Let me get this straight

Yes, obviously now with the blood-thirsty tyrant finally executed Iraq is bound to prosper, but I fear that without the nation’s most prominent healer the US is going to Hell in a handbasket. Oh, well.

TPM says that it has already happened. As you say, Josh has it right.

The media, meanwhile, have thought hard about their implication in all this. Having drawn appropriate lessons from their earlier stupidity and craven conformism, they now cast a cold eye on the phony spectacle. One particular gem of good taste and intelligence:

“…NBC News, however, indicated it might go further than its competitors. Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said the network might show “a wide shot of Saddam hanging.” He said NBC would make its decision based on questions of taste and history.

“I think it might be appropriate at some point to see an image of Saddam after he is hanged,” Mr. Capus said, citing previous historic images of dictators who had been killed. “I think about that iconic image of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, lying literally in the gutter. I want to do this with a measure of taste, but I don’t want to stand in the way of history.”…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/business/media/30netw.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Tom T: It might be something like justice if he had been tried for any of the major massacres that happened during his reign, and if the trial had been fairly run, and if it hadn’t been run so completely by the US, and if the execution hadn’t been pushed so as to be one more insult to the Sunnis. Unfortunately none of those apply.

tom t, that’s the point – ‘one small speck’, because that’s all that’s likely to be. One small speck in an orgy of evil that’s clearly headed to making Saddam’s era look like the good old days.

Saddam’s preferred title of “Leader, President, Struggler” is now up for grabs.

Eh? And I thought the right wing was about balance and objectivity! So, any mention of Saddam’s brutal crimes must be accompanied by a mention of Bush’s failures in Iraq… not.

I’ve been listening to BBC radio news bulletins most of the day since early this morning.

The execution has been the lead and major news item throughout. The coverage down to the last ghoulish detail has been extensive and sickening and I can say that without holding any brief or sympathy for the object executed. What I find especially sickening is the comparison with another minor item in the same news bulletins: at least 50 people have been killed in Iraq today as the result of various bombings. But something like that number killed in Iraq has been the regular daily news for the last several months.

“December was also shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths since the AP began keeping track in May 2005.

“Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to the AP count. That compares to at least 2,184 killed in November at an average of about 70 a day, the worst month for Iraqi civilians deaths since May 2005. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4434958.html

I too agree with Bob B and many others. One other thing is worth noting. Why execute Saddam Hussein so swiftly? The Washington Sniper went on trial and was sentenced to death. He wasn’t executed immediately and not only because there were legal options available, such as appeals. Instead, he remained alive in order to be put on trial for each of the crimes in different states he had committed. Now Saddam Hussein is condemned in trial one, while trial two continues. Trial two (as I understand it) involves a greater number of dead and (if I have this right) Kurdish victims. Why kill Saddam before the second trial is over? Why should his victims one case be heard, but not others? Is the fear that a successful challenge could be lodged? There seems a real rush to kill, not least the mafia-lookalikes doing the dirty work on our television screens. This is itself quite worrying, irrespective of whether or not we believe Saddam Hussein deserves execution and whether or not we agree with the use of capital punishment.

Nat Whilk:

Good catch.

Re: 18 — Sometimes it’s possible to make good points using Lacanian terminology, but you have to actually use it correctly. For instance, the “big Other” does not refer simply to some outside entity that is big and strong.

Re. 23- No one likes a smart-arse.

Posted by Thom Brooks: “Why should his victims one case be heard, but not others? Is the fear that a successful challenge could be lodged? There seems a real rush to kill, not least the mafia-lookalikes doing the dirty work on our television screens. This is itself quite worrying, irrespective of whether or not we believe Saddam Hussein deserves execution and whether or not we agree with the use of capital punishment.”

The commonly-batted around justification is that this was a discrete crime on Saddam’s part. Classically, gassing the Kurds might involve questions on where the chemical technology came from; for an idea of the PR problems, meditate on that famous picture of Rumsfield shaking Saddam’s hand. The massacre for which he was executed was a relatively clean, small and tidy crime, with no slop-over onto areas that a certain superpower might not wish to publicize.

