Hanging Saddam, Attempt #2

The New York Times leads with news that the head of Saddam Hussein's half-brother was severed from his body during yesterday's early morning execution. Although Iraqi government officials insist the decapitation was accidental, it sparked protests among Sunni loyalists who said it was a deliberate act of revenge by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

Iraqi officials say the decapitation happened because they made a mistake when they calculated how high the drop had to be in order to snap the prisoner's neck. The NYT notes that at least one United States Army manual reveals that Iraqis used too much rope. It's a tricky business... too much rope and the head pops off, too little rope and the guy chokes to death for 5 minutes, gurgling and struggling all the while, instead of breaking his neck.

By all accounts it seems the Iraqi government took extra measures yesterday to prevent a repeat of the sectarian taunts that met Saddam Hussein before his execution. A video shown to a small group of journalists seems to back the government's assertion that there were no outbursts from those who witnessed these hangings ("Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada!"), but the fact that officials waited almost 13 hours to show the video seems to suggest they were trying to figure out how to deal with the decapitation. The LAT says the video that was shown to Iraqi journalists did not have the entire execution and some have expressed doubts of what actually took place. The NYT, on the other hand, says, "The video showed his head being snapped off as the rope went taut."

Either way, it's gross. And capital punishment is still merely state-sanctioned revenge killing. But, hopefully we'll never have to think about this again.

"Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada!"

-NEW- Saddam Films Appear

It's the Story That Won't Die (unlike the Dictator)!

Yes, amazingly, the dummies responsible for filming Saddam Hussein's wacky last moments on Earth ("Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada!") are at it again. This time, though, the new cell-phone footage is of Saddam's Corpse! Wheee! As if watching him plunge to his death wasn't gruesome enough, now we get to see his dead body.

Naturally, it's turned up on the internet, because some really great stuff you just can't keep to yourself and your hateful religious sect, right?

So now Saddam's officially a martyr and we get footage of Moqtada's boys playing with his corpse. How soon until video shows up of them shitting in his dead mouth?

Incidentally, I've been asked why I give a shit how Saddam died and my answer is twofold: first, the cell-phone video revealed the sectarian nature of his execution and will inflame tensions in Iraq. Second, all of these films being released prove one thing: the first film released had been edited to present a propaganda view of a sedate, solemn execution, something we now know was complete bullshit. If we can't believe how they killed Saddam, then why should we believe anything else that comes out of the Maliki government?

The Path To Hussein's Lynching

The NYT has a lengthy chunk of dictation in-depth report on the long back-door maneuvering between the American government and the Iraqi government in the days leading to the dreadful execution of Saddam Hussein.

Supposedly the U.S., looking to conform to international protocols, wanted to delay Hussein's execution, while the Iraqis, motivated in large part by revenge, wanted to hasten it—a conflict that led to several heated exchanges between the two parties before the U.S. decided to bow to Iraqi sovereignty and hand Hussein over. Right, because we care oh SO much about Iraqi sovereignty. Hey, you think if those soverign Iraqis had acquitted Saddam and wanted to set him free, the Americans would have turned him over so quickly? I mean, y'know, because our respect for Iraqi sovereignty is just sooooo strong?

The best bit in the entire article is a small detail which has never before surfaced: the Americans wanted a written statement from the chief judge of the highest court that the execution was lawful. He refused, so Prime Minister Maliki went instead to a body of Shiite clerics. Because, really, the execution didn’t already look enough like an act of sectarian vengeance.

Still not explained: why Saddam Hussein had to die before his second trial (the one most likely to uncover US collusion in the poison-gassing deaths of 180,000 Kurds) could conclude. We were left with the disgusting spectacle of his judges dropping the case against him. Saddam will go down as officially Not Guilty of what was supposedly his biggest crime against Humanity. Good job, everyone!

Wanna Watch Saddam Die?

Psst: wanna watch Saddam die?

Cell-phone video of Saddam's Execution Murder

Saddam Hussein was a brutal murdering scumbag, but I'll give him this: he went to the gallows like a man, and he was the only guy in his dank, squalid execution shed with a single shred of dignity.

I especially love how the hangmen all chant the name of Shiite Fundamentalist Cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr. Because, you know, that's what professionals do. The best part is when Saddam sneers back "Feh. Moqtada" right before they hang him. You can hear the "Blow Me" in his voice.

Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!

