Why is Saddam's execution so much more bemoaned than any other?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

There have been a great many posts on DU talking about how Saddam Hussein's execution was a bad thing.

I'm inclined to agree with that - I think the correct sentence was probably life imprisonment - but I care far less about Saddam Hussein's execution than I do about any of the thousands of people China executes every year, or the hundred-and-some executed in Iran, or the dozens executed in the US.

But Saddam's execution - where there was no possible doubt about his guilt, or the magnitude of his crimes, or the lack of mitigating factors - has generated far more outrage on DU than any of those others - many of them of people who far more clearly shouldn't have been killed.

If you oppose the death penalty in all cases, without exception, as I do, then I don't think Saddam Hussein is a case particularly worth highlighting - the ones I get hot-under-the-collar about are the likes of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley. If you don't, then if anyone *does* ever deserve to be executed then Saddam Hussein did.

[Kagemusha]

1. I think the post directly below yours in 'Latest' says why

Because this execution was done in OUR name. The thousands of people China executes every year, are not.

Certainly, the dozens executed in the US are in our name too, to an extent, but Saddam's execution is supposed to be like... in the name of all good, right-thinking people in the entire Western world.

[seabeyond]

2. i am not seeing people celebrating, cheering and toasting those other

executions you speak of. i am not seeing feeding frenzy on the pictures of their death or the media presenting it as a public hanging popcorn provided for entertainment

[Mark E. Smith]

3. I don't get it ...

Besides, and as is usually the case with the misfortunes of
others, in 2 weeks nobody will care anyway.

[EstimatedProphet]

4. Because all the reporters have blood dripping from their mouths

The trial may or may not be a sham. There is debate on it, although I know what I believe. That doesn't matter. What matters is that we are being served the execution as something to mastrubate over, and we are EXPECTED to be thankful for it.

[cali]

6. I don't watch TV,

but I'm assuming that you're actually referring to TV reporters, not all reporters, right?

[cali]

5. Speaking for myself,

I can tell you that I think Saddam's execution is emblematic of everything that's wrong with the war and this President. The trial was significantly flawed, according to many sources, and the execution was a gaudy and thoroughly disgusting affair, available now on video!
The trial and execution were clearly influenced, if not guided directly by Americans- like so much of the power structure in Iraq.

That Saddam Hussein is dead is not what stirs my indignation. A potemkin trial and a show execution does.

[progressivebydesign]

26. Another brilliant post. I couldn't say it any better. thanks n/t

[dave_p]

7. Here's why

Because a legitimate foreign head of state has been overthrown and murdered by illegal US-British action.

Many countries execute people. I don't like that. But it's a result of domestic processes. This wasn't. It was made in Washington.

This whole mostrous episode is a perversion of international law, of Iraq's development and of justice itself, even a justice that accepts the notion of killing.

The precedent it sets is uncontrollable and devoid of any element of legality or justice. It's just a murder effected through rapacious criminal aggression.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. By what measure was Saddam Hussein a "legitimate foreign head of state".

My view is that the only possible source of legitimacy is a democratic mandate, which Saddam very definately didn't have, and that he had even less legitimacy than the current regime.

And his execution may or may not be just, but it was legal.

I think your comments are dangerously ill-thought-out, and - while I hope this wasn't your intention - come perilously close to expressing support for Saddam.

[Goblinmonger]

18. So under your rubric

we could go into any country that is not a democracy and overthrow the leader because they aren't "legitimate." How western-centric of you.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Any country whose ruler doesn't have a popular mandate and there would be no adverse consequences.

Which in practice means "no countries", sadly - it's very easy to remove a bad ruler, but virtually impossible to set up a democracy by force, and trying to do so almost invariably results in massive suffering.

"Having a Democratic mandate" and "being a democracy" aren't quite the same thing - a ruler can have popular support without being democratically elected, and while I think such are usually bad rulers, removing them isn't justified.

But when the people of a country want their ruler gone, and there is no democratic way of removing them, then helping remove them by force is in itself a good thing (except for other consequences, which in practice will mean it usually isn't).

