Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Rosen on Shiite Execution of Saddam
Nir Rosen at Iraqslogger has a fine analysis of the Sunni Arab reaction to the hanging of Saddam, and includes a partial transcript of the highly sectarian, Shiite chanting at the scene by Iraqi politicians in attendance. I can confirm that Rosen's partial transcript is accurate.
Cindy Sheehan's son died fighting the Mahdi Army; Bush delivered Saddam into the hands of MA's political wing.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/01/2007 08:03:00 AM
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Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
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8 Comments:
Which is particularly odd given that the Mahdi Army is supposed to be the current Public Enemy #1 in Iraq. Still, what can you do for allies if all your potential friends hate you already?
I was listening to news bulletins from the BBC World Service which had comments from people from several countries in the area. It looks like this barbaric execution has turned Saddam Hussein into a martyr. Depending where the reports come from, there were something between hundreds and thousands that visited his burial place. As time passes, the things he was responsible for will fade, and people will only remember that things were a lot better in Iraq while he ran the place. As time passes, his stature will increase.
What an unbelievable mess.
Ejh....
There's a method to the madness.
Bush's strategy is simple...divide conquer stay ...thus has it ever been
With the coming escalation, Bush seeks to divide and conquer the Shiite block...the so-called surge is but the first installment, down payment on the Wider War to come
The more I see this story unfold the more I am becoming convinced that US is using Saddam once again for its end. This time it needs Iraq Shiite Sunni and Saddam execution seems to be perfect fuel for the fire.
Saddam came to power on the CIA backed baath party reveloution across the Arab world. Support for Arab nationalism was the US policy then. Its goal was to roll back the Arab communism. Saddam and did his best to kill the communist movement. Then Saddam was then used to break the back of Iranian revolution. He was armed to the teeth with western arms including chemical and biological weapons.
Then in the first gulf war he was enticed to invade Kuwait to force him to disarm and show case American "smart" weapons on CNN. For post Soviet world, a new ways of fighting wars for cheap from air was needed. Here Saddam was used to undo the effect of Vietnam.
Now his execution, the date, the videos, the handing over of the corpse to his tribe to build a shrine.... All seem to point to one thing. US is interested in creating civil tensions in Iraq.
Supposedly US is against the Mahdi army, yet it is clear from the video that US would like to implicate Mahdi army as the people behind his execution.
There are no Kurds there, there are no Sunnis there. Weren't they as much victims of Saddam regime? Isn't there a Kurd, a Sunni in Iraq that would also be interested in being present at the execution? Yet the video present the image that Saddam was killed by Shiites. Which implies somehow he was a hero for the Sunnis!
For Pentagon planners it may see like a no brain-er that if Sunni and Shiites fight with one another, then eventually they would both be so weak that US can eliminate them both, and create Dr Rice's middle east. The perfect El Salvador Option. It sounds good, end of the day though, the unexpected consequences of such social engineering would end up hurting US and its interest.
There is fruit for conspiracy theories in just about anything. Lack of snow in Europe? Global warming. Too much snow in Denver? Global warming. In terms of pure physics, a small increase in world temperatures can increase precipitation, just as a fall can cause earlier winters and later spring meltings. But, going back to Neanderthal days, people read dire conspiracies or human authorship of weather and celestial events. Bad weather? Then curse or sacrifice whatever SOB you don't like.
If this is true of weather, all the more so of trials and punishments. Courts get little respect. If the execute a fiend, they are dismissed as puppets or blamed for creating a martyr. If they show leniency, they are blamed for failure to vindicate justice or attain closure.
The decision to execute Saddam will also be attributed to intrigue and scheming. Perhaps Laura Bush, Ken Lay, AIPAC, or Paris Hilton told W to make the Iraqis execute Saddam on Dec. 31--or else. Surely, Cheney rubbed his hands and said, "Ah, this will be good for oil. Tell my broker to buy shares of X."
I doubt the execution obeyed any imperislist schemes. Even the most fanatical neocon probably has a lucid sense of both the positive consequences of execution and the ambiguous or negative consequences. Had the US intervened to stop the execution, imagine how the conspiracy theorists would have howled.
People refer to a "Salvador Option" as though it were some kind of paradigm of bloody and cynical pacification of a trouble insurgency. This is an exageration one can blame both on the Right (which cites it as an example of successful counter-insurgency) as well as the left (which cites it as proof of the evils of the CIA or imperialism). Both sides are wrong. The US does have an apetite for power and security, but it is a mistake to interpret every event as a rational outcome of some scheme hatched at Langley or in some board room. Local forces and players have great weight. In Iraq, as in El Salvador, indigenous factors and personalities count more than whatever Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz wanted to see happen.
Where the devil is Charles Tripp these days? Perhaps his engagements with M15 preclude any public comment on his part.
Happy New Year, Saddam is dead
But the Butcher of Baghdad did not lose his head
Tasteful video by the Iraqi government was inept
But a camera phone captured it all while W slept
Hooded thugs taunted the evil dictator on the gallows
Their vendetta executed on a day that was hallowed
They said “God damn you...You're going to hell"
Iran and the White House thought it was just swell
Shiite victims chanted "Moqtada!" at the secular Sunni
An "important milestone" said the "pleased" POTUS cartooney
"Let him swing for three minutes" one witness pled
The birds in the Green Zone will receive no more bread
A few days later, the 3000th US soldier fell
"Bring 'em on" to "mission accomplished" hell
With 600,000 dead Iraqis now on our hands
And our sons and daughters still stuck in the sands
Will this one revenge killing only bring more dread?
Why are those planes once again in my head?
Happy New Year, Saddam is dead.
Perhaps we’ll feel safer if we just stay in bed.
The execution has the curious side effect of preventing the dictator from testifying in any other trial. Think of it as a hedge against embarrassing disclosures.
I've just posted a letter from an Iraqi that describes, in rather halting English, her belief that the Saddam Hussein execution was another of Bush's "gifts of blood." Seems about right.
Agree though that the US is even more incoherent than usual in turning the old dictator over to the Sadrists just before we apparently aim to launch an escalation against them.
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