Interesting, Saddam's Execution

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/christie_death_of_saddam.htm

It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.[/quote]

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.[/quote]

In case you missed it in your rush to blame the US and GWB for all things, it was Iraqis executing him not the US.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.

In case you missed it in your rush to blame the US and GWB for all things, it was Iraqis executing him not the US.

[/quote]

Don’t lump people disgusted with Bush into the blame-America crowd, the two are very distinct things. And I’m aware the Iraqis executed Saddam (hence the Sadrites chanting), but let’s not kid ourselves, the question of what to do with Saddam was essentially up to us from the start. The Iraqi state as such barely exists.

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.

In case you missed it in your rush to blame the US and GWB for all things, it was Iraqis executing him not the US.

Don’t lump people disgusted with Bush into the blame-America crowd, the two are very distinct things. And I’m aware the Iraqis executed Saddam (hence the Sadrites chanting), but let’s not kid ourselves, the question of what to do with Saddam was essentially up to us from the start. The Iraqi state as such barely exists.[/quote]

Tried by Iraqis, executed by Iraqis. The middle east and Iraq have a long history of the death penalty.

I suppose you could say it was up to us because we let the Iraqis have free elections, set up courts and try Saddam but then you can say everything is up to us all around the world.

I prefer to credit and blame the actual people involved.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.

In case you missed it in your rush to blame the US and GWB for all things, it was Iraqis executing him not the US.

Don’t lump people disgusted with Bush into the blame-America crowd, the two are very distinct things. And I’m aware the Iraqis executed Saddam (hence the Sadrites chanting), but let’s not kid ourselves, the question of what to do with Saddam was essentially up to us from the start. The Iraqi state as such barely exists.

Tried by Iraqis, executed by Iraqis. The middle east and Iraq have a long history of the death penalty.

I suppose you could say it was up to us because we let the Iraqis have free elections, set up courts and try Saddam but then you can say everything is up to us all around the world.

I prefer to credit and blame the actual people involved.[/quote]

More like executed on the holiest sunni muslim holiday, executed by shia thugs yelling al-sadr’s name. The Malaki govt had no control over this execution and i dont see how this is going to help unify Iraq.

[quote]sactown1 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.

Seems completely typical for our occupation of Iraq: shoddy, rushed, and causes more problems than it solves.

In case you missed it in your rush to blame the US and GWB for all things, it was Iraqis executing him not the US.

Don’t lump people disgusted with Bush into the blame-America crowd, the two are very distinct things. And I’m aware the Iraqis executed Saddam (hence the Sadrites chanting), but let’s not kid ourselves, the question of what to do with Saddam was essentially up to us from the start. The Iraqi state as such barely exists.

Tried by Iraqis, executed by Iraqis. The middle east and Iraq have a long history of the death penalty.

I suppose you could say it was up to us because we let the Iraqis have free elections, set up courts and try Saddam but then you can say everything is up to us all around the world.

I prefer to credit and blame the actual people involved.

More like executed on the holiest sunni muslim holiday, executed by shia thugs yelling al-sadr’s name. The Malaki govt had no control over this execution and i dont see how this is going to help unify Iraq.

[/quote]

Exactly. We control everything important the Iraqi government can do, and yet we have no control over it, paradoxically.

It’s another fuckup on par with allowing the post-invasion looting. Rumsfeld said “in a free society, people are free to break the law!” Our troops were ordered to stand down and allow looters to run free.

Now people look back on the looting as one of the crucial moments, where if it would have been handled correctly, we wouldn’t be in such a mess now. We had a chance to impose order, and we didn’t do it.

The circumstances surrounding the hanging of Saddam will be used as a political wedge to make tribal warfare worse. Our miltary allowed it to go down that way… that’s another fuckup that I’m afraid we will live to regret.