And that particular view is in no way Western-centric - it's a good thing to do whether or not it's "we" who are doing it.

And you haven't even tried to answer *my* question: in what sense or by what right was Saddam a legitimate ruler?

[Goblinmonger]

22. Saddam was the ruler of that country

For good or bad, there was an election and he won. There was governmental support for him as ruler. Clearly he was not a democratically elected leader. He was not chosen in a manner that I would pick for choosing a leader. But he was the leader. Going in to get him was a clear violation of the UN agreements. But, oh yeah, it was about WMD and him "breaking" the UN rules.

And not everyone wanted him out. The other half of the Muslims that Saddam agreed with like him very much and supported him. So let's not make this a "everyone in Iraq hated Saddam" argument because I just don't think that is accurate.

[smirkymonkey]

25. So I guess that means it could happen here too?

We have an illegitimate ruler, can another country come in and do this to our President?

[MindMatter]

16. It is more than that.

He was a guy that we essentially established in that position. America didn't raise a peep at the time he committed what we now call atrocities. Indeed we were happy for him to maintain tight control over Iraq because that provided a buffer between our best of friends, the Saudis, and our worst nightmare, the Iranians.

When you look at it in the whole context, if Saddam should be hung, then so should the American politicians and heads of corporations who were standing behind him and cheering him on at the time.

World politics is rarely clear cut. That is why it is customary to find some gentle way to exile the dictators when they are no longer useful to us. It is like torturing prisoners; If we keep hanging the brutal dictators who used to do our bidding, we will never get any new brutal dictators to do our bidding today.

[dave_p]

8. Dupe - please delete

Error message - this shouldn't have posted at all - I don't know why it posted twice!

[THUNDER HANDS]

9. well, it's all connected, really

Saddam's death is probably bemoaned more because it has a larger connection to a series of events that affect more lives than most other executions.

You can't seperate his execution from the path taken to get to that point.

Lies about WMD > drumbeats of war > IWR resolution > Shock and Awe > occupation > 3,000 Americans dead > 200,000 Iraqis dead > $1,000,000,000,000 spent > one dead ex-leader of Iraq.

[dave_p]

10. Dupe - please delete (again!)

Posted following earlier error message!

[xchrom]

11. why? -- where are the weapons of mass destruction?

we didn't go to war to execute saddam hussein.

we didn't even go to war to liberate iraq.

the execution of saddam -- as far as america is concerned{and he was executed under a u.s. protected government, and probably with input if not pressure from us} is a sales technique.

it's a big sign over a used car lot -- proclaiming the superiority of their product.

little if any of that come into play with any of your other examples.

[LeftishBrit]

12. I don't bemoan Saddam's execution more than other people's

I don't believe in the DP at all. However, I agree that wrongly-convicted people, or for that matter the thousands of innocent Iraqis who died as the result of this war, are more to be bemoaned than Saddam.

HOWEVER, it is Saddam's death that is currently being treated with ghoulish delight by some of the media; and is being used as a political instrument by Bush et al - and by implication being used to justify the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, 3000 troops and some others caught in the crossfire. Yes, I regret the deaths of the people in Texas whom Bush used as governor to show his power and further his career, much more than I regret Saddam. But it's Saddam who's being used in this way right now.

[shadowknows69]

13. Because it legitimitizes th U.S. as the world Mafia

it's official. We're thugs, the biggest gang who couldn't shoot straight the world has ever seen and now no better than the "evil doers" we claim to try to "protect" the world from. We're just the best armed bully in a world full of bullies, and unless wiser people start taking control of nations it will be the ruin of us all.

[Eugene]

15. America is supposed to set the example for human rights and fair trials.

Bush claims that America's mission is to spread "freedom" in the Middle East.
With Saddam, we have a show trial with an appeals process that was a farce
ending with a dizzying race to the gallows. In addition, Saddam's execution
further inflames an already raging civil war.

