Video flashback: Iraqi NSA “really proud” of how Saddam’s execution was handled
posted at 4:16 pm on January 3, 2007 by Allahpundit
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I promised it to you this morning. Fast forward to 1:55 and drink it in, but not until you’ve read how he had a sudden change of heart this weekend — after the cellphone video was leaked. Click the image to watch.
Why does this matter? Because it’s typical of these morons that even at a moment of supreme justice, they’d find some way to infect it with savagery. Quoth Capt. Erik Peterson, currently stationed in Baghdad:
“I perceive the JAM to be like the Nazi Party,” says Peterson, drawing parallels between Germany in the years before World War II and Iraq today. Peterson sees the political figures loyal to Sadr deftly taking advantage of weaknesses in a nascent parliamentary system. Meanwhile, henchmen exert power on the streets through terror that comes with a brand name and a famous face. “You did have the Gestapo in there,” Peterson says of the Nazis. “And if I look at the JAM, that’s what they got going on right now.”
“JAM,” of course, stands for “Jaish al-Mahdi” — the Mahdi army, whose leader’s name was being chanted in the moments before the trap fell on Saddam. You’ve got one set of Nazis executing another. And the Iraqi government’s covering for them.
The White House might finally have decided to speak softly and carry a big stick. About time.
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I feel pretty good about also
Kini on January 3, 2007 at 4:40 PM
In moments like this, I like to think “What would Saddam Do?”.
As I recall he would feed dissidents through a meat mincer and dump the remains their relative’s doorstep.
I think we disrespected the former President by letting him off with some low-level taunting and a short, sharp hanging.
That’s just not the “Saddam way”.
uptight on January 3, 2007 at 4:42 PM
I think the gas chamber would have been a more fitting demise.
natesnake on January 3, 2007 at 4:54 PM
This is going to be one hell of an Indian Jones film. Nazis vs. Nazis? All it’ll need are mother effin’ snakes.
Editor on January 3, 2007 at 5:06 PM
It’s not about Saddam–he’s dead, good riddance. What difference could it really make to him.
It’s about what it says about the people in charge. You would have hoped that the execution could have been handled with some dignity and sense of propriety, something reflecting the majesty of the judicial authority of a democracy.
Nah, let’s make stupid jokes about it. That’ll be more funner.
honora on January 3, 2007 at 5:06 PM
Honora,
I don’t believe Saddam’s “courts” afforded the Iraqi citizens any dignity in their deaths. Not very dignified to electrocute, rape, remove limbs, gas, torture, poison.
If it were a common citizen being treated this way by the new Iraqi judicial system, I might agree with you.
It wasn’t. It was a murdering dictator.
Dignity denied. TS.
fogw on January 3, 2007 at 5:31 PM
I feel pretty good about the “hanging” part. I have my suspicions, though, about the clowns that hanged him. Why do I get the uneasy feeling that some of the guys that hanged him should have been swinging right along side of him?
We aim to please.
CyberCipher on January 3, 2007 at 5:46 PM
Based on the phone video, it looked like the execution was incompetently performed, but then what in the Middle East is done professionally? They left Saddam lingering on that trap door with the rope around his neck for a long time. Usually, as soon as the rope is fixed around the neck, the trap door is sprung. It didn’t look like these jokers rehearsed the execution.
Tantor on January 3, 2007 at 6:01 PM
Saddam–his capture, imprisonment, trial, and execution–is only a tool that morally bankrupt liberals like ‘honora’ use to attack and discredit this country, its military, and its current president.
In a week or two, she & they will turn to al-Sadr, that jelly-bean-head religious fanatic and amateur murderer, as he comes under attack.
When Iran gets it turn, they will cry for Akmed-dinerjacket
I love the smell of Predictable Liberals in the morning…
( and stop stealing my line, angrychristian )
Janos Hunyadi on January 3, 2007 at 6:29 PM
According to the Saudi daily Al Riyad (by way of The Counterterrorism Blog), citing a witness to the execution of Hussein,Moqtada Al Sadr took part in the actual hanging of Saddam Hussein.
True? I’ve no idea. But the fact that the rumor is even floating about is a good indicator of the strength of the current tensions between the various factions in Iraq.
Citizen Duck on January 3, 2007 at 6:44 PM
honora,
I’ll give you half credit on this one. Dignity and propriety? Maybe, I don’t care so much. But mocking Saddam in the name of another thug we need to destroy? That’s out of bounds for me. We didn’t liberate Iraq so that al Sadr could have it, he should be next in line for the gallows.
Any displeasure I have over the handling of the hanging is in allowing people sympathetic to al Sdar to be involved in any way. It doesn’t represent the justice the Iraqi people deserved in the carrying out of this sentence, but an inter-sectarian gotcha.