Once more, WHY THE FUCK ARE WE BOTHERING? WHY? Why are we bothering? Nothing can fix this country. The people running it are Iranian puppets. We need to get the fuck out RIGHT NOW.

Did U.S. officials know that the designated "executioners" would be the unwashed goons of Muqtada Sadr's "Mahdi Army"—the same group of thugs who killed several American troops after the liberation, the same thugs who murdered Moqtada's moderate religious opposition, and the same murderous thugs who engage in extra-judicial executions and beheadings of innocent Iraqis every day (and night)? Did our government or military ask for any sort of assurances before turning over a prisoner who was being held under the Geneva Conventions?

I ask, because from watching this video, it seems clear that Bush just helped carry out a crude Shiite coup d'état.

The timing —isn't anyone in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad paid to notice this kind of thing?— was explicitly designed to rub every kind of humiliation into Iraqi Sunnis. It profaned their observance of the Sunni Eid ul-Adha holiday (the day of forgiveness, incidentally) while gratifying the Shiite fundamentalists whose ceremonies begin one day later.

To have made Saddam The Butcher into a martyr, to have gratified one religious sect at the expense of another, to have short-changed all modern notions of judicial review, to have forever given up any attempts to retrieve billions of dollars in stolen money that only Saddam knew the whereabouts of, and to have cheated millions of Iraqis and Kurds of the chance for a full accounting of ALL of Saddam's crimes—what a fine day's work for the Bush Administration. Why could they ever have been eager to kill Saddam so quickly? Oh, RIGHT, now I remember...

We HELPED Saddam gas the Kurds and all the other shit he did in the 80's... and a real trial would have shown exactly how much George W. Bush's daddy had to do with all of that. Can't have that, nossirre! Bring in the men with the pleather coats and black ski-masks!

The government America set up in Iraq has been infiltrated by Religious Theocrat Nutjobs who just hung the only guy in the Middle East to ever stand in their way. And we helped them. Far from bringing anything like "closure," this grotesque hanging ensures that the death of Saddam Hussein will serve as a clarion signal that Iraq is fucked. Fucked beyond recovery. For the Sunnis, they now see exactly how "fair" their Judicial System is, and exactly how deeply infiltrated by the Shiite Militias it is, and exactly how little America gives a shit about it. Expect the sectarian violence to continue and expand... not because the Sunnis want to "revenge" Saddam (though there will be a few), but rather because what these black-hooded, leather-coated thugs just did to Saddam happens every night on the streets of Baghdad to innocent Sunnis, and now there's no disguising it.

The shabby, tawdry scene of Moqtada Al-Sadr's riffraff taunting their defenseless former tyrant as he stands silently in his noose is pathetic. While Saddam Hussein was alive, they cringed. Now, they find their lost courage, and meanwhile take the drill and the razor blade and the blowtorch to their fellow Iraqis. To watch this abysmal spectacle is bad enough. To know that the U.S. government had even a silent, shamefaced part in it is to feel something well beyond embarrassment.

Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!

Well, That Didn't Take Long

Bush hung Saddam today. Err... I mean, our puppet state hung our former puppet dictator... no, wait, the Free People Of Iraq have freely hung their former leader and America had nothing to do with any of it! Yeah, that's it! Sorry, I get confused about which version of reality I'm supposed to believe in... I mean, it was supposedly an Iraqi court which carried out an independently arrived-at decision... but he was hung in the Green Zone in an American prison. Huh. Whatever. He's dead and we won the war in Iraq! Right? We can go home now? Please?!

Saddam Hussein Executed
By Sudarsan Raghavan
The Washington Post
Friday 29 December 2006

Former Iraqi leader hanged for crimes against humanity.

Baghdad - Clutching a Quran and refusing a hood, Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein went to the gallows to be executed before sunrise Saturday morning in Baghdad, according to Iraqi state television.

Hussein, 69, who demanded a cultlike devotion from his people and built monuments to proclaim his own greatness, was hung around 6 a.m. local time (10 p.m. Friday EST) in the American-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad. Hussein was executed before a small group of observers, including some who had been tortured by his regime.

The execution took place three days after Iraq's highest court upheld Hussein's death sentence, a decision that meant the execution should take place within 30 days. On Thursday, he met in his prison cell with his two maternal half brothers and handed them personal messages, according to his lawyers.

