Saddam
I have been pondering what to say about Saddam’s execution. The hypocrisy of his death and the political motivations behind it are reprehensible to say the least.
The probability that this will inflame the civil war in Iraq further is 100%. The Shia leaders chose to execute him at the start of the Sunni holiday of Eid Al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice, the end of the yearly hadj, when no-one is supposed to be executed as a slap in the face of Sunni’s of which Saddam was one (and whom will now be seen as the martyred leader of.) The Shia festival of Eid Al-Adha starts a day later than the Sunni one ands as far as the new Shia leaders are concerned that’s when it starts and so they could execute him on Saturday morning. They could hardly have chosen a time more likely to inflame the Sunni minority. A horrible but logical conclusion to infer from this is that the Shia leaders are looking to deliberately increase the strife in order to give them an “excuse” to do some ethnic cleansing under the guise of controlling an uprising. I guess you could say they learned their lesson from Saddam.
Here’s where the hypocrisy comes in with Bush’s statement
Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.
Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.
I guess he forgot when making this statement about the thousands of detainees the US has tossed in jail, since the start of the War of Terror, with no contact with the outside world, the disappeared ones as it were, and who, for many or most, will never receive a trial, fair or otherwise. Since he came into power Bush and his cronies have been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Saddam ever was. Every civilian, innocent or otherwise, that dies as a result of sectarian violence or at the hands of the coalition forces or in the forgotten torture prisons, can be directly laid at the feet of Bush, Blair and their cronies. The war against Iraq was an illegal war, there was no justification for it whatsoever. Had Saddam been left in power he would certainly have continued his reign of terror, however Iraq was a stable country and sectarian violence was not happening (although there certainly was discrimination by the Sunni minority who were in power.) All these deaths are Bush’s fault and he should be tried as a war criminal.
Did Saddam deserve to die? Undoubtedly. Was execution the right punishment? Definitely not. Saddam was a horrendous fiend. To put it bluntly death was too good for him. Death is only a punishment if there is a just and vengeful God as only then can the possibility of eternal punishment take place. If there is no God then all punishment ends with the condemned’s death. Sure the condemned may suffer fear for awhile before the execution and pain during it but then it’s over. For someone as sadistic and ruthless as Saddam that is not enough. He should have been thrown into the rottenest hole of a prison, and kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his days. He should have been made to suffer, not relieved of his suffering.
The Shia majority of of Iraq have made a serious miscalculation here. In the Arab world they are a small minority (940 million Sunni, 120 million Shia) and this may inflame the Sunnis to strike back everywhere. Perhaps that’s what the US wants. Why? I can’t imagine.
