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.

Precisely.

The only reactions that matter are those of the various factions of the Iraqi people.

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.

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.

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.

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.