The Sunni Arab son of a landless peasant who died before he was born, Hussein was raised by an uncle in the farmlands that surround the northern town of Tikrit. As a young man, he joined the Iraqi Baath Party, which advocated secular pan-Arab nationalism, eventually playing a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to power. In July 1979, Hussein become Iraq's president and quickly plunged the nation into a vicious, debilitating eight-year war against Iran. Three years after that war ended, a U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq in 1991 over Hussein's invasion of Kuwait the year before.

Almost nine months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Hussein was captured near a small village on the outskirts of Tikrit. The following June, Iraq's interim government took legal custody of the former president and prosecuted him for crimes against humanity.

Many human rights groups criticized the trial as unfair, delivering nothing more than victor's justice, a charge Iraqi officials denied.

Also hanged on Saturday morning were Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.

As the noose was placed around his neck, Saddam shouted: "God is great. The nation will be victorious, and Palestine is Arab."

Iraqi TV did not broadcast the moment of Saddam's execution but officials said his death was recorded on video. The television footage included a shaky image of the aftermath: a shot of what appeared to be Saddam's corpse, laid out on a hospital gurney, his head wrenched grotesquely to the right. His neck appeared to be bruised.

Hussein leaves behind a fractured Iraq. Cycles of sectarian violence have deepened the divide between Sunnis and Shiites and paralyzed the government. Sunni insurgents are killing U.S. troops almost every day, with this month's death toll already the second-highest this year. Shiite militias are storming neighborhoods and using power drills and other forms of torture before killing victims. Sunni Arab loyalists have already vowed to take revenge for Hussein's execution.

Well, it was certainly smart of them to simultaneously kill Barzan... that kills the last paternal male blood relation of Saddam. Along with the killings of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay and his 14-year-old nephew Mustafa, the new Caliphate of Iraq will be safe from challenge by the previous ruler's bloodline! Huzzah! A return to 13th Century politics! Show trials and show executions! This is why we invaded Iraq... to give them American-style freedom!

Take a good look at that official photo of Saddam on the gallows... look at his hangmen. Does that have the look of an official ceremony carried out by a responsible Government? Because to me, it just looks like four fat thugs in ski masks and mis-matching pleather coats hanging an old man... the imagery isn't much different than what we see when the "insurgents" cut the heads off of kidnapped American truck drivers. What, the Iraqi government couldn't whip up four matching police uniforms and some wicked cool hoods?

No doubt George W. Bush will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that Saddam's death sentence was signed on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the last day of the annual Hadj, and the very moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

Ooooops!

This entire trial was designed for one thing: to send the signal to the American taxpayer that George Bush Is Winning The War! The trial just -happened- to end with a death sentence on the eve of the American elections. Now Saddam's execution just -happens- to occur just before the end of the year. Coincidence? Not likely, especially with Bush needing to have a big "Win" in his column before giving his annual State of the Union speech in 3 weeks.

Hussein was a scumbag who needed to be held to account... but even scumbags deserve fair trials, honest judgments and justly-applied punishments. The former dictator got none of these.

The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders... and this new Iraqi government has essentially proven itself no different in method or means than the previous head of government whom they just executed. State-sponsored execution is the tool of the Chinese and Iranians (and Governor George W. Bush). The vast majority of the world's nations have eliminated the "death penalty" because it's an irreversible punishment which deters no one, is commonly misapplied, and reduces the government to the moral status of murderer. But Iraq isn't Vermont and George Bush has never met a criminal (or brain-damaged retard) that he didn't want to execute, so why should we expect anything better from his hand-picked puppet government?

But don't take MY word for it... last month Human Rights Watch, issued a niney-seven-page report detailing the severe problems with the trial. Human Rights Watch, incidentally, has been baying for Saddam's head on a pike for 20+ years... but in keeping with their group's stated principles that EVERYONE deserves a fair trial, they wanted the former dictator prosecuted properly. Instead, their report, based on close monitoring of the prosecution of the former president, found that:

•"(The) Iraqi High Tribunal was undermined from the outset by Iraqi government actions that threatened the independence and perceived impartiality of the court."

• The Iraqi administrators, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers lacked sufficient training and expertise "to fairly and effectively try crimes of this magnitude."

• The government did not protect defense lawyers--three of whom were killed during the trial--or key witnesses.

• "(There were) serious flaws in the trial, including failures to disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants' right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge's demonstrations of bias."