Photo caption: Demonstrators in Amman, Jordan, carried pictures of Mr. Hussein and shouted slogans condemning the United States and Iran. (note that Jordan is one of our allies in the region)

“Images of Hanging Make Hussein a Martyr to Many”

[i]BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 5 – In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.

On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Mr. Hussein has emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and composed as his Shiite executioners tormented and abused him.

“No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed,” President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published Friday and distributed by the official Egyptian news agency. “They turned him into a martyr.”

In Libya, which canceled celebrations of the feast of Id al-Adha after the execution, a government statement said a statue depicting Mr. Hussein in the gallows would be erected, along with a monument to Omar al-Mukhtar, who resisted the Italian invasion of Libya and was hanged by the Italians in 1931.

In Morocco and the Palestinian territories, demonstrators held aloft photographs of Mr. Hussein and condemned the United States.

Here in Beirut, hundreds of members of the Lebanese Baath Party and Palestinian activists marched Friday in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood behind a symbolic coffin representing that of Mr. Hussein and later offered a funeral prayer. Photographs of Mr. Hussein standing up in court, against a backdrop of the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, were pasted on city walls near Palestinian refugee camps, praising “Saddam the martyr.”

“God damn America and its spies,” a banner across one major Beirut thoroughfare read. “Our condolences to the nation for the assassination of Saddam, and victory to the Iraqi resistance.”

By standing up to the United States and its client government in Baghdad and dying with seeming dignity, Mr. Hussein appears to have been virtually cleansed of his past.

“Suddenly we forgot that he was a dictator and that he killed thousands of people,” said Roula Haddad, 33, a Lebanese Christian. “All our hatred for him suddenly turned into sympathy, sympathy with someone who was treated unjustly by an occupation force and its collaborators.”[/i]

more:

They sure weren’t protesting when Saddam was butchering Kurds and Shia. Oh please, these barbarians would declare Hitler a Martyr if it served to oppose the Great Satan.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
They sure weren’t protesting when Saddam was butchering Kurds and Shia. Oh please, these barbarians would declare Hitler a Martyr if it served to oppose the Great Satan.[/quote]

Exactly. I’ll also bet if CNN and Al Jizzera turned off the TV cameras these protests and rallys would not exist.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Sloth wrote:
They sure weren’t protesting when Saddam was butchering Kurds and Shia. Oh please, these barbarians would declare Hitler a Martyr if it served to oppose the Great Satan.

Exactly. I’ll also bet if CNN and Al Jizzera turned off the TV cameras these protests and rallys would not exist.[/quote]

Question, what does that tell you about the people we are risking our own troops’ lives for?

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Sloth wrote:
They sure weren’t protesting when Saddam was butchering Kurds and Shia. Oh please, these barbarians would declare Hitler a Martyr if it served to oppose the Great Satan.

Exactly. I’ll also bet if CNN and Al Jizzera turned off the TV cameras these protests and rallys would not exist.

Question, what does that tell you about the people we are risking our own troops’ lives for?[/quote]

I supported the removal of Saddam, and still do. Post-war, I support the training of Iraqi forces to a reasonable level. To give them some chance at being able to secure themselves, at some point in the future. I’ll leave it to those in military leadership positions to decide when that is.

I don’t support staying until peace and tranquility prevails throughout Iraq.
They’re welcome to rip each other apart, if that’s what they choose. Or, to enforce whatever muslim laws they want. I don’t want more troops in Iraq. Never have.

I want more and more territory turned over to Iraqis. Let them win or lose their battle for a united Iraq. Time for that VAST majority of moderate muslims we always hear about to put up or shut up. Stand up and throw out the radicals.

That is, unless their violence spreads out to harm us. Then, we throw our hands up and bomb them into the stone age. No security provided afterwards. No post-war reconstruction. Nothing.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
It was poorly done. Seems pretty typical for the middle east.[/quote]

I’d say that’s pretty accurate.

On the execution, I think Saddam went out in style and showed that he had iron balls. Respect for that.