Frank StaheliJustice Served–Should it be Celebrated?
It appears almost beyond question that the Shia-dominated government of Iraq rushed to execute Saddam Hussein on the first day of the Sunni version of Eid al Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) as an affront to Sunnis. The shouts of “Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!” and other taunts of Saddam just before his death were completely uncalled for, and no doubt added fuel to the fire of Islamic sectarian hatred.
But regardless of these embarrassing occurrences, many Iraqis see Saddam’s death as the closure of a sad chapter in their history and now declare that they will never live again under a tyrant.
Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, who live in Baghdad, and write for the weblog Iraq the Model, discuss their feelings following his death (Posted on December 30, 2006 under the title “Celebrating Justice…”) I quote most of it, having a hard time finding what to edit:
…Saddam lost his humanity the day he committed his first crime, so the one I saw walking to the rope this morning was no man to me.
It was him who rejected humanity to become the monster that the weak feared and prayed to see him dead for years to be safe from his crimes.
Outside Iraq people will divide over his hanging, just like they divided over his life and rule but here in Iraq most of us feel that today justice has been served…
To those who didn’t like justice I say that his death means life to many.
Executing the dictator renews the hopes of not only Iraqis but also of other oppressed peoples in the world……He deserved to die—our people are still suffering from his crimes till this moment, maybe not in person anymore but through the murderous terrorist machine he built and expanded over years; his orphans are still murdering our people in cold blood trying to deny us the right to build a model of life away from the culture of death the dictator created.
Executing Saddam is an execution to a dark era in Iraq’s history and it’s a message to all those who followed his ways that there is no turning back; yes, the people will never kneel to a tyrant again and will never give up.
The future is in the hands of the people and they will choose their way no matter how big the sacrifice is. We have suffered too much for too long and we deserve a better life and that we will keep pursuing.
On this day as we celebrate justice we shall not forget to pray for blessings for the souls of the dictator’s victims and we shall not forget to thank our brothers in America and the rest of the coalition nations who helped us and are still helping us in our struggle to build the new free and democratic Iraq.
It is easy for us to abhor the way in which Saddam was brought to death, but I hope that all of us believe that he was worthy of death. And although it’s ultimately wrong, it’s hard to imagine that if our family members had been some his victims, we might have been strong enough not to have accelerated the time of his death and taunted him as well.
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
In what may prove to be a sad irony, if President Bush gets his way we’ll be sending soldiers to attack the very same Mahdi Army thugs who executed Saddam. Sadr City will look like Fallujah before it’s over.
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Touche’ again. You very likely will be right.
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Yes, Frank, Saddam was definitely worthy of death, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone to argue that point. But are any of us worthy executioners?
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Well put Don. Bless you. Right on!
When we refuse to kill, we will have finally made ourselves in the image of (our image of) God.
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I’d wager that saddam’s twelve year old grand daughter could kick Frank Staheli’s little p—ie ass.
January 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Thanks Lynette, and even though I’m an atheist, thanks for the blessing! ;)
January 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Violence begets violence.
It’s funny how many God-fearin’ people won’t let God punish the bad folks — they gotta do it for Him (Her?). If that doesn’t show a subconcious lack of faith in one’s almighty being of choice, I don’t know what does.
I do know that stooping to the level of the bad guys prevents us from evolving into a more advanced race — there’s too many of us that want to stay stuck in the medieval mire of an eye for an eye.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Thomas Friedman of the NYT probably says it better than any of us:
“Saddam deserved to die 100 deaths. But imagine if Iraq’s Shiite leaders had surprised everyone, declared that there had been enough killing in Iraq and commuted Saddam’s sentence to life in prison—sparing his life in hopes of uniting th country rather than executing him and dividing it further. I don’t know if it would have helped, but I do know Iraqis have rarely surprised us with gestures of reconciliation—only with new ways to kill each other.â€
January 4th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Unitary Anne,
Are you a troll from ASP? ;-) I only thought they had a case of ad hominemitis. I remember after a comment you made on another of my posts that you probably wished there had been a delete button for something you wished you hadn’t written; I’m beginning to look incorrect in that assessment.
It seems most of the rest of the comments are directed at me as well (I apologize if I am wrong), rather than at the Fadhil brothers, Iraqis who had to go through all the crap of the Saddam era.
Richard,
You make a good counterpoint to ITM’s claim that “Executing Saddam is an execution to a dark era in Iraq’s history”. It probably goes without saying that I disagree with it.
Don, Lynnette, Jenni:
I appreciate your comments, but I think you’re just restating one of the two sides of the Death Penalty issue. What I want to know is, how do you feel about Iraq the Model’s comments that I quoted? Does it matter that Iraqis feel like this will help them get on with their lives?
January 4th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Frank, Saddam’s execution helps mark the beginning of a dark era, along with the bombing of the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra last February. It seems that the Iraqi government handed over Saddam to thugs from the Mahdi Army. From Reuters:
“[A] senior Interior Ministry official said the hanging was supposed to be carried out by hangmen employed by the Interior Ministry but that ‘militias’ had managed to infiltrate the executioners’ team.
‘The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the Interior Ministry that was supposed to carry it out,’ the official said.”
January 5th, 2007 at 11:00 am
While the right-wing blogs were doing a happy dance over Saddam’s dead body, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq issued a report with details about a new wave of public executions of women in Baghdad by the Mahdi Army.