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Saddam, a Rope, and a Great Escape

[Daily Star-Lebanon] Michael Young - Saddam Hussein's execution was a fitting finale for an aging despot who once dispatched tens of thousands of people in a like manner. Much offense was taken from the fact that in his final moments he had to endure the insults of onlookers. As fate would have it, those Shiites for whom Saddam had displayed such contempt were the ones dropping him into the pit. There was also much commotion about the fact that Saddam was hanged on the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha. But the criticism missed the point. For a man who had ordered the bombing or plundering of myriad holy sites, whose intelligence services had murdered thousands of prisoners in their cells just to make more room for new ones, whose soldiers had slaughtered with unflinching barbarism hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, the hangman's rope was almost too polite a way to go. What justified the reaction of so many Arabs outside Iraq, who could never work up indignation over the regime's crimes, yet now stand in condemnation of Saddam's hanging?
2007-01-10 01:00:00
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