A lot of editorials have been written in the past week deconstructing the Saddam Hussein execution and analyzing the fallout from every conceivable angle. But probably the most astute observer of the sordid affair has been University of Michigan professor and blogging superstar Juan Cole, and as is the case with most things related to the US occupation of Iraq, when he writes something it is highly advisable to read it closely. His latest piece in Salon is no exception. It is absolutely worth reading in its entirety.
He has also been extensively covering development in Iraq at his blog here and here.
Update: The New York Times reports that Iraq’s “Shiite-led government said on Tuesday that it had ordered an investigation into the abusive behavior at the execution of Saddam Hussein, who was subjected to a battery of taunts by official Shiite witnesses and guards as he awaited his hanging. Officials said a three-man Interior Ministry committee would look into the scenes that have caused outrage and public demonstrations among Mr. Hussein’s Sunni Arab loyalists in Iraq, and widespread dismay elsewhere, especially in the Middle East.”
It should be interesting to see how this “investigation” turns out.
Update #2: Check out this must-read editorial by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone entitled “Hussein in the Membrane: Making Lemonade in Iraq”. Taibbi is truly one of the best political writers on our side of the aisle, and his columns are madatory reading for progressives. Plus, he’s a hell of a lot of fun to read.
An excerpt:
the U.S. and the news media “celebrated” the hanging of Saddam Hussein by wallpapering the planet with video images of the execution on New Year’s Eve. The execution was a complete and utter fiasco. When what is supposed to be a P.R. coup for the United States devolves into a situation where a crowd of Shia fanatics is chanting “Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!” under the swinging feet of a new Sunni martyr, something has gone horribly wrong.
Not only did Saddam’s execution serve notice to the entire world that the United States has essentially become the easily manipulated muscle for Shiite extremists in Iraq, but it infuriated the entire Sunni world by its timing — the execution coincided with the Islamic holiday Eid.
Moreover, the U.S. even managed to alienate Shiites around the world by intervening in the execution process — not enough to stop or slow the execution, mind you, but just enough to take Saddam’s body away from the Shiites and force them to deliver it back to Saddam’s home city for a “decent burial.”
Now we’ve pissed off both the Shiites and the Sunnis and gotten both sides markedly more pissed off with each other (not just in Iraq but around the world), and we’ve done so by accelerating the execution of a prominent Sunni politician whose fate was the one card the United States was really holding with a Sunni minority already deeply upset at being made the subjects — at the end of an American bayonet — to a Shiite-led government.
Not only that, but the execution put the finishing touches on the “democracy lesson” we’ve supposedly been giving the Iraqi people, who, thanks to this move, still have yet to experience a government where a leader can leave power without losing his life. That is some interesting-tasting lemonade, I must say.
Rhetorical question: if you’re going to offend the earth’s entire Sunni population by letting a Shiite mob hang a prominent Sunni politician on a Muslim holiday — on television on a Muslim holiday — why bother interfering in the burial question? Seriously, why? To curry favor with the Sunnis? Because it’s “the right thing” to do? What kind of deranged lunatic hangs “the Sunni sword” at the end of Ramadan and then tries to make up for it with the world’s Sunnis by allowing a “civilized” burial? “We will all become a bomb,” is how one Palestinian responded to this latest act of decency and goodwill on the part of the United States.
I’m not saying Saddam Hussein deserved to live. Fuck Saddam Hussein. The point is that his execution is a symbol of America’s cultural blindness. America has one gear in its head: Saddam was a monster and a mass-murderer, so he should be executed and everyone should love us for doing it. Right?
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