The Obligatory Post on Saddam Hussein

My man-on-the-street reaction: old news. In the public perception, he was dead two years ago. And, all things considered, it doesn't matter:

But members of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, on patrol in an overwhelmingly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said the execution wouldn't get them home any faster — and therefore didn't make much difference.

"Nothing really changes," said Capt. Dave Eastburn, 30, of Columbus, Ohio. "The militias run everything now, not Saddam."

As for the trial and all of it, I think I do consider that Greg Djerejian has the right of it:

But it is clear as day that this judicial process, not least the rush to execution, positively reeked of victor's justice. This is not to say the trial could not have been even worse, as genuine attempts by some in the USG were made to assist the Iraqi authorities in putting together a credible tribunal. But, like the rest of the Iraq War, it was mostly a fiasco (see here for detail regarding some of the many shortcomings in the process).

To be sure, an international war crimes tribunal sitting in the Hague, or a South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, either would have been far better than the process we witnessed--particularly given the critical imperative of forging better national reconciliation among Iraq's different ethnic groups and sects. And, yes, as David Kurtz points out, we cannot help sensing in the motley gaggle of hooded hangmen (pictured above) a revanchist, vigilante-style justice that gives the lie to the impartiality of the entire process.

Above all, however, what saddens me in all this was that Saddam was not methodically tried and convicted while alive, not only for the murder of the males of one hapless Shi'a villlage on the outskirts of Baghdad, but for the entire gamut of his despicable crimes--his brutal campaign of genocide in Kurdistan, his massacres of thousands upon thousands of Marsh Arabs, his command decisions during the long Iran-Iraq war, and more. Could we not have tried him in the Hague, even if it lasted past Bush's Presidency, say, on the whole panoply of crimes he was rightly accused of, with witnesses, prosecution and defense teams better protected, rather than under a state of seige, with fewer grave shortcomings in standards of judicial procedure, and above all, with a better sense that justice had been pursued deliberately rather than in a vengeful (however understandable) rush to execution?

I don't necessarily agree with the "motley crew" idea -- I think that's very much a Western pundit take on the circumstances, which, after all, are taking place in a non-Western context. There are good reasons for the hoods, as there have always been but probably even more so in this case, and I'm sorry they're not wearing official uniforms, but we should remember that, along with the styles of Western dress, we've also exported some of the modes of Western informality.

I think no matter where the trial were held, or under what forms, there would be a certain element that would label it "revenge." As it happened, it's just that much easier for anyone who wants to to make that assumption.

As for Djerejian's plaintive cry for a more thorough, far-reaching, and careful trial, "even if it lasted past Bush's Presidency," surely that was the whole point: so far, this is the high point of the Bush presidency, the trial and executiion of a minor dictator for crimes that were, in the sum total of his activities while in power, also relatively minor. Update: Apparently Josh Marshall feels the same way about it:

Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

Jane Hamsher has some insights on the whole greasy-dirty feel of this episode. (I can't condemn it on the basis of disapproving the death penalty, which I do, because I can't take something like the death penalty as an abstraction. Sometimes, when it gets down to cases, there's just nothing else you can do if you are going to make the correct statement. As it stands, it's just another botch disguised as victory by the incompetents in charge.)

Of course, one has to wonder about the motivation for the timing of the execution:

"His execution on the day of Eid ... is an insult to all Muslims," said Jordanian pilgrim Nidal Mohammad Salah. "What happened is not good because as a head of state, he should not be executed."

The Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, marks biblical patriarch Abraham's willingness to kill his son for God. Muslim countries often pardon criminals to mark the feast, and prisoners are rarely executed at that time.

Speaking of the Bush presidency, Glenn Greenwald draws the necessary, if somewhat obvious, connection. From the president'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.

If Alan Moore were writing for The Onion, you might get something close to this.

Take a look at this post by Barbara O'Brien at C&L as well. Food for thought.