Posted on 01/04/2007 8:02:08 AM PST by Constitution Day
Putting an end to the Saddam problem by James Lileks Opponents of capital punishment may have contemplated Saddam's execution by recalling Groucho Marx's quote about never forgetting a face: For you, I'll make an exception. One might argue that the trial could have been less farcical; one might have enjoyed seeing Saddam answer for all his crimes, including the deaths of 100,000 Kurds in 1987-88. In the end, however, he had but one neck to give for his country, and he proved that no man is above the law. Especially the one concerning gravity. Tyrants in other countries might have felt a pang of unease at his end; all that money, all that power, all those glorious implements of fear and oppression at his disposal, and it still added up to a drop, a jolt, an ignominious yank captured on shaky cellphone video. No doubt tyrants have drawn the correct conclusion, too: Confiscate all the cell phones. It felt oddly anticlimactic, though. Not that anyone expected it would end the violence. Iraq's problems won't end until the terrorists' sponsors open the window one fine bright morning to find a Tomahawk sailing in their direction. But the Bush administration has decided to leave Iran and Syria alone, perhaps to make the ruination of Iraq an example of international cooperation for the 21st century. Iraq's problems will be solved when the warring groups are suppressed once and for all, but that sort of horrible force plays poorly on CNN International. Besides, the Ethiopians are rather busy at the moment. Only fools expected Saddam's death to solve the violence; that wasn't the point. It was justice, and it was justice's half-brother, vengeance. It was a tentative step toward the rule of law, but the real work will take decades. Ideally, you ought to be able to change leaders without hanging the last one. It'll take a decade of peaceful transitions of power to make Iraq a true democracy, which is why Saddam's death won't immediately strew flowers throughout the Middle East. But that's OK. Imagine telling the Italians after the death of Mussolini that their governments would rise and fall like the tides of Venice, and the only effect on the citizens would be the distribution of patronage. Their response: Really? You promise? This is not the time to lament the dictator, but of course that's what many did. As his appointed hour grew nigh, the humanitarians of the world found a new champion. "He held the country together!" Well, if President Bush gassed New York and California and outlawed the Democratic Party, he could impose the same sort of remarkable cohesion. "He was a counterweight to Iran!" Yes. But perhaps it's better to have a struggling democracy with American bases as the counterweight. If the U.S. had occupied Iraq in the 1980s, it's doubtful that millions of Iraqis would have been sent to their death so Ronald Reagan could wear a military uniform and wave a shotgun for the cameras. "We put him in power!" Hmm. How did that work, exactly? Right: We smuggled him into the country in Donald Rumsfeld's steamer trunk with instructions to buy Russian weapons and a French reactor, then invade countries we really liked. "He was relentlessly opposed to Islamist terrorists!" Except for those he paid and sheltered, of course. If he was sending money to people who blew up buses in New York instead of Jerusalem, people might have been more exercised. If this was a peaceable world, with no Darfurs or Hezbollah wars or Somalia clan-spats or auto-explosive jihadis anxious to perforate infidels on God's behalf, Saddam would have stood out as a throwback, an anachronism, a monstrosity who taxed the conscience of the just. In this world, however, he had television correspondents seek his company and call him Mr. President. If his death seems anticlimactic, it may reflect the shame of a world that shrugged at his thuggery. "We had him in a box!" some said. That was debatable, then. Now he's in a box for real. It does not solve the problem of Iraq. But it solved the problem of Saddam. Jan. 3, 2007
Hehehehe...
Saddam proved to be some counterweight alright...
A murderous, genocidal, tyrant gets hung after a lengthy trial and an appeal and people are pissed off. The world is totally NUTZ!
Not totally, but at least partly!
.
Lileks' piece is quite insightful ... as always.
Putting an end to the Saddam problem?
I thought that was what the noose was for.
Then CNN reports why it was bad that he was executed.
The NY Times laments his passing.
The folks over at NBC are practically in tears that he is gone.
Yet, the folks in the MSN can't understand why people continue to go elsewhere for the news.
I like this line.
The Muslims, we are told, gave us the Zero a thousand years ago, and little much since. We can take heart, however, that science has returned to the Muslim mind; Saddam Hussain finally discovered the Law of Gravity.
Yes, that's what the article meant.
D
Okay, NOW the new year can begin, now that we've had our dose of the inimitable Lileks, LOL!
Thanks so much for the ping! I like how he answers some of the really stupid comments that have been made about Saddam's execution, in his own style.
Thanks again!
The rest of it is fluff. "We put him in power" is simply ignorant and false, as is "Bush is just as bad" and "Saddam was the terrorists' enemy." These are comforting lies - the kiddies will sleep more quietly if they believe there never was a monster under the bed, and never mind the bones and claw marks. He's gone now.
Thanks for the ping!
Great as always.
And the closer:
"... It does not solve the problem of Iraq. But it solved the problem of Saddam."
YEP.
Tyrants in other countries might have felt a pang of unease at his end; all that money, all that power, all those glorious implements of fear and oppression at his disposal, and it still added up to a drop, a jolt, an ignominious yank captured on shaky cellphone video. No doubt tyrants have drawn the correct conclusion, too: Confiscate all the cell phones.
IRAN: SPECIAL POLICE CORPS CHARGED WITH CONTROLLING CELL PHONES
AKI ^
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762301/posts
Posted on 01/04/2007 9:40:51 AM CST by Valin
Tehran, 4 Jan. (AKI) - A special police corps has been officially tasked with checking the cell phones of Iranians and in the past few days plain-clothes officials have started stopping passers-by in Iran's main cities to inspect their mobiles. All text messages and audio or video files considered 'illegal' are erased by the officials from this new corps. In the past few years, cell phones have reportedly become the main means to convey news which would never make it into the government-controlled Iranian media.
News on scandals, jokes on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other political leaders, information on meetings, political assemblies and rallies mainly circulate via cell phones.
(snip)
Do the Mullahs read Lileks? :-)
There's always another problem.
Life..it's just one damn things after another.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.