Saddam's Cat

Richard Dawkins Is Wrong

Sure, it might have been interesting to study Saddam's psychology. But that was not the point at all. Saddam needed to die. He needed to die because he had done some atrocious things and death was the only just punishment that could be imposed upon him. He needed to die to put to rest, forever, the possibility that he might somehow regain power in Iraq.

The manner of Saddam's execution was brutal by U.S. standards, and the Iraqi executioners were, shall we say, less than professional. Still, hanging is a relatively quick death, and it came after a trial with the indicia of due process, which is a great deal more than most of Saddam's victims got. Saddam even got to get a last political swipe in -- his last words were to mock Muqtada al-Sadr for being little better than a small-time thug, which compared to Saddam, is exactly what al-Sadr is.

The prospect of keeping a man alive only to be studied, like some kind of lab specimen, seems itself to be dehumanizing and cruel. It's entirely possible that Saddam, who was quite an intelligent, crafty fellow, would have made a game out of warping the data.

Trifecta

I am grateful that once again, death seems to have not touched people in my immediate circle of life; while much of my work involves deaths, these deaths are not personal to me. I attended one funeral this year of a man I knew only slightly; a good man, but not a close friend. The Wife and I went to show our support for our friends who were close to him; I'll not comment further on that subject having wrote about it in June. Still, the sting of losing someone close to you is unlike anything else people experience. Some readers may not have been so fortunate as to have avoided that sting this year; my condolences if that is the case for you. I hope that you will remember the good times you shared with the loved one you have lost.

Now, the deaths of famous people are at least remarked upon by everyone. 2006 is ending the year with a trifecta of famous death, and one which includes each of the three kinds of deaths that make the news -- we've lost a good man, a bad man, and an entertainer.

We lost the entertainer first. James Brown personified soul music. The "Godfather of Soul" lived a checkered life but was generally enjoyed by a wide audience and earned his sobriquet, "The Hardest Working Man In Show Business." He was in his seventies but still going strong, performing nearly every night, touring with his band and dancers on a bus, when he passed away on Christmas morning. While not insanely rich, he also didn't really need the money, either; he performed because he loved it. Any of us could do worse than that.

Then, we lost the good man. President Gerald Ford was, like all of our leaders, lampooned and occasionally vilified during his Presidency. His pardon of his predecessor, who was so obviously guilty of heinous crimes, almost certainly cost him his chances at being elected in his own right. But the perspective of history has led people around the country to realize that his decision was the right one, because it allowed the country to heal after a terrible, divisive phase of the political cycle. President Ford's decency and selflessness are the facets of his leadership that have been highlighted in all of his obituaries, and perhaps that is because it seems like it's been a very long time since we've seen decency and selflessness exhibited in any significant way by our leaders. Sleep well, Mr. President; you've earned it.

And sometime around the time I went to sleep last night, Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity. No one, maybe not even his widows and any surviving children he may have, will shed tears over his death. I think it's poor form to celebrate someone's death, butthis would be as strong a candidate as possible to deviate from that dictum. While some may be taken aback at the swiftness of the execution following the conclusion of his apparently brief appeal, that is the legal system the Iraqis have found themselves under after heavy ghostwriting by their American occupiers created for themselves and so the result ought not to be so shocking. I am not at all convinced that there will be substantial violence in response to Saddam's execution; this eventuality has been a foregone conclusion for some time now and it seems that most people have accepted that Saddam became irrelevant to questions about Iraq's future once he got plucked out of his spider hole.

Other famous deaths took place this year, like Slobodan Milosovic (a very bad man), Aaron Spelling (an entertainer), Ann Richards (a good woman, I think; at the least, she lent color to our political debate), Ed Bradley (a good man, it seems; certainly a journalist worthy of respect), Jack Palance (an entertainer), and Milton Friedman (a good man indeed). But I think of all three of the categories of famous deaths that make the news, this end-of-the-year set of three passings within a week are the most remarkable of them all.

The Verdict

Early in the morning, the verdict in Saddam Hussein's first trial will be handed down. The trial has been tragic political theater on a grand scale. The verdict, and the reaction of the Iraqi people to it, will be most insightful.

No one doubts that Saddam should be found guilty of all sorts of crimes against humanity and ordering murders, and that he deserves death, which is better than he gave most of his victims. Well, no one in the United States, that is. That is why Baghdad has been locked down until further notice.

One wonders if, given the absolutely chaotic three years that the Iraqi people have survived, they see Saddam as a figure of authority and stability rather than as a criminal and sociopath of astonishing dimenson. Nevertheless, when the inevitable violence breaks out, if it is extensive, it could wind up affecting the election on Tuesday.

Look Into The Future

Apparently,in the view of at least one judge, this man was not a dictator. He was just surrounded by people who made him look like one.

Oh, I see. Here, I thought a guy who held absolute power himself, maintained a chokehold on the military, suppressed all forms of political opposition, and brutally repressed his own people was a dictator. How could I have been so foolish all these years?

Having just done some study of English history, I recall that Englishmen celebrated the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England as a return to freedom and liberty. It seems strange to us to think of a king as a figure of liberty. But they did, because the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell had sucked so badly and dissolved into such chaos that even submitting to the rule of a monarch seemed closer to liberty than what they had.

So I suppose it's possible that maybe in the mind of this judge, a "dictator" is something other than what we Westerners think of when we hear that word. Maybe something got lost in the translation. These are possibilities. Also on the list of possibilities: the judge is as incompetent and corrupt as pretty much every other Iraqi governmental official.

How this country would stay united and not dissolve into outright civil war should we ever withdraw our overwhelming military presence -- and continue to take casualties from the near-daily terrorism in place there -- is absolutely beyond me.

I'm losing my faith in the ability of even the well-intentioned, powerful, and capable men and women we've sent there to create something worthwhile in the cradle of civilization. You can't save the world unless it helps you along. And it seems to me that the Iraqi people would much rather dissolve into sectarian and ethnic subunits than create a nation in any meaningful sense of that word.

Thanks to this judge's rather non-judicial show of bias, we have a glimpse into the future. Come, peer into the crystal ball with me, and tell me if you like what you see: The United States will vie with Iran and the Saudis for influence in small countries with names like Anbar, Samarra, and Kabarra, which in turn will jockey with one another for oil extraction and water use rights, with the great game of trying to keep a mollified Turkey in NATO instead of allowing it to enter Iran's orbit aligned against an independent Kurdistan.

Tell me why I'm wrong.