UAE papers opinion piece on Saddam hanging

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2007/January/opinion_January13.xml§ion=opinion&col=

Mob justice


<snip>Yet it’s hard not to get moved by the tragic and abrupt end of Saddam Hussein Al Tikriti. Even his bitterest detractors would agree that he remained amazingly defiant and dignified till the very end.

He comes across as the very epitome of calm and dignity in his final moments in the grisly video heartlessly captured and distributed by the Iraqi regime and its murderous militias. His crumpled and shrouded body, lying on the ground after the execution like any other ordinary Iraqi, was heart-rending in an odd, inexplicable way.

In the dignity and defiance of his final hour, Saddam offered an uncanny contrast against those who tried and executed him in a hurry that was both unprecedented and undignified.

If this trial, presided over by a kangaroo court, had been a crudely choreographed affair and eventually delivered a highly motivated victors’ justice, the occupation powers and the so-called national unity government in Baghdad demonstrated appalling vindictiveness and utter callousness by choosing to execute him on the day of Eid Al Adha, one of the two most sacred festivals of Islam.

Saddam and his Baathist cronies had been rightly accused of denying justice and basic humanity to their victims. But, pray, what have the coalition and its allies in Baghdad just done? How different is their justice from that of the former Baathist regime?

[Erika]

1. Saddam was the only one with decorum at his hanging

Sunnis are being slaughtered and we're there because?

[htuttle]

2. Yup. We bought and paid for Saddam's 'Nathan Hale' moment.

Could BushCo possibly be incompetent enough to inadvertantly rehabilitate the reputation of even such a monster as Saddam Hussein?

I've learned not to underestimate their powers in the past...

[kentuck]

3. How to create a "martyr" .....?

By George W Bush....and ????

[Erika]

4. It's laughable that W says "we didn't have anything to do with it"

As a U.S. military helicopter transports Saddam's body to its resting place.

[LynnTheDem]

5. As a U.S. military helicopter transports Saddam to the hanging, and THEN

As a U.S. military helicopter transports Saddam's body to its resting place.

After the US military holding Saddam on a US base for 3 years.

Nope. US had nuthin' to do wit' it.

[StClone]

6. Fiction

Has nothing on the intricate web of the seeming obvious and the damning details that will come from this wretched period in history. Just hope the future doesn't estrange us from normalcy even further.