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Saturday, December 30, 2006

This changes nothing
Posted by Jill | 9:01 AM
And so little President Pencil-Dick has now proven that he can outdo daddy by executing Saddam Hussein.

Congratulations, Georgie. Now go back to the bottle of Wild Turkey and enjoy your day.

The timing of this execution is somewhat odd, occurring not before the election, when it's possible (though unlikely) that it would have done Bush some good; nor right before the State of the Union address, when he could have strutted up before Nancy Pelosi and what he perceives as the other Dickless Democrats and said "I have succeeded in killing the tyrant." Which would have made millions of Democrats wonder, if he'd suicided, why he was up talking in front of Congress, but no matter. (Note to Secret Service: No, this is NOT advocating violence or other criminal actions against the president.)

So here's the question: Was the execution of Saddam Hussein at the end of the "not just any Friday but a holiday-weekend" news dump the Iraqis' way of thumbing their noses at Bush, or were there rumblings that Saddam, knowing he had nothing to lose, might start singing like a canary about the good old days carousing with Rummy back in the days when we gave him the chemical weapons he needed to "gas his own people"?

I guess we'll never know.

Jurassicpork at Welcome to Pottersville notes:

The reason for which Saddam will be executed, his ordering the massacre of 148 Shi’ites in 1982, was never, to my knowledge, mentioned in the run-up to war. Perhaps the reason why it was never mentioned was because Saddam carried out these executions with a wink and a nod from Reagan and Poppy, his two bestest buddies. Rummy would soon join the club in December 1983 bearing gifts such as poison gas and satellite photos of the Iranian army’s position.

The moral relativism is what bothers me the most, the overtures that we’re executing Saddam and thereby striking a mighty blow against totalitarianism and human rights abuses the world over while turning an equally selectively blind eye to other tin pot dictators such as Musharraf and much of the Saudi royal family.

And for some reason, it still, nearly 25 years later, completely and utterly eludes the media that Saddam wouldn’t have been so empowered if Reagan had done his job and leaned on Saddam any way he could to get him to play nice. But Saddam was too useful in helping us rid the world of Iranians (Iranians that, wink, wink, had released our hostages on Reagan’s inauguration day in exchange for arms but that’s a story for another day) so we wouldn’t incur the wrath of the Muslim world.

Just like Osama bin Laden, our ultimate blow back, was somewhat useful in fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during their own Iraq/Vietnam. Just like the Shah of Iran was quite useful, just like Noriega was useful, just as Pinochet was useful, just as… Well, I’m sure you get the message by now.

The moral compass of this administration may appear to be pointed true north but it’s so belated in coming that it’s audacious. How can it not make anyone morally nauseous, this easy morality that shifts as easily and as silently as the sand dunes in Iraq?

But let’s consider two things as we contemplate the impending (and televised) execution of Saddam Hussein: Consider how easy it was to convict and sentence to death a man who was never caught on video or audiotape ordering the deaths of those 148 Shias or any of the other people whose murders he’d ordered.

Two: Look at how difficult it will prove to even write up articles of impeachment against a traitorous, murderous little freak like George W. Bush even though we have ample evidence of him ordering the deaths of more than 200 times that many in American lives.


UPDATE: Yes, nothing has changed:

At least 46 Iraqis died in bombings Saturday, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.

The man blamed for parking the vehicle in Kufa, a Shiite town 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was cornered and killed by a mob as he walked away from the explosion, police and witnesses said.

Another explosion killed 15 civilians and wounded 25 in Hurriyah, a mixed neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, police said.

There was no indication the attacks were related to the execution of Saddam Hussein. They came on the eve Eid al-Adha for Iraqi Shiites, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, and shoppers crowded into markets to buy supplies for the four-day festival.

At least 58 people were wounded in the Kufa blast, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf.

Television footage showed hundreds of men in traditional Arab headdresses swarming around the vehicle's charred frame, toppled on its side in the street. Ambulances and fire trucks pulled up to the site, and a coffin could be seen being loaded onto the top of a car.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of three Marines and two soldiers, making December the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq with the toll reaching 108.


Mission accomplished.
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