqis just did to Hussein…arrange to make them dead…by any means necessary.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 03 at 04:01 PM • permalink
- #107, Dave Surls:
The problem is that the trendy traitors and intellectually inbred morons of the useful idiot herd are such a significant percentage of our population that doing anything even vaguely comprehensive in fighting our enemy could very well spark open civil disruption on the home front.
We can not have any hope of dealing with the enemy foreign, unless and until we deal with the enemy domestic.
We do not even have sufficient will to survive to allow us to look the traitors and enemy sympathizers in the eye and call them what they are, let alone punish them as law and tradition demands.
Until we do come to terms with that, the best we can hope to do is to keep from drowning while we tread water.
- Looks like folks will also have to order t-shirts for the notoriously left-wing editorial writers of communist Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper (“Law and Disorder”) and well-known voice of limp-wristed liberalism, Douglas Wood.
- Re: the Skeptical One: ha ha! I love it when trolls try to “chickenhawk” people and get the shit tossed back in their face. Makes my day.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 03 at 09:09 PM • permalink
- I’d rather order them these t-shirts.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 03 at 09:11 PM • permalink
- No, I’m not. But you are most certainly banned, since you violated the Rule.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 03 at 09:52 PM • permalink
- And…another lefty bites the dust.Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 04 at 03:52 AM • permalink
- What Skeptic should have said:
“Why sorry, Grimmy. I just couldn’t help trying the old diversionary tactic of throwing up an irrelevant and specious slur. But you must understand that I consider it mandatory to have had prior military service before entering into foreign policy or defense debates. For your information, my record is as follows: …”
Instead we got the numbnuts version.
- To MentalFloss and others:
Apologies. I have just been informed that my services are no longer required at my job of 24 years. You may possibly understand that my heart isn’t in it at the moment.
Briefly, though: attempt to picture yourself as a poor or lower-middle-class Shi’ia of Baghdad. Your brother was killed by the Ba’ath; your father was tortured at Abu Ghraib by the Previous Management. What does Western coverage of Iraq look like to you? What does Muqtada al-Sadr offer that Ali al-Sistani does not?
Regards,
Ric
- #121, Ric Locke:
That’s pretty much why it is less than useless to get lost in nuance loops and paralysis by analysis.
The only consideration should be that anyone stepping up to be an enemy for whatever reason what so ever gets slammed down hard and fast.
Revenge can not be an excuse that murderers are allowed to hide behind.
PS. Muktard the Satyr is an exploiter, nothing more, nothing less. His minions are murderers, nothing more, no excuses.
Muktard the Satyr is a minion of Iran and the minions under him are traitors to Iraq.
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