Astrongmaybe, I can only hope that you don’t know what the term “money shot” refers to.

http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=119
this is a nice compilation via NY Times on the execution (comments by readers). The comments are indictive of a number of position and I assume by fairly literate and articulate readers. I do note that a number of commen ts refer to our support of Saddam for a number of years.

Anybody who deals with right-wingers should be, Dan. It’s an incredibly useful theory to explain their behavior.

Really? I’ve seen it on occasion, of course, but no more (or less) frequently than among left-wingers, as far as I can recall. And I’ve rarely seen such a textbook case as the one I pointed out above. Do you have any specific examples in mind?

Dan-

You seem to not have any familiarity with how long the legacy of colonialism can last in the minds of nations that have experienced life under the thumb of great powers. I’m sure you won’t think of Saddam’s execution in terms of American power, but I’m sure you’re not that considerate of how many citizens of non-great power nations view world politics anyway.

Your post reminds me of a character in Cracking India, a British merchant opining on the partition plan saying something like, ‘whatever happens, at least they won’t be able to blame everything on the Empire anymore.’

You seem to not have any familiarity with how long the legacy of colonialism can last in the minds of nations that have experienced life under the thumb of great powers.

I understand that it is often convenient for a nation, or one or more leaders or factions within it, to cultivate the belief that the nation’s present troubles can be blamed on some particular present or past person, group or nation and their real or imagined misdeeds. “The legacy of colonialism” is one such convenient scapegoat, and it’s possible that some future Iraqis will find it comforting or even expedient to blame their nation’s problems–whatever they turn out to be–on America’s participation in the execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006.

But there’s no particular reason to expect that “American invaders” will be a more popular all-purpose bogeyman in Iraq than, say, “the Jews”. (Indeed, I rather expect the latter to receive more Iraqi blame than the former for many generations to come.) And my prediction of how current events will be viewed in the future considered only serious retrospectives, implicitly excluding ignorant mythmaking, conspiracy-theorizing or hate-mongering.

Your post reminds me of a character in Cracking India, a British merchant opining on the partition plan saying something like, ‘whatever happens, at least they won’t be able to blame everything on the Empire anymore.’

Yes–naive of him, wasn’t it? Indeed, as he spoke, his own countrymen were busy inventing all sorts of silly things to blame on the Empire, on behalf of its soon-to-be-former subjects.

“They” can blame anything on anyone, after all. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to take their nonsense seriously.

I understand gladness at the news, say, of the sudden comeuppance of a bad actor – Uday, for instance, getting it. But a death that has been cooked this long isn’t going to make me glad – however much I may find it just or appropriate. Must be residual stuff from Sunday School.

In this case, the execution, coming after a kangaroo trial, was not just or appropriate – just inevitable. And, as usual, shortsighted and selected to make sure the Americans aren’t embarrassed. The upcoming trial of Saddam Hussein’s mass murder of the Kurds would not only involve the countries that aided him, militarily, but those that paid for the military aid – notably, Kuwait and the Saudis. Those that Iraq is ridiculously, unfairly and stupidly paying off even now.

However, to be fair, it wasn’t just to please the miserable Bush minions. As Juan Cole has pointed out, the murders for which Saddam was executed bear directly on the Dawa party, which makes the execution look even more like a factional hit. Nice job.

Mr Simon. Here’s Juan Cole’s pocket history (with links) of S. Hussein’s rule, including his long standing relations as a client, however troublesome, of the US.

And here’s you:

Actually, 10, 30 or 50 years down the road, nobody outside the US (and hopefully relatively few inside the US) will think of the execution of Saddam Hussein in terms of American power at all, one way or the other. They will think of it as a gigantic step forward for the people of Iraq, or as just another in a series of violent changes of government, depending on how Iraq evolves.

Oh Jesus fucking christ what an asshole and an idiot you are.
I suppose that it is possible that in 50 years Iraqis may be able to look back and say that the American fiasco was the catalyst to finally break apart the old order and allow the forces of moderation and modernity to coalesce in the Middle East. But
Here’s Josh Marshall’s favorite liberal Zionist, and whiney little putz named M.J. Rosenberg:

Personally, I never much cared whether Israel’s neighbors were democratic so long as they were willing to live in peace with Israel.

