Mohammad Gilli

Jan. 05, 2007
 

I , personally, don't have any well thought-out views on Saddam's execution. I gathered from what I had read about him that he was a heartless tyrant. Some well-wishers of him argue that a tyrant like him was needed to maintain sectarian stability in Iraq. I do not believe so; but then what was the alternative? Frankly, I do not know. Almost no Muslim country has a peaceful system of transferring power from one person (part) to another. His execution reminded me of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's political murder.
 
Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
 
Having said that, I don't have any other views on this issue. However, there is a third view in addition to the two pervading the FOTH board (those who regard Saddam a "lion-like" martyr and those who regard him a "butcher"); this is the unemotional political view of an American analyst. I am quoting from Robert Dreyfus who wrote "Saddam's Death squad Hanging," at Tompaine.commonsense on January 3, 2007. Some extracts are presented herein:
 
"And then there is the official death squad that hanged Saddam Hussein. They hanged him unceremoniously, black-hooded killers chanting Shiite religious slogans even as they placed the noose around his neck, shouting “Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!” It was a sordid, even sleazy affair, replete with boorish spectators shouting the names of supposed Shiite clergy-martyrs. It followed a haphazard, kangaroo-court trial, in which judges who couldn’t stomach the travesty were fired and Saddam’s defense lawyers murdered serially by death squads, in which witnesses were paraded to denounce the accused without any rebuttal or cross-examination, resembling the Red Queen’s “Off with her head!” trial of Alice, with the bulbous fictional monarch shouting: “Sentence first, and verdict later!” And then, at the final moment, in Baghdad , the dictator stood proud and erect, making his killers look small and evil-minded. At once, the dictator—who’d sent thousands to the gallows and to the firing squad—became victim and martyr, and the righteous sufferers were transformed into bloodthirsty revenge-seekers.

 

Adding insult to injury, the Iraqi authorities ordered the hurry-up execution at the start of a major Muslim holiday (at least, according to the Sunni religious calendar), on a holiday whose theme is forgiveness. In so doing, the Shiite-dominated regime made it clear that its own religious calendar, not the Sunni version, is all that matters in the New Iraq.

 

The Wall Street Journal , in a profile of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday, quoted one of his aides saying that part of Maliki’s motivation in speeding Saddam to the gallows was that he feared a “secret deal sparing Mr. Hussein’s life in exchange for a halt to attacks on U.S. troops.” Although some reports, and some of my sources, say that precisely that deal was considered by more sensible administration officials—and why not? why not give Saddam a life sentence as part of a ceasefire agreement with the resistance?—it was never a serious option. Indeed, since the very start of the insurgency in late 2003, the United States has repeatedly rejected the idea of peace talks with the main force of the resistance, including Baath party officials, former army and intelligence officers, the clergy tied to the Association of Muslim Scholars and resistance groups like the 1920 Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army of Iraq. Now, and so utterly predictably, virtually the entire Sunni population of Iraq is likely to line up foursquare behind the insurgents, making it immeasurably more difficult to ease sectarian and communal warfare.
Now, any chance that Saddam could be used as a bargaining chip to help ease a deal with the insurgents is gone, forever.
 
Amid such bungling, it’s impossible to believe that any “surge” in U.S. forces—or any other stay-the-course stratagem—will make any difference in the end. With its sheer might and with Bush’s bull-headed determination, the United States can indeed kill many more Iraqis, perhaps even hundreds of thousands more on top of the 655,000 dead already. But in the end, either the United States will withdraw from Iraq without the victory Bush seeks—indeed, in defeat—or it will be expelled by Iraqis themselves. By now, no Iraqi government will have any credibility if it does not align itself with Iraqi public opinion, which overwhelmingly (Sunni and Shiite, alike) demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops."
 
Mohammad Gill