After World War II, America insisted that war crimes trials should be fair.
Saddam's execution was an exercise in victor's justice.

[progressivebydesign]

24. BINGO! THat is the most sane argument I've seen all day. n/t

[NorthernSpy]

17. because unlike those other executions, this one comes with reprisals...

People aren't saying that this execution is more wrong than other executions; they're saying it's more stupid. The retaliation (in Iraq, there is ALWAYS retaliation) is likely to take numerous lives.

And a lot of us wonder how far it will spread. Like, will someone eventually try to take revenge for this on people here? Maybe not, but it does seem like a possibility -- which makes us worry about our own safety.

[leesa]

19. Because he had a lot of valuable information about the crimes of the

Bush Crime Family.

[Kelly Rupert]

21. Because it's public.

The more hyped something is, the more people think about it.

[MODemocrat]

23. Saddam deserved to die

He could have been assasinated by one bullet; rather than wiping out 3000 members of our military, and
maiming of thousands of both military and civilians.
That's what I'm upset about; not the fact that he's dead. There are so many others who will carry on his "legacy." that it will do very little good for anyone; Revenge is sweet, NOT always the solution.

[mondo joe]

27. Because it's a milestone resulting from an illegal war? And because the prosecution

is as guilty as the defendant?

[Batgirl]

28. Most of the "bemoaning" has nothing to do with sorrow for SH

That wording seems to imply a multitude of DUers spent the night clutching pillows soggy with tears for that poor poor dictator.
A mischaracterization that in some cases is being applied to anyone who questions, criticizes or objects to the recent trial and execution.

A quick tour of the blogosphere shows many writers and thinkers verbalizing some of these criticisms.

As Josh Marshall wrote in a piece which has been linked to in other threads:

"These jokers (meaning the war architects) are being dragged kicking and screaming to the realization that the whole thing’s a mess and that they’re going to be remembered for it — defined by it — for decades and centuries. But before we go, we can hang Saddam. Quite a bit of this was about the president’s issues with his dad and the hang-ups he had about finishing Saddam off — so before we go, we can hang the guy as some big cosmic ‘So There!’
Marx might say that this was not tragedy but farce. But I think we need to get way beyond options one and two even to get close to this one — claptrap justice meted out to the former dictator in some puffed-up act of self-justification as the country itself collapses in the hands of the occupying army." http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011729.php


Or from highclearing.com:

"That’s true enough. And it’s also true that the US and its Iraqi allies chose to try Saddam on one of his relatively minor crimes because if they did so they could get him safely hung before they had to try him for the major ones, the gas attacks and massacres that happened during The Years of Playing Footsie with the United States." http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/29/5767

[Nikia]

29. Because more was at stake than just him

When the common death penalty victim, who may have killed a couple people, is executed, his death usually only affects himself and perhaps some close friends or family members who have not abandoned him over his crimes. Sadaam Hussein had people dying on his account during his trial. There will proably be more dying on his account because of his execution. He attempted to make himself into a martyr and will be seen as such by some Iraqis. Personally, I think the whole thing was problematic, no matter what had been decided. It would have been better if he had a trial under international law.
As far as hime dying, I think he accepted the fact that he might die even before he seized power of Iraq as a much younger man. He gained power by force. He kept power by force. He used force to demonstrate his power. Death was part of his way of life. He could have just as easily died before or during the trial by assination.

[killbotfactory]

30. Because it was an international lynching

It was a show trial, and mockery of justice. He was hanged for crimes by a US puppet government for crimes the US was complicit in. Some of the key players of whom are in the current Bush administration. His regime was overthrown for WMDs and terrorist connections he didn't have. And when it comes down to it, it looks like nothing more than an revenge killing by Bush because he tried to kill his daddy, and because of US realpolitik maneuvering for oil resources.

If he was overrun by a mob of Iraqis and his corpse dragged through the street, I wouldn't have batted an eye. It's the whole farcical pretense by Bush and republicans that this was anything other than a show trial by the US and revenge killing by Bush.