Jordan, for instance, is not a democracy in the western sense but it is precisely the kind of neighbor Israel needs. Egypt is not a democracy but is at peace with Israel. A democratic Egypt probably would not be. So let’s lay the democratic crusade aside (which, of course, we do anyway if we don’t like the choices made by the voters in these various countries).

So let’s hope that popular sovereignty comes to the Middle East, which it may. But how the fuck you yourself could want that is beyond me. But then again I know you don’t.

This mess may work out well for the world, but for the moment we’re all covered in blood and a lot less safe. And for the US and Israel, no matter what, it’s a lose- lose situation.
Happy New Year dimwit. Go get drunk and celebrate.

Hey, never mind that Iraq’s safety is going to the pits, never mind that the US’s own soldiers have died by the thousands, never mind that the court that tried Saddam was a kangaroo court, that’s OK as long as I can find some silly mud to fling at those darn “European leftist academics”!

As I said, future generations outside America will not care very much at all that “the US’s own soldiers have died by the thousands” and that Saddam was tried by what you and Josh Marshall consider a “kangaroo court”. Why should they? These are concerns that occupy American (and international) critics of America, not Iraqis (or anyone else) concerned about Iraq.

As for the civil strife that has bedeviled Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein–well, it’s a complicated topic, about which I have my own views. But Marshall barely even touches on it–he’s too busy talking about what Iraq means to Americans, how it’s being presented to them, how certain American leaders prefer to think about it, and how much he dislikes how they think about it. In short, his comments fairly reek of US-centric solipsism.

By an eerie coincidence, the American fatality count is poised to hit 3000 over the weekend. Of course, the Cheney regime and its Little Manchukuo client in the Green Zone would never think of using one event to push another off the front pages…..

I can only hope that you don’t know what the term “money shot” refers to.

I do know. I was trying to allude to pornographic aspects of the whole sordid spectacle. Glad you picked up on it.

Was this the whole point of the schreck-
lich attack on Iraq and the wreck
of its present and past
to give Bush at last
Saddam Hussein hanged by the neck?

Not to mention that a trial based on the massacres of the Shiites in 1991 might bring to mind some uncomfortable questions about a certain former president

I´m always amazed by the unwillingness of crooked timberites to rip to folks like Dan Simon the new orifices they so desperately seem to need in order to evacuate all the excrement they have been building up.

I suspect the unwillingness is something like the unwillingness to enter into conversation with a old drunk on the train, haranguing you about something or other. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to win out somehow, but what would be the point? “Poor man’s only looking for some love, anyway,” you think, and move away from the smell.

It’s still just a wino you’d be engaging with, though, no matter how many other people are on the train listening in. If I can mix metaphors, maybe you should keep your powder dry… (Though I did enjoy your post a lot, I must say.)

Accusing anyone who doesn’t hate Arabs as much as they do of being anti-Semitic.

As I said, future generations outside America will not care very much at all that “the US’s own soldiers have died by the thousands” and that Saddam was tried by what you and Josh Marshall consider a “kangaroo court”.

That may be one of the most thoroughly asinine comments Mr. Simon has written. One wonders if he really knows anything about history. Here’s a few pointers:

Future generations of Americans found “separate but equal” repellent enough to end it.

Future generations of Americans found the internment of the Japanese in WWII to be repellent enough that they awarded the survivors compensation.

Future generations of Americans found denying women the right to vote repellent enough to guarantee them the right to vote.

Some people wear their denseness like a badge of honor.

From a utalitarian point of view, it would have been much better under the circumstances, if someone had simply tossed a few grenades into the spider hole.

Dan Simon s3z,

Marshall started it, with his “10, 30 or 50 years down the road” business, but I shouldn’t have followed along.

Well, you did follow along. And you insisted on following along because you couldn’t take a hint. Why?

Let it suffice to say that virtually nobody in Iraq today — or anywhere else, for that matter, apart from those obsessed with America — cares about the number of American casualties, …

Speak for yourself. You don’t care about Iraqi or American casualties. All you care about is finding mud to sling.

…or whether Saddam Hussein’s trial and execution live up to American judicial standards.

And neither do you care. What you care about is accusing others (e.g. Josh Marshall) of not caring about stuff.

