[lit-ideas] Re: The Monster is dead
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 12:35:55 -0800
From: "Brian" <cabrian@xxxxxxxxx>
As the decent world rejoices...
The decent world is not rejoicing.
The execution, which should have been a legal and judicial proceeding to establish the rule
of law, turned into a farce and a sectarian murder.
Watch the hanging at YouTube, which someone videoed with a cell phone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpOI2vgfpO4
Read an account of the events between US and Iraqi officials over the hanging:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html
Several comments:
1) This is a turning point in TV and the web. Major events are no longer filmed by news
cameramen and shown on TV. It was filmed by an anonymous person, using a cell phone, and it
was shown on YouTube. Saddam is dead. TV and TV news are also dead.
2) The hanging reminded me of the early al Qaeda videos of murders of US hostages. People in
street clothes, haphazard proceedings, taunts and shouts, cheers at death, and so on.
3) The yells of "Moqtada" (a Shiite militia) places the responsibility on Shiites. This was
a Shiite murder of a Sunni. As such, the hanging will inflame the Sunni.
4) The US officials should have controlled the process. The trial should have been a legal
process, with a conviction, a sentence, and the carrying out of the sentence. Instead, we
saw a farce of a trial that ended by lynching. But a fair trial was never possible. Saddam's
attorneys should have been able to introduce evidence that implicates others. That, however,
would include Rumsfeld, Baker, Bush Sr., and others who collaborated with Saddam's regime
and participated in the Iran/Iraq War, which included the use of banned chemical weapons.
Those men stand accused, but justice will not be carried out.
5) Those in the US who cheer this hanging are no different from the savages who cheer the al
Qaeda murders of hostages. They cheer lawlessness, sectarian violence, and blood lust.
So we get yet another clumsy decision in a poorly-conceived war. Instead of resolving
anything, this only adds fuel to the fire.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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