Saddam Hussein’s Execution Has Seemingly Backfired (UPDATED)
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but the news reports now clearly show it:
To a segment of Iraqis, and even to some who were happy to see him go, Saddam Hussein has now become something of a martyr. It is not BECAUSE he was executed. It is because of the WAY in which he was executed.
After the dictator’s execution at breakneck (excuse the language) speed this weekend, the initial images surfacing on cable news and the Internet were from official versions. It showed him at the gallows with a rope being put around his neck. Depending on one’s political views, Saddam looked scared or unbowed.
But it looked like an orderly, if hastily conducted, execution.
Enter the Internet and the age of cell phones. Do NOT view this unless you’re prepared to see the graphic image of Saddam tumbling down to his death, but THIS VIDEO on You Tube was apparently taken by a guard on a cell phone.
It has ignited a firestorm because rather than showing an orderly execution as you have in most countries (or in states in the United States), it almost resembles a lynch mob with political catcalls and insults. (Watch the video yourself and leave your reaction in comments).
It’s the conflict between an official version of events versus an unfiltered version of events (where viewers can judge for themselves). It doesn’t really answer the issue of whether Saddam deserved to live after butchering so many human beings of all ages, or whether capital punishment is a no-no regardless of who the convicted monster is.
But the result: a public relations disaster of unmitigated proportions, one that Iraq’s government is already trying to squelch:
The prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Saddam Hussein’s execution in a bid to learn who among the witnesses taunted the former Iraqi leader in the last minutes of his life, then leaked a cell phone video.The video contained audio of some witnesses taunting Saddam with chants of “Muqtada” and of the former leader responding that his tormentors were being unmanly. It surfaced on Al-Jazeera television and the Internet late Saturday, the day Saddam was hanged.’
The taunts referred to Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who is a main backer of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite leader who pushed for a quick execution of Saddam.
Al-Jazeera said when it broadcast the video that it was exclusive to them. The pictures appeared on the Web at about the same time.
Sami al-Askar, a close al-Maliki political adviser, told The Associated Press that the Iraqi leader had “ordered the formation of an investigative committee in the Interior Ministry to identify who chanted slogans inside the execution chamber and who filmed the execution and sent it to the media.”
The video was particularly inflammatory not only because the disrespectful chanting was clearly audible, but also because it showed Saddam’s death as he dropped through the gallows floor and then swung by his neck, his eyes open and neck twisted dramatically to his right.
AND: The clandestine video portrayed a much different scene than the official tape of the execution, which was muted. That one didn’t show Saddam dropping to his death and didn’t have all the back-and-forth yelling.
How bad was the scene? Bad enough that a top Iraqi official threatened to walk out if it didn’t stop, Reuters reports:
A senior Iraqi court official nearly halted Saddam Hussein’s execution when supporters of a radical Shi’ite cleric and militia leader taunted the former president as he stood on the gallows. Prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon, who is heard appealing for order on explicit internet video of Saturday’s hanging that has inflamed sectarian passions, said he threatened to leave if the jeering did not stop – and that would have halted the execution as a prosecution observer must be present by law.
“I threatened to leave,” Faroon told Reuters. “They knew that if I left, the execution could not go ahead.”
Another Reuters report has something even more damaging to the government’s (Iraqi that is) credibility:
He [al-Faroon] also challenged government claims those who filmed the event were guards, saying they were senior officials. In the video, widely seen on the Internet, observers chant the name of Shi’ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr as Saddam stands on the scaffold, a convicted mass killer appearing dignified in contrast to the uproar below him.
But the government adviser who announced the investigations on Monday into the taunts and filming, accused the opposition of using them to deflect attention from Saddam’s crimes: “This is an artificial uproar,” Sami al-Askari told state television.
“They cannot say this court has been unjust and so they take this mistake and forget Saddam deserved to be executed,” he said. “Saddam was treated well in court and on the scaffold.
“No one beat him or insulted him, yet Saddam tortured many Iraqis, executed thousands and buried them in mass graves.”
The problem: the initial images that were released were a lot more sanitized than the ones that came out later. That leaves the perception that the Iraqi government was trying to keep the true nature of the execution bottled-up. This doesn’t change the gravity of Hussein’s crimes. But the controversy over the speed of the execution and the surfacing of the telephone video showing an unruly scene gives ammunition to anti-government forces and hurts the government’s credibility.