• "Hussein's defense lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from the November 5 verdict. However, the trial judgment was only made available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond."<

The report did not study the appeals process, but the speed with which the tribunal's verdict and sentence were confirmed suggests that the Iraqi Appeals Chamber failed to seriously consider the legal arguments advanced by Hussein's legal team. It defies imagination that any independent Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense's written arguments in less than two weeks time.

Most importantly, the terms of Saddam's "Fair Trial" were dictated to the Iraqi Government by George W. Bush. Ill-mannered questions like "WHO encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980?" (surely the greatest of Saddam's war crimes because it led to the deaths of a million and a half people) or "WHO sold Saddam the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds?" were strictly forbidden to be raised by prosecutors because the answers would also expose America's culpability in Saddam's war crimes.

There will, of course, be those Right Wingers who counter criticism of this unfair trial's processes by pointing out that Saddam Hussein himself did not give his victims fair trials or just sentences. That is certainly true, but such statements don't defend... instead they stand as a stinging indictment of the new Iraqi government and its judiciary. With all the support of the United States government, with massive resources and access to the best legal advice in the world, with all the lessons of the past, Iraq has a legal system that delivers no better justice than that of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Congratulations. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

This is the ugly legacy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq: An awful mess of a country that cannot even get the trial and punishment of a deposed dictator right, a justice system that schedules the taking of life for political and propaganda purposes, a thuggishly brutal state that executes according to whim rather than legal standard and due process. The crude lawlessness of Saddam Hussein has been officially replaced... by the calculated lawlessness of the new regime.

Finally, as the head of Iraq's deposed Baath party lies on a gurney with his neck broken (awaiting, no doubt, some type of humiliating cremation and ignominious disposal rather than a proper Muslim burial--something else for the Sunni rebels to revenge themselves upon), we should look at the political state that Saddam built with truly open eyes free of our leaders' recent propaganda.

While it's fun to sit around after the fact and despise Saddam's Baath Party and everyone who belonged to it, let's remember for a second the founding principles of the Iraqi Baath Party: it advocated secular pan-Arab nationalism, unlike the exclusionary, explicitly-religious, sectarian Shiite-only Dawa Party which America helped the Baathists depose in 1968. Yes, the same Dawa Party which was until recently officially listed as a terrorist group, the same Dawa Party which set off car bombs all across Iraq during Saddam's reign killing thousands of innocent Iraqis, the exact same terrorist Dawa Party which dumbfuck George W. Bush has now put back in charge of Iraq.

Moreover, until America's invasion, the Baath Party was open to ALL Iraqis and had kept the lid on religious fundamentalism and Iraq's tribal and religious tensions by uniting the various parties as Iraqis, not Kurds or Shiites or Sunnis. Saddam's secularized Iraq was also the BEST Middle Eastern country in which to be a woman... there was no formal dress requirement and women were allowed to work in any job and even to drive (shock! horror!). Not so in today's increasingly fundamentalist Iraq.

When Saddam was captured in December of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. Now, after his state-sponsored murder, it will redouble in intensity again. Worse, freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of Saddam's Baathist secular regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair... and there's a thought to chill the blood.

Four years into a messy occupation which has cost 3,000 American soldiers their lives, and one year into an increasingly violent religious civil war, and with no end or exit in sight, America may soon find ourselves wishing for another secular Iraqi strongman fierce enough to make the country's warring parties subvert their fanatical religious hatreds to secular politics. Too bad we're probably going to get a pro-Iranian religious zealot like Moqtada Al Sadr instead.
###

Addendum: as I predicted, Bush has already weighed in with his Official Response, and it's almost exactly as I predicted it would be, including the already-hoary "Fair Trial which he denied others" excuse:

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

Saddam Hussein's execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.

We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein's rule - and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.

Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq's young democracy continues to progress.
###

Ehhrr... great! Saddam got a Fair Trial! We managed to America's complicity in his gassing of the Kurds and Iranians out of his Fair Trial! Saddam's Death is an important milestone towards Democracy! The Iraqis have come far! Support Our Troops! Don't Relent... Stay The Course! We're Winning The War In Iraq!

What a bunch of bullshit.