Real projection involves projecting one’s own faults onto another completely innocent party.

“Completely innocent”? So are you still insisting that your “10, 30, or 50 years down the road” business isn’t moronic quibbling?

Instead, I chose a less confrontational point: that even someone who opposes the war on neo-pacifist principle should be willing to focus on the positives of the removal and execution of Saddam Hussein for Iraq…

No, that wasn’t even anywhere near your point. Your point wasn’t even about Iraq, or Saddam, or Bush. Your point was “JOSH MARSHALL IS A CLOSTERED POLITICAL JUNKIE ROTFLMAO L0LZ W00T W00T W00T!1111111” Didn’t remember that? Read your initial reply again. Great way to look “less confrontational”.

Go away, lamer.

OK, I think I’ll continue where I left off..

Dan Simon,

Now, pacifism isn’t a rational or pragmatic position — it’s a moral passion, an axiomatic conviction.

Well, at least it’s some sort of position. Your ‘position’, on the other hand, is just this: “You suck. Yes, you. You over there, you suck too. He sucks. And oh yes, she sucks. You all suck.” That’s your ‘position’.

But if someone advocates a popular viewpoint — say, that invading a country to depose a monstrous dictator has its moral attractions …

Or, how about the popular ‘viewpoint’ that you keep espousing? He sucks, she sucks, they suck, everyone sucks.

…then the counterarguments must be all the more vehement and shrill if they are to have any effect.

Hey, what were you expecting?

Dan Simon: Marshall sucks! Marshall is a cloistered junkie! And lots of other people suck!
Kieran Healy: Hmm, time for some civilized discussion.

The “torture” debates here have a similar flavor: …

Aye, they do.

Henry: Here are some pictures of waterboarding.
David Kane: CT is LGF times -1 w00t w00t w00t!1111111111
Michael Sullivan: That’s not true, and I’m a conservative.
David Kane: I’ll quibble over the word “infests”.

And lest I be accused of rank partisanship, social conservatives, as well, routinely …

You’re not a social conservative. You’re a mud-slinger.

Finally, at its most extreme, this kind of shrillness devolves into ad hominem attacks: “if you don’t accept my moral absolutes, then you are a Satanic monster who deserves only condemnation—get thee behind me, supporter of ‘just wars’!”

Jeez. Anyone who’s read this far will know that no reality was involved in the writing of Dan Simon’s above paragraph.

Generally, I try to avoid this kind of moral pie-fight.

And instead you go on, I don’t know, an amoral pie-fight? Going around throwing metaphorical pies with “YOU SUCK ROCKS” written in big bold letters — feels great, doesn’t it?

Austin Bramwell wrote, “Since 9/11, the conservative movement has not made unsound or fallacious arguments for supporting Bush’s policies. Rather, it has made no arguments at all. T.S. Eliot once asked, ‘Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?’ The answer: ‘Nothing, again, nothing.'”

That’s you, Mr. Simon. You have no argument. No position. No nothing. Nothing. Nothing, again, nothing.

godfrey, I was of course referring to the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, so your riposte, like so much of what you type, is misguided, clumsy, replete with a feckless moral outrage, and besides the point.

The point of course, was that the mania of posters like “bi” is cringe-inducing (even to himself, were he to actually re-read what he writes in a calmer frame of mind).

For example, he typically over-enthuses, and says I indulge in “cheap potshots” while arguing about world issues – quite oblivious to the fact that I 1. did NOT express an opinion one way or the other as to the issues being debated 2. only made a meta-comment on the conduct of discussions here.

As a result, not only is he wrong on the facts, he becomes a self-contradicting hypocrite – for he himself engages in the cheap postshots he rails against, issuing such epithets as “moronic”, “troll”, “lamer”.

What could be a more searing self-indictment?

lol, don’t bother to reply, it’s clear civility and consistency mean nothing to you when I’m castigated for merely asking you to calm down. A raging frivolity is indeed an apt descriptor of mania.

i think there are many iraqis (such as the kurds, who were denied the opportunity to hold saddam to account for halabja) who care very much about the failure of the trial to abide by what you so quaintly describe as “american judicial standards.”