It’s well past time to militarize the border with Iran. Completely, and until the Iraqi military can be trusted to hold it themselves. They were stronger than Iran before Saddam, they can be again.
Freelancer on January 3, 2007 at 8:18 PM
I think you missed the point she was trying to make, or at least the one that I would. It has nothing to do with Saddam. He doesn’t deserve dignity or respect and I really don’t care how he is executed; anything is probably too good for him. But the point is the Iraqi Government had the chance to prove it was different that Saddam’s Iraq; it could have shown it was a fair, modern demcracy with the rule of law and respect for human rights. Instead it showed the world it was run by lynch mobs chanting the names of murderous, little would be tyrants.
JaHerer22 on January 3, 2007 at 9:44 PM
The current Iraqi government IS DIFFERENT from Saddam’s, regardless of the events surrounding this execution. If you cannot realize that, it’s pointless trying to reason with you
The current Iraqi government IS NOT YET a “fair, modern, democracy”. The Iraqi people have only had three years to create the complex infrastructures of democracy, and to expect too much of them is either unfair, or a partisan argument trying to criticize Bush and the Repubs through the current govt there
You also missed the point, which was that a war criminal was caught, given a fair open trial, and executed. That took guts, and yes, unfortunately it was sullied
Janos Hunyadi on January 3, 2007 at 10:07 PM
So, you don’t give a damn how Saddam is executed, but you think the Iraqis should be more considerate. And how many of your family members were slaughtered by this tyrant?
Saddam could have been put to death 100 different ways, by 20 different sects and you libs would never be satisfied, you would just sit around whining and crying about how the death of a mass-murderer was mishandled.
Nice try coming to honora’s defense, but you failed miserably, missed my point entirely and had no valid point of your own.
fogw on January 3, 2007 at 10:16 PM
I wondered the same thing. Apparently the consensus is they were’nt as clueless as they seemed. I wonder if the disposition of his neck will be released. More than likely, it all worked like it was supposed to. It’s not a great leap to suppose, someone would have liked to kill him slowly.
“This is the gallows. You want torture – down the hall in the Akbar room.”
Buck Turgidson on January 3, 2007 at 10:37 PM
Last night the history channel aired a program on Saddam’s extenstve use of VX nerve gas against Iran and numerous Kurdish villages. They lived where the oil was, and supported Iran against Saddam. His lead pilots would drop large confetti so the planes with the gas could gauge the wind direction. He truly was diabolical. I was not aware of the extent of his Hitler worship. The lengths he went to to emulate the third reich are significant. No shortage of WMD’s in Kurdistan.
Buck Turgidson on January 3, 2007 at 11:08 PM
Ding dong the wicked witch is dead. Time to move on. Crying over spilt milk gets no one anywhere.
His body should have been dumped in one of the many mass graves where he had people shot and dropped into. His hanging experience atm is probably not an issue to him as he’s begging for water on his tongue from the depths of hell.
Highrise on January 4, 2007 at 4:18 AM
We are spending way too much time on this. Saddam deserves to be dead, most everyone agrees. This man was so evil, I would bet that anyone posting here would have danced and taunted him if they would have had their children torn apart in front of them, their loved ones whipped to death, eyes gouged out, tongue sliced, teeth pulled with no sedative, every bone in one leg broken one by one, ears cut-off, villages gassed by wmd, children raped, live people drug through the streets until they were bloody stumps, it goes on to the point where most cannot face the fact. It is too hideous for us Americans to conceive of such things. So we block it. There has been few people that were more evil than him…give him what he gave his enemy’s, that was his life, those were his peers. Animals cannot be reasoned with. However you dispose of a predatory animal, who has destroyed so many lives is not important, what is, is that the life is taken. He had no remorse over the tens of thousands tortured or killed, we should have no remorse over how he was killed.
right2bright on January 4, 2007 at 9:37 AM
Again, it’s not about Saddam. If the goal was to demonstrate that a democratic form of government is superior to the Saddam regime, and indeed to just about every other government in the mid-east, then this was a foolish mistake.
As for Saddam’s “courts”, are we to pattern ourselves after criminals and despots? To what end? The Iraqis would do well to remember the old saw: Living well is the best revenge.
Why I expected this to be anything other than what it turned out to be is beyond me. Hope springs eternal I suppose.
honora on January 4, 2007 at 12:18 PM
Without hope, you might as well go over to the “nuke mecca” crowd. It looks bleak now, but this is an extremely fundamental change for the people of that region. It’s going to be a generational change (at the very least). That doesn’t mean we should keep silent when they revert to barbarism — we should just not equate lack of progress with utter futility (hopelessness).
And fogw, you need to read more carefully. It’s not about Saddam’s dignity as much as it is about Iraq’s dignity. You’d sacrifice the latter just to trample the former.
Mark Jaquith on January 5, 2007 at 5:39 AM
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