Dead Man Walking?

Saddam isn't long for this world, or so a Kuwaiti paper says. No wonder the U.S. gave him P.O.W. status so easily.

Comments

[DFH]

Let's just make sure we get as much information as possible out of him before we decide it's his time to go.

And how will he go? Gas chamber? Nahh... they don't have one. Lethal injection? They probably can't work that one up either.

Firing squad is about all they can manage. They don't even have a guillotine.

I'd vote to let him loose naked in the desert -- of Iran.

[Andrew]

I am not surprised. I have always thought that OBL was facing the Last Jihad, too-- and that that explained the timing and target of his spectacular. I believe he passed on-- either by a lucky strike, or the natural event-- sometime in the winter of 2002-03. A few people, if any, know where his remains are.

[Rebecca]

Saddam having cancer does make an interesting new angle from which to view the invasion of Iraq. But given the reports that indicate Uday and Qusay were trying to prove that they were like their father only more so - I think it's even better that we went in, especially considering the possibility of his sons trying to carry on "the legacy of their father".

[Will Spencer]

Let's not easily forget that dictatorship does not die with dictators.

Both Kim Jong Il are Baby Doc Duvalier were heriditary dictators.

Let's not allow our television-induced cult of personality override our basic understanding of good government.

[lc]

Goodbye...soon.

[Ron Hardin]

The reason you want a death penalty is that it expresses society's honoring the place accorded the victim's voice. It's neither deterrence nor retribution, but a response to a voice that is now missing. The death penalty is grammatical, you could say.

So you'd want to keep him alive until you can execute him. A paradox.

It's complicated by not having a social agreement to try him under, but done right it could inaugurate it: ``let this be a system where every victim's voice is honored.''

[Tim]

Let's deconstruct that last sentence: "let this be a system where every victim's voice is honored.''

First off I am not sure why quotations were neccesary but since I am not a stickler for grammar I will ignore that. To the heart of the matter here is this, or in other words, my translation: Let's make Iraq a place where criminal behavior is equated with being a victim and explore the possibility that since Saddam's daddy was mean to him he could not help but become a dictator that murdered thousands of people all in a misguided attempt to please his tortured inner child. Isn't that what you meant to say?

[Ron Hardin]

I don't see that reading.

Saddam's victims are the victims. Presumably Iraq doesn't have to worry about PC power until their system's evolved enough to be parasitic on.

[tim]

Ok, I apologize. I was not too sure what you were trying to say. I understand now - kind of.
Regardless, I do believe that they (the Iraqi's) will have a system sometime around July by which to try him by. I think he will hold out to at least that time. His trial will be one of the most interesting of the century - that at least is certain.

[Shultz]

Of course, if you hear it from a Kuwati newspaper AND a guy in Syria, then it MUST be true.

P.S. Call me a skeptic.

[NoStar]

This type of cancer can be caused from exposure to weapons grade uranium, and various gasses used as weapons of mass destruction. It seems Saddam got exposed while checking up on his weapons program.

Well, that's the spin I expect Bush to put on it.
Remember folks, you read it here first.

[dj of raleigh]

Perhaps, with the diagnosis of terminal cancer having been long known, perhaps by the US, too,
then not only should our debate concern the race between the hangman and the grim reaper, but once more into motivation for the war.

If Saddam was doomed to fall, could we assume that Uday would suscede him with ease, or could we assume a most chaotic term of push and shove, with unholy alliances and holy plots and ploys.

If Uday were the newly "elected" dictator,
what would that mean to stability of the region?
Would Uday want to become an Alexander and carry on a quest to be the leader of Arabia?

Then cometh too, to the fray, will be the conspiracy theorists
who will insist that the CIA gave cancer to Saddam
during the mouth inspection.

Of course the literary outcome will be that Saddam live on and on to outwit on the one side and out last on the other the twin hands of death from both judgment from the bench and from the gate of the hereafter. Dictators seem to dangle at death's door since Franco, and Saddam so dominated so many that some part of each will never be free as long as he lives, lives in their fears of his return and his vengence.

In the movie, adapted from the book, Saddam's spider hole will move out of the garden into a cemetary, where it will appear that he was truly buried alive to rise again from the grave, from the ashes, like the Phoenix he envisioned he would return as. O but the two firebirds that would have arisen from teh ashes of Saddam are dead, fittingly, ahead of him -- his sons.

And lastly, and most importantly, is the commercial Saddam,
who will smoke his cigars on TV
(the community service part of his punishment) about the perils of smoking, and cigars in general a la Clinton/Castro,
who will be teh poster child to despots everywhere
thinking of making war,
knowing there is a new war,
one where the first shots fired are aimed at them,
for the front lines are no longer the battle lines,
and as it ought to be, the big targets are the bosses,
the heads of state, the general headquarters,
as Saddam tried to car bomb the Elder Bush and Saudi Emir in 93,
and Osama's failed flight 93 which was DC bound.

[TM Lutas]

Another angle would be whether the sanctions would have held after Saddam's death? Forget Uday, Qusay was the most likely heir and not only as sick as his brother but a lot less public about his appetites.

A new face and all the leftover appetite for sanctions would have disappeared. Saddam's gone, let the sanctions go with him. It would have been a powerful argument.

[Cecil XIX]

What can I say? It's karma.

[Rebecca]

Looting is also a sign of opportunists - like the looting during the 1960's NYC blackout, or during the Rodney King Riots. Looting and violence and the settling of old scores occurs in celebrations following the Super Bowl or the NBA championship. It's largely opportunism. An attempt to claim that one has power, because one can get away with doing something they ordinarily would never do.

Saddam may have prevented the various religious/ethnic groups from slaughtering each other, but he is responsible for slaughtering thousands anyway. It's easy for someone here to say that Saddam was good for the Iraqis because at least it remained a unified country - the person saying that didn't have to live in terror every day, every moment, unable to express any sentiment freely, unable to move about freely, and having lost relatives either by murder, or torture, or disappearance. I refuse to see that sort of existance as any form of "beneficial" set-up. It's inhuman.

[harryj]

Perhaps Saddam was the right leader for the Iraqis. No one currently available is likely to unite them in a democratic republic. The Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds will struggle to the death until one faction emerges to dominate the others, or the artificialy constructed country fragments. Perhaps they will have to wait until the Americans go home, but the struggle will come. We all saw the behaviour of the Iraqis when the war ended, the mass looting, the settling of old scores, and the current war of the terrorists. It comes from centuries of their culture. If the British could not sort it in the nineteenth century, with no left wing media to bother with, and with political correctness undreamed of, there can be no hope for the Americans in the nightmareish twenty first century.

[dhex]

heh. nightmarish.

what does political correctness have to do with iraq?

[joe]

harryj,

First, even if we accept that Iraq needs a strongman, Saddam was a revolting pig.

Second, I don't accept the "centuries of culture" argument. There are centuries of hatred between France and, uh, pretty much every country in Europe. Centuries of hatred between China and Vietnam. My point is, without contemporary flash points, "centuries of hatred" expresses itself as social derision, not mass murder. Ancient history is rallying cry for ethnic cleansers, but nicer houses, political ambition, and personal (not racial) revenge are the actual motivation. To explain the score settling in Iraq, think of secret police killings and "Arabization" in the 80s and 90s, not Kurdish rebellions under the Turkish Empire.