Additional Reading:
How George Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq by Professor Juan Cole
U.S. tolerated, then Villified Saddam

Some Ye Olde Saddam Captured Propaganda Unraveled:
Republican Lawmaker Predicts Saddam Capture "Within Days"
How We Got Saddam
Democratic Lawmaker Claims Saddam Capture Story Phony
Kurds Say They Captured Saddam, Not Americans
Was Saddam actually captured on December 13?
Former Marine Admits Saddam Capture Fabricated
Pentagon Denies Marine's Version of Saddam's Capture
Indications Imply Saddam Not Captured, But Rescued From Captors By US

And finally, the REAL Story that Saddam's "Capture" was designed to obscure:
Bush Grabs New Power for FBI while Nation Distracted
President Signs Key Section of "Withdrawn" Patriot Act II

And the real stories that Saddam's execution is most likely timed to obscure today:
Pentagon to Request $100 Billion More in War Money
Bush's Guantánamo "Review Boards" Fail To Deliver Due Process

We live in a Propaganda State. Government by Propaganda. Culture™ by Propaganda. Finance by Propaganda. And now, History by Propaganda. Enjoy!

Happy New Year, Time To Die

Happy New Year, Saddam, it's time for us to kill you!

Saddam Hanging Ordered in Iraq
Execution must occur within 30 days
USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — Iraq's highest court said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein must be hanged within 30 days. The decision generated uncertainty about the timing of an execution and concern over whether his death could spark more violence. The court rejected an appeal by the former Iraqi dictator, who was convicted and sentenced to death Nov. 5 for ordering the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims in the town of Dujail in 1982. "From tomorrow, any day could be the day" for the execution, said Aref al-Shahin, the court's chief judge.

The Iraqi government has not announced any details of plans to send Saddam to the gallows. There were no announcements Tuesday of plans for curfews in Baghdad. Curfews would probably be imposed for an event as politically sensitive as Saddam's execution.

The White House called the decision a milestone in Iraq's efforts "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law."

"Saddam Hussein has received due process and legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people for so long. So this is an important day for the Iraqi people," said deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel.

Some, however, such as Human Rights Watch, condemned the sentence as unfair because of alleged interference by the Shiite-dominated government in Saddam's trial.

Basam Ridha, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the presidency council cannot delay or alter Saddam's sentence under Iraqi law. Ridha said Iraqi officials will meet in the next few days to discuss when to send Saddam to hang. "We're anxious to do it as soon as we can," he said. "We want to put an end to it."

A prompt execution would short-circuit an ongoing trial in which Saddam and former top aides are accused of killing tens of thousands in a genocidal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s. That trial is in recess until Jan. 8. Some Iraqi politicians said Saddam's execution would aggravate efforts at a political reconciliation between Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions — and could intensify the Sunni-led insurgency.

It's like some sort of pulse-pounding mystery! When will our puppet government execute our former puppet dictator? Oh, it's so exciting!

Let's reflect on the fact, for a moment, that few people deserve death as much as Saddam Hussein does. Likewise, those who aided and abbetted his murders should also pay for those crimes, no? Too bad that includes several members and ex-members of President Bush's administration (i.e. Donald Rumsfeld and all the other 80's-leftovers who helped arm Saddam to help him kill the Iranians).

For all the discussion of Saddam's murders, let's also reflect on the fact that killing him only legitimizes the use of state-sanctified murder as a principle of a modern government -- this, in a country which NEEDS to shed itself of government-by-murder.

Likewise, since killing a deposed and pathetic Saddam now can ONLY serve to strenghten the insurgency, the best thing to do would be to sentence Saddam rot in jail forever... but that doesn't fit President Bush's need for a "WIN" on the books, does it?
###

Added: 3:48pm

Sigh, THIS didn't take long, did it?

Baath Party Threatens to Retaliate
By Shafika Mattar
The Associated Press
Wednesday 27 December 2006

Amman, Jordan - Saddam Hussein's Baath Party threatened Wednesday to retaliate if the ousted Iraqi leader is executed, warning in an Internet posting it would target U.S. interests anywhere.

The statement appeared on a Web site known to represent the party, which was disbanded after U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam in 2003. The site is believed to be run from Yemen, where several exiled Baathists are based.

On Tuesday, Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal against a conviction and death sentence for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate in Dujail, northern Iraq, in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.

"Our party warns again of the consequences of executing Mr. President and his comrades," the statement said. "The Baath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime," the statement added, referring to Baath fighters as "the resistance."

"The American administration will be held responsible for any harm inflicted on the president because the United States is the decision-maker (in Iraq) and not the puppet Iraqi government."

The statement said that if the execution takes place, it would be impossible for the Baath to take part in any prospective negotiations with U.S. and Iraqi officials to reduce the violence in Iraq.