Why the hurry to hang Saddam?
Juan Cole saw fit today to post somebody else’s thoughts on his blog. Juan is a longtime professor whose area of expertise is Middle Eastern politics and religion, and he has posted Larisa Alexandrovna’s analysis of why the Bush administration has delayed their announcement of any change in Iraq strategy, and how that fits with the sudden rush to execute Saddam Hussein during the Hajj, when Muslims are all focused on the pilgrimage to Mecca.
We’re playing with fire now. My prediction: a year from today, we’ll look back on 2006 as the year before we escalated the war and things got really bad in Iraq. (I’ve made a note in my calendar to re-visit that prediction right here on 12/29/2007 and see how I did.)
It’s interesting to see how the American media is having an orgy of excitement today over the prospect of Saddam hanging this weekend, while other major media around the world (perhaps you’ve heard of the BBC?) is covering the “subdued” tone of Saddam’s final words.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 10:58 am. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on December 29, 2006 at 3:51 pm Tom wrote:
What a fascinating letter from Saddam. I don’t know what to think — on one hand, I don’t doubt that the guy is a total violent, hateful loon. But the whole section about forgiveness is compelling. Calculated, perhaps, and perhaps also false. But I can’t help but notice how crappy the U.S. looks in contrast. And while the entire Muslim world (Sunni AND Shiite) will create a thousand different interpretations of the vagaries of his statement, the U.S. media won’t even cover it. We’ll run twenty stories about what a jerk he is/was, but we likely won’t allow this particular condemned criminal his last words. Sheesh.
on December 29, 2006 at 3:56 pm Doug wrote:
Yeah, I started out quoting a bunch of it, then decided people wouldn’t understand. Yeah, he’s a violent psychopathic asshole, but as you say he sure seems to understand the war of words better than our “leaders.” The stuff about not hating because hate can blind you, or not hating the invaders — we don’t have anyone in the White House these days who could even utter words like that, let alone say them about invaders of their own country.
I’m so disgusted about the stories the U.S. media doesn’t cover that I’m working on a big year-end post about it: stories that were front-page news in the rest of the world during 2006, but never even mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media. There are a lot of those, once you start looking for them.
on December 29, 2006 at 4:21 pm Tom wrote:
Yeah. I just posted a far-too-long thing about Gerald Ford on my blog. I got all high and mighty about it, and may well have posted something that will alienate future clients. Ah, well. In the words of Vonnegut, “so it goes.”
on December 29, 2006 at 5:13 pm Tom wrote:
As I watch now, I hear that waiting for Saddam at the gallows will be a red card — apparently he used to issue a red card to people just before they were killed under his regime.
So really, there’s the answer: this will be a spiteful, vengeful execution. Not a simple removal of a person from the planet, but a mean-hearted, hateful killing. I couldn’t care less how much he has it coming (honestly, it seems pretty clear to me that he does have it coming, if you believe in the death penalty). The point is that we like to think we’re different from rabid third-world countries, but we act just like them and encourage other countries under our wing to behave as such as well.
Too bad. I think your prediction is correct — we’ll look back on 2006 as the sweet, peaceful days after the fallout from this and whatever the hell else our Rabid Moron in Chief does in 2007.
By the by, CNN is reporting 2995 American soldiers dead in this conflict, and over 100 this month alone. Just sayin’.
on December 29, 2006 at 5:15 pm Doug wrote:
Hilarious — I was just posting on your blog about the snuff-porn tone on CNN, and came back here to find this. What times we live in.