PressCoverage

Politically, can we get anything right over there?

Why the botched execution matters
by AJ in DC - 1/03/2007 03:48:00 PM

By now it's clear to everyone not living in a cave that the Saddam execution was a botched, amateurish debacle. I wrote last week that I'm neither opposed to the death penalty nor its application to Saddam, but the way it was carried out was highly representative of the ham-handed and dangerous failures of both the Bush administration and the nascent Iraqi government. The fact that something so important was screwed up so badly, and on such a massive scale, is chilling.

I initially suspected that the execution would have little effect on the overall situation in Iraq, certainly not improving things but also not doing much to inflame people who hardly need, at this point, more motivation to hate each other. But I committed a blunder that is, for me, exceptionally rare: I assumed that somehow this, a historic and potentially inflammatory event, would be handled with even a minimal amount of decorum and professionalism by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. Instead, the Bush administration turned over Saddam to the Iraqi government prematurely . . . to a band of thugs-as-executioners . . . who wore not uniforms but leather jackets and ski masks . . . who shouted Shia chants, including invocations of Moqtada al-Sadr . . . all of which was illicitly videotaped and then emailed around Iraq and throughout the world . . . on, no less, one of the holiest days of the Sunni religious calendar.

Virtually everything that could have been screwed up, was. And now, against virtually all odds, Saddam managed to look good by dying and the Iraqi and U.S. governments are scrambling to do damage control in the face of massive Sunni demonstrations, international condemnation, and the general disgust of pretty much everyone who knows anything about Iraq.

Harry Boy

What was botched about it, he was sentenced to death, now he's Dead

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

PressCoverage

Ah yes, the kind of short-sighted response we've come to expect from HB... Dictionary.com offers a great paragraph on the word "Martyr"

Did you read the part about thugs in ski masks chanting religious diatribes against Sunni? Or is that more "smelly muslim" nonsense to you? Either way, you realize there's a teetering civil war going on over there, yes? That your president wants to put 20,000 more US fighting men in the middle of that powder keg?

If we're "in control" over there, and showing them the way of democracy, we should have made sure it wasn't a crass lynching and instead done with dignity and some semblance of class and respect....

Turd Furguson

The only ones supporting Saddam were his ole buddies. They'd be doing the same thing no matter how Saddam was killed.


he was sentenced to death, he hung to death. Doesnt seem botched to me.

sdaniels7114

I was wondering why the rope was so long. I know that when hangings were common in the US they had a table based on the criminal's weight that set how long the rope should be. Too light a person with too short a rope and the criminal would choke to death and too long a rope on too fat a person meant that the head would get pulled off. Saddam's rope appeared to be way too long to me and I'm surprised his head stayed on his corpse.

Harry Boy

Done "with dignity"

Getting out some lounge chairs, rounding up a little family, (a wife and three kids) then bring the Husband/Father out in front of this family, force his mouth open, cut his tongue out, let the blood squirt all over the kids, then take the poor gurgling bastard up to the top of a ten story building and throw him off the roof and make his family watch as he flaps his arms trying to fly.
Hows that for dignity

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Harry Boy

They were probably trying to pull the bastards head off and it didn't work.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Real World

Well, whereas I do agree with the general sentiment that the execution could have been handled more professionally, I have to disgree with the writer who blames the Bush administration for it's handling. Why is it GW's fault? This is a reach by the blame Bush crowd. Iraq is a sovereign nation and executed Saddam in the manner they saw fit. Again, I think it was unprofessional and certainly should have been done with more grace, but that's for Iraq to decide, not me, nor anyone else.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Harry Boy

The left wing sore losing Bush Hating jerks will do and say anything to blame everything that is wrong in the world onto George Bush, their jealousy of the man has driven them all nuts.

Dignity for Saddam Hussien, the man was a savage murdering pig, they should have hung his dead filthy scummy body up on a flag pole on a US Aircraft Carrier and left it there until the Sea Gulls ate it and picked the bones clean.

Left Wing Sore Losing Jealous Bush Haters love America's Enemy's.

Now the bastards want us to go to war in Africa and have more American troops die "For George Clooney"

African People Are Better Than Iraqi People (racist bastards)

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

PressCoverage

again, you post insecure righty drivel supported by nothing.... what price would you accept to just go away?