How to Make a Mass Murderer Look Good

A few days ago, I turned on my TV to see grainy images of portly masked men dressed in casual leather jackets attaching a noose around Saddam Hussein’s neck. The video stopped short of showing the inevitable demise of the hated tyrant, but the internet had a plethora of images with the full death sequence complete with audio. It was a grim spectacle of victor’s justice that almost everyone in the world knew was unavoidable since the day Saddam was plucked from his hiding place by US Troops. No one doubts that the “Butcher of Baghdad” was responsible for crimes against humanity and that he should pay the ultimate price for his transgressions. What that price should be, can be debated, but the debacle of his trial and execution were symbolic of the Bush Administration’s mismanagement of the war.

Whether you are for or against the death penalty, the Saddam trial hardly looked like any “justice” system that freedom loving democracies around the world enjoy. In a country that is in the midst of raging sectarian violence, the trial did nothing to heal the wounds of the past or restore order to the fractured society. The legal process was inefficient and unprofessional with threats and acts of violence against judges and attorneys. The courtroom proceedings were filled with uncontrolled outbursts and the hateful tint of sectarian prejudice. The same lack of order this “young democracy” has on its streets were also found in its legal institutions.

The execution carried out by Shiite Iraqi guards on US gallows did nothing to strengthen the illusion of due process. The executioners wore no uniforms and looked more like terrorist kidnappers then prison guards. The grainy video, both the official edited version and the unofficial phone camera feed looked eerily similar to terrorist ransom demand videos. The US military wouldn’t release Saddam to Iraqis until last minute for fear of that they would humiliate him prior to his hanging.

Once the Iraqis had Saddam in their hands, they proceeded to taught and degrade him which showed a complete lack of respect for the American concerns and also showed the depth of Shiite vs. Sunni hatred. Saddam looked dignified while the executioners and the witnesses seemed like the criminals. The US found itself in a lose-lose situation with the world blaming us for the oversight of the Saddam lynching while we didn’t even have the power to delay the execution until after the religious holiday which was our publicly stated objective.

The vast majority of Europe is against the death penalty, the Kurds wanted Saddam alive for the ongoing nerve gas crimes trial, the Sunnis think the whole trial was a fraud, and the US seemed to have little control over the situation except for the curious timing of the verdict. I’ll leave it up to the conspiracy theorist to debate whether the verdict being announced just days before the US midterm elections has any political corruption related issues, but it was certainly suspicious.

It seems like the law of unintended consequences was in full effect in this Middle Eastern fog of war. Even the execution of a vicious mass murderer didn’t garner the type of triumphant reaction that George W. Bush thought it would when Centcom first announced “We got him” Sure, there was a modest crowd of Iraqi-Americans celebrating in Dearborn, Michigan, but most Americans felt more anxiety about the current quagmire then joy of witnessing the demise of an evil dictator. If Osama Bid Laden had been executed, would the American reaction have been as equally apathetic? I seriously doubt it. There would be nationwide celebrations and a sense that our troops sacrifices in Afghanistan were worth it.

What would have to happen in Iraq to give the majority of Americans the sense that it was worth the sacrifice? It’s a very hard question to answer and I don’t think many people would agree on the same answer, much less a way to get there from where we are today. Clinton and later Bush stated that the official US policy in Iraq prior to 2003 was for regime change. Mission Accomplished.

Bush’s case for going to war was predicated on the notion that we needed to preempt a rogue nation with terrorist ties acquiring and developing WMD’s. Almost 4 years later no significant stockpiles were found, nor the ability to develop them in the near future. Mission Accomplished.

Saddam Hussein was a war criminal that needed to be brought to justice. Mission Accomplished.

Iraq should be one of the few democracies in the region. “Mission Accomplished” Does an unstable, violence ridden democracy count?

The reasons for going to war have been redefined so many times, that most of us don’t why we’re still there and what does a victory in Iraq mean? Killing Saddam should have brought us closer to an elusive victory, but in reality it just ramped up the fears of Sunni reprisals and an intensification of the cycle of sectarian violence with our troops caught in the middle.

Based on our execution of the post invasion administrating of the country and the execution of the Saddam Hussein, both the Iraqi and the American peoples have little confidence in George W. Bush executing anything successfully in Iraq. I wish I had the solution, but I know that our stubbornly cloistered and culturally ignorant leader does not. I pray that God will give him a sense of humility and the wisdom to lead the coalition of the willing to “victory.”