I would be very interested to see evidence of this. My impression is that Iraqis, including (perhaps especially) Iraqi Kurds, are happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, and not particularly disturbed by the judicial standards by which he was condemned. But if you can cite reliable evidence to the contrary, I’d love to see it.

Then again, it’s not like this issue really matters (to Simon), since Simon’s initial point was simply that a lot of people suck.

“godfrey, I was of course referring to the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution,

My bad. However, you (of course) know that in the context of the Russian Revolution the Red Guards were armed groups of workers that went on to provide the core of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. The mention of the Gulag system is somewhat off-base, since it was introduced officially quite later. The extensions by the Soviets of the Zarist practice of work camps began early on, though.

Your clarification provides (arguably) even more grist for my mill, anyway. See below.

“so your riposte, like so much of what you type,”

I´m often wont to troll, which is obviously a dubious practice of limited amusement value (except to myself, that is). Now I´m (sorta) serious, however.

“is misguided…”

Oh, this one you won´t pull off so easily. You see, I have no pretensions of being able to put forth particularly profound insights. What I do say, on the other hand, is simple and widespread enough for it not to be possible to dismiss it so perfunctorily and cheekily as you´re trying to do.

In what we´ll charitably term the “debate” with Dan, I´ve been stating or clearly assuming the following:

-the much-vaunted hegemony of the US is waning, for a plurality of reasons (e.g. the rise of China and India, the increasing availability of nuclear deterrence, the growing resistance towards globalization on one hand and questioning of its equivalence to “Americanization” on the other, etc.);

-inasmuch as it showcases the difficulties, in a thoroughly politized (third) world, of making political gains out of conventional military superiority, the failure of the US at counterinsurgency in Iraq is of geopolitical interest (e.g. throwing the doctrine of unilateral pre-emptive military action into the toilet); inasmuch as it will hamper any future efforts of the US to exert its influence in a key region, it´s even more interesting;

-the chaos and bloodshed in Iraq were predictable, predicted, and of enormous relevance to assess the morality of the war.

You are welcome to try and argue that the above is misguided, under one condition: that we agree to meet and have a beer, say, thirty years down the line, so that I´ll be able to have a good laugh at you. The beer will be on me, though.

“replete with a feckless moral outrage,”

You are a bit full of crap, you know. Amused contempt at the self-serving lies and half-truths of a shrinking base of true believers does not an indignant attitude make.

“and besides the point.”

Or perhaps it´s you who doesn´t get it. The “point”, dear, is that by posturing as civil and level-headed, you´ve given us a rhetoric pearl that is more cringe-inducing by far than anything that has been said so far. Red Guards? Are you out of your gourd?

You´re a poseur.

Dan Simon, the onus is on you to prove your point, since you made it in the first place. You don’t just offer up an “impression” and then ask for “reliable evidence” from the other side.

My impression is gleaned from the numerous press reports I’ve seen, none of which mentioned Iraqis fretting about the procedures governing Saddam Hussein’s trial and condemnation. I did see complaints that more of his crimes weren’t included in the indictment, as Snuh suggested, but that’s not really a procedural issue. (Indeed, “American judicial standards” most certainly include trying a defendant for what he or she can be conclusively proven guilty of, not for what “everybody knows” are his or her worst crimes.)

Of course, that doesn’t prove that no Iraqis were raising procedural concerns, and perhaps there are credible reports that I haven’t seen describing many Iraqis doing so. That’s why I expressed interest in seeing evidence to that effect.

lol godfrey your post is a mess. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t bother replying.

My dear boy, Dan. *No* Iraqis had any problems with the procedures surrounding Saddam Hussein’s trial and execution? First, how do you know this is true—have you interviewed every Iraqi? Second, this seems manifestly false. For one thing, there were many Sunnis who made it clear that they too considered Saddam Hussein their president and rejected his being at trial in the first place. Third, even if no Iraqis did have a problem, we can happily attribute this to the horrendous propaganda being published and broadcasted by US-controlled media in Iraq. (Although, again, it is clear that many Iraqis have vocally objected to the trial.) Finally, we might also throw in the mix that all things considered Iraqis ought to object to the trial anyways: (a) the rule of law does not permit us to issue sanctions (not least death) retrospectively, (b) the rule of law requires an independent judiciary which then prohibits the US from forcing the presiding judge from a running trial for no reason other than that they didn’t like how they perceived he was viewing the case, (c) the right to trial is of the accused to hear charges against him and it prohibits executing people in the middle of a trial which, in turn, prohibits executing Saddam Hussein before the main trial—about his responsibility for gassing Kurds—was completed. Shall I continue?

