Saddam’s Hanging

That night, we were at my father in law’s house in LA.  I saw a streaming headline on the TV that said the hanging would take place, but I was still shocked when I went out to the living room to check on my DH, who had fallen asleep on the couch, and glanced up at the tv screen to see Saddam being fitted with the rope around his neck. 

Shia people danced in the street.  Sunnis rioted.  What will it all mean for Iraq?  For us?  I think that some likely hope that without Saddam, the violence will subside.  Others think the civil war was inevitable, anyway, so why not rid the world of him.  After all, the only reason Bush the first did not remove Saddam from power when he had the chance, was that nobody else on the horizon looked even remotely capable of holding that country together. And in the years since, Saddam was dead clever about murdering anybody who looked as though they could possibly lay claim to leadership, so he could keep it that way.   

 So now, by default, someone else will have to figure out what to do to hold Iraq together.  And the most astute comment I have read on that subject was from a San Diego barber who was being interviewed about troop deployment– there’s going to be another Saddam, or someone worse. 

Madeline Allbright and Bill Clinton knew that Iraq would fall apart into civil war without Saddam Hussein.  He was the devil we knew.  He was bad, but untold chaos was in store without him.  They chose not to go after him militarily, but sought to bring him to heel with the pressure of economic sanctions, which took a terrible toll on Iraq, but which kept the Iraqi military within its own borders.  But they understood very well what would happen without Saddam. 

Now, courtesy of George W., who conveniently ignored everyone who told him Iraq would devolve into chaos without Saddam, we will have the devil we don’t know.  Tony Blair once said about 500,000 people had been murdered or tortured to death by Saddam.  For all the people who suffered because of Saddam, I hope the hanging brings some sense of peace and the ability to move on in peace and dignity.   Saddam’s crimes were of historic proportion, and however chaotic the trial looked to our American eyes (although, with Judge Judy and her ilk, maybe it didn’t seem so odd)  the resulting sentence was predictable but fair.  And we shouldn’t be so shocked that the execution lacked decorum.  This hanging looked like the wild west because these people are living under wild west conditions.  At least they had the trial.   

But now how many more have suffered or died miserably because of Bush’s misadventure?  Has all our own sacrifice served to accomplish nothing more than to compound Saddam’s crimes?   And now, we face a new era of nuclear proliferation among Islamist nations.  We face the proliferation of incredibly nihilistic religious thought.   I know a lot of people who supported this war thought it would result in something good.  But that goal, if it ever was in reach, seems to have slipped from our grasp. Because the devil we don’t know may just actually have what Saddam lacked– real, functioning WMD’s, courtesy of Iran’s “peaceful and legitimate” nuclear program.