On the other hand, Iraqi’s Prime Minister had vowed that Saddam would not live into 2007. But now, due to the cell phone video being so at odds with the initial version (which implied a tone more than showed the whole event), attempts at national reconciliation may be tougher in Iraq — now the scene of angry Sunni demonstrations.
Meanwhile, this public relations disaster — fueled by the uncensored video being shown around the world and 24 hours a day on the Internet — is likely to be a blow to President George W. Bush as well. He’s soon expected to announce a plan to increase or “surge” the number of U.S. troops in Iraq — a plan not favored by most Americans, according to polls. The somewhat-chaotic tone of the video — even the impact of it on people who don’t see it but hear about it — is unlikely to reassure Americans and boost poll numbers.
At best, Saddam’s execution’s impact in the U.S. will be a wash. At worst, an event that raises American eyebrows. But, most likely, it won’t be the kind of “milestone” Bush had suggested — although it could prove to be another kind of milestone. The drama continues to unfold…
 UPDATE: The BBC reports a big, fat thumbs down on the way the execution was conducted and the cell phone videos by Great Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister:
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has described the circumstances of Saddam Hussein’s execution as “deplorable”. Mobile phone footage showed Saddam being told to “go to hell” by people attending the hanging, while the ex-leader mocks their “bravery”.
Mr Prescott said those responsible for the scenes should be “ashamed”, without saying if that included the Iraqi government which organised the hanging.
Iraq’s government has now begun an inquiry into Saturday’s events.
Mr Prescott told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “I think the manner was quite deplorable really.
“Frankly, to get this kind of recorded messages coming out is totally unacceptable and I think whoever is involved and responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves.”
11 Responses to “Saddam Hussein’s Execution Has Seemingly Backfired (UPDATED)”
I know it’s not the topic at hand, but am I the only one that finds it incredibly hypocritical that YouTube will censor a womans breasts but won’t censor a real live execution?
Frankly if I had to choose what I wanted a child to see I’m sure that I’d rather sh/she sees sex or naked bodies that killing, which in my opinion IS obscene, unlike the nude form.
Saying that the execution has “backfired” suggests you are discussing the reaction of the Iraqi public to the video. I have seen no news reports so far that the execution has had much impact, one way or the other, on general Iraqi opinion and actions.
Even assuming it was “botched”, rather than a calculated mechanism to let a few of Saddam’s many, many, many, many victims release a bit of their bloodlust on the actual person responsible, rather than the generic Sunnis who merely mostly benefited from his misrule, that doesn’t mean that the Iraqis themselves care all that much about the niceties which we here in American seem to find so important.
The execution’s taunts shows that the Shia are looking for power and revenge. It’s this group that some in W’s war council say we should side with in the coming civil war. Sadr is a Shia thug, do we want to support a new strongman who could bring the region to all out war?
Was the trial supposed to be about justice? Or revenge?
Was the execution supposed to be justice? Or revenge?
Justice isn’t a “nicety.” Justice is the recognition and resolve by a nation to conduct itself by rule and law. When rule and law doesn’t exist, there is no justice; there is only revenge, and judicial murder.
People who think justice is a “nicety,” or who think the purpose of trials and executions is revenge, tend to also think they’ll never be the objects of revenge themselves, that they’ll never need the “niceties” of justice.
Saddam’s executioners, and the government that bent over backwards to make sure his execution was an insult to Sunni, are assuming that they’ll never be in the same position as Saddam. Considering what’s been unleashed in Iraq, that’s not an assumption they should be making.
That YouTube video does look like a lynch mob. I’ve supported President Bush and this war from Day 1. And I still think we can do more good in Iraq. But I want that “more” now so we can leave. That lynch mob is a black eye for our government and Iraq’s.
This execution was exactly as I pictured it would be. We all knew whatever images got out to the MSM would be highly sanitized. You don’t show the gory details, the voided bowels, the nuts and bolts of a person dying on TV. We also knew who would be carrying it out and anyone who expected a quite dignified execution is a bit naive.
I also don’t see how this has “backfired” in any way. The militias are pissed now, they were pissed before, and the day to day is unchanged. I’m not a huge supporter of the death penalty, but for people like Saddam, people whose dangerous reach far exceeds their grasp no matter where you lock them up, I think it is the only solution.
Who cares what the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom thinks about the execution?
The only reactions that matter are those of the various factions of the Iraqi people.