For you to be wrong, all I need do is demonstrate either (a) you can’t know what you claim or (b) what you claim is manifestly false. I can then throw in additional (and weaker) normative reasons about (c) the wrongness of how information is being spread in Iraq or (d) the objective invalidity of the trial both in principle and from any clear account of the recent historical record.

Saddam Hussein was a real son of a gun. A lot of people feel undermined because they openly professed support for a war where their government so very clearly misled them. I am proud to say I didn’t support either Gulf War. Supporters of the conflict now undermined instead claim that, well, the war is still justifiable but handled wrong. What I love here is that instead of the US government manipulating facts that such persons can recite like willing parrots, these people manipulate facts on their own—they are happily complicit in this horrible conflict. We are told now that Iraqis really support the conflict and that they have no problems with Saddam Hussein’s trial. Rubbish.

Where do you get your news? The New York Post?

It took me all of one minute to find this and this.

As I explained, I did find articles, such as the first one you linked to, about Iraqis complaining that Saddam Hussein wasn’t tried for a much broader set of crimes. But again, I consider that to be the exact opposite of a procedural complaint. Politics and history argue for a full accounting for Saddam Hussein’s crimes, but procedural fairness requires that he be tried only for those crimes for which sufficient proof of guilt can be presented at trial.

The second article is an interesting one–thanks for pointing it out. (For some reason it didn’t show up in my searches–even of the NYT specifically.) It’s hard to tell, actually, what the Iraqis it quotes are objecting to “when they speak of “death squads” and “behaving in the same way [as Saddam Hussein]”–the quotations are shorn of context, amidst heavy editorializing by the reporter. They might be objecting to a lack of procedural fairness in the trial–or they might be complaining strictly about what they perceive as the anti-Sunni symbolism incorporated into the execution. It would have been nice if Ms. Tavernise had let the Iraqis in question speak a little more for themselves–then we would have known for sure what, exactly, angered them about Saddam Hussein’s treatment.

Again, it’s possible that one of Iraqis’ main concerns regarding Saddam Hussein’s fate is whether his trial was procedurally fair. I just haven’t seen any persuasive evidence to that effect–and I’ve seen lots of evidence suggesting that their reactions are dominated by the political and historical (rather than judicial) significance of his execution.

The carrying out of a sentence is also part of judicial procedure.

Fair enough–if what Josh Marshall meant by “pretend mumbojumbo”, and what BI meant by “kangaroo court”, was that the conduct of Saddam Hussein’s execution did not pay sufficient respect to Sunni sectarian sensibilities, then I’ll concede that their thinking isn’t merely US-centric, and apologize for assuming that they were alluding to legal aspects of the trial and sentencing.

do you seriously contend that an american appeals court (the standard you’ve chosen to use) would allow an execution to proceed where the damned was at the time of his scheduled death, defending charges of genocide?

Well, I’m as far from an expert on these things as one can get, but I really don’t see why not. My impression, for example, is that many serial killers are executed while still suspects–perhaps even with enough evidence for an arrest–in numerous additional murders. If nothing else, it would set a terrible precedent to allow a murderer to escape the death penalty for a prolonged period simply by being also implicated in even more heinous crimes.

(Of course, if we’re talking about the ninth circuit here, then all bets are off–there’s simply no telling what wacky ruling those guys will come up with next….)

so there is no difference (as a matter of, say, criminal procedure) between (i) someone who is suspected of a crime and not charged, and (ii) someone who has been charged with a crime and is on trial?

nice try, dan.

Can you get that stuff in Michigan?

What happens when the defendant dies of natural causes during a criminal investigation or a trial?

Ken Lay’s conviction was vacated when he died before sentencing. I could not imagine your scenario would be worse.