Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti is dead, finally. The hangman has sprung the trap, and Saddam is gone. And
as photographic proof from the usual sources has shown, he is
well and truly dead. And so I'll offer some final observations on his life and the manner of his death.
1.) Once again all the talking-head “experts” [sic] on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, C-Span, and the BBC are proven wrong. The Sunni communities in Iraq and elsewhere didn't come unglued with rage and grief and run amok with an orgy of rioting or terrorism. No more than usual anyhow. They understand that Saddam provoked the U.S. too many times, started too many wars, and was finally deposed, given a show trial, and executed. This is the norm for Middle Eastern and Iraqi politics you see. The only thing that bothers anyone, other than the most hardcore Saddam loyalists, is that a Shia hangman in the pay of the puppet government pulled the lever to hang him. It's an "honor culture" thing, which I am not gonna go into here and now, but you can look it up. In honor cultures people like to handle things such as this for themselves.
2.) Being the arrogant ego-maniac he was, Saddam wouldn’t just hop on a jet with his wife, sons, and entourage, and fly away into exile, as he was offered the chance to do. Bad move, Mr. President.
3.) Even though it would have brought the roof down on his head from the usual suspects in the American mainstream media, Bush should have been more upfront and supportive of the decision to execute Saddam. Sure, this would have been denounced by Amnesty International and the rest of that ilk, but “victor's justice” is a concept that is widely understood and accepted in the Arab world. And it would have made perfect sense to Iraqis of all denominations and factions. We won, you lost, so you die; and this is especially just in their eyes too, in that Saddam wasn't astute enough to run off into exile; this appeals to their sense of justice on several different levels.
4.) When Saddam went into exile himself for a while in 1959, it was because he had tried to shoot dead the then-current Iraqi dictator, who had himself driven the previous tyrant, King Faisal II, into exile. So Saddam knew the stakes involved here, and chose to stay and fight it out with the U.S. This will be admired by some, but derided as insanely foolish by most. Saddam wasn't a martyr in their eyes (i.e. some who dies defending his country, his family, tribe, or for Islam); he was a fool who didn't know or couldn't see the party was finally over. This, to the Middle Eastern mind, seems very stupid indeed. Nixon bailed out when his position became untenable, as did Gorbachev when the Soviet Union imploded, because that is what smart politicians do. When your time’s up, you leave. Because you will leave, one way or another, like it or not. Saddam was lucky, and even brave in some respects, but not that wise apparently. And so he paid for it.
5.) Middle Eastern leaders leave office as head of state in one of three ways typically; they get assassinated (Sadat in Egypt, Harreri and Gemayal in Lebanon, Rabin in Israel, and King Faisal I in Saudi Arabia), die of natural causes while still in office (Nasser in Egypt, Assad in Syria, Arafat in Palestine), or they flee into exile (the Shah of Iran, King Farouk of Egypt, and King Idris I of Libya). Saddam gambled and picked door number four; and his "prizes," so to speak, were humiliation via a show trial and then death at the end of a rope.
Hmm... Perhaps Saddam’s manner of death will begin a trend. I kind of like the thought of the tyrants in my life, and their numerous enablers, beneficiaries and minions, dancing on air under the local streetlight poles. But this murderous feeling usually passes after a while. Usually...
P.S. – The “RIHYB” acronym in the title means, “Rot in hell, you bastard”.
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