The great thing about ME politics is that we lose no matter what we do. Simply, we’re guaranteed that any action or inaction will inflame and disappoint- it’s a high throttle Culture of Grievance. Let the Iraqi government handle Saddam’s execution and we’re decried. Put him in prison for life and we’d be decried. Pull out of Iraq and we’ll be decried. Stay there, and we’ll be decried. The only saving grace is that this Culture eventually will turn on itself- Sunni v. Shi’ite, everyone hating the Kurds. The Bush Administration’s greatest error is assuming that we would somehow rise above this. We can’t.
All of which ties back into Mark Bowdon’s observation cited in Marc Schulman piece- “We Americans consistently underestimate the deep hatreds that divide people. . . . When we look out at the world, we tend to see millions longing to get past the blood feuds, to be, in short, more like us. George Bush and the neocon intellectuals who led us into Iraq are just the latest in a long line of evangelical Americanists. No matter how many times history slaps us in the face, the dream persists.”
Precisely.
Let me expand on comment 9. The video was exactly what I expected. Jeers, taunts, and a combination of carnival and anger, not much sober dignity. But I think the reaction from the western intellectuals is exactly what I expected as well. Outrage and anger about the lack of justice and the obscenity of seeing someone die in public.
The thing is, both reactions represent pretty basic manifestations of some deep seated aspects of human nature. People tend to see things as supporting their ideological, political and philosophical views, and persons in opposition as wrong, if not evil. If you think that all people are good, and that we can all become sensitive, caring and loving of all mankind, then any sort of retribution is wrong, and it seems reasonable to legislate morality by eliminating the death penalty, war, and so on. The British politician’s views seem in line with that sort of thinking. If you take a more Hobbesian view of human nature, you probably support the death penalty, and see the execution of a man like Hussein as an act of justice, and you expect to have to wage war on occasion for self-defense. One problem is, both groups have increasingly used terminology of moral absolutes as shorthand for their views, making anyone that disagrees with them evil – hence all the comments about Bush = Hitler; or Hussein = Hitler. Unfortunately, this mkes it impossible to have much of a discussion about the merits of either perspective.
For those who missed my earlier post, I think Iraq is in a civil war, and has been there since the US led forces began the campaign in 2003. Presient Bush, like President Wilson, seems to have been motivated by what might be called humanitarian impulses to bring western democracy to the Middle East. But, as with Wilson in Mexico, the place is really in a state of anarchy, and both campaigns, Mexican intervention and Iraqi intervention, have failed to bring about the desired democratic society, largely because both Mexico in 1915 and Iraq today do not want western democracy imposed on them from without.
Meanwhile, back at the execution, western liberals are horrified to see the blood lust of political opponents of Hussein expressed so publicly. Well, folks, what did you expect? They have been saying this in so many words since the war began. Folks want to liquidate political opposition, not work with it. Again, I think the anger expressed on this and other blogs about the behavior of the crowd at the gallows shows as much about the world view of the western intellectual community as it does about the world view of the Iraqis. the Iraqis live with a much more elemental view of justice than much of the western intellectual community. They accept retribution as a component of justice, and the death penalty is part of it. The western elites ended public executions because the public got too much pleasure out of them, because the public behaved too much like the people observed in the raw video footage, cheering, catcalling, and treating the whole event like a form of entertainment.
I think the fact is, the war in Iraq long ago broke into the sort of sectarian violence that is not going to care much what the west does, except to use any action of the west as a grievance to argue against, for internal short-term political advantage. Some Iraqis probably think Hussein was executed too soon, some probably wonder why he wasn’t hanged sooner, and some are furious that he was executed at all. No matter what the west says or does, it will be perceived as wrong.
I repeat – I don’t care for either abortions or executions. They’re basically ugly. But I do think that they are legitimate means of resolving some of the problems in our imperfect world. Hussein received a much fairer trial than those his administration gave his political enemies. His execution was pretty professionally done, and he died much more quickly and cleanly than most of his victims. I do not think that people like Milosovic or Hussein can be rehabilitated, and I think it is a much greater danger to leave them in prison than it is to execute them. I feel the same way about murderers, especially those who commit contract killings. My concept of justice is different from most of the associate editors on this blog. I am perfectly willing to hang murderers. If you want to pay to see it on TV, be my guest. I’d just as soon not. But if you think that this is obscene, what do you think of someone who kills tens of thousands of his own citizens? How do you reconcile letting him live in prison, and possibly become a rallying point for his supporters? No, thanks. Give him his choice of last meals, and hang him.
Very well stated, SFB.