Casual Friday for Saddam's hangmen: Two legacies in one image.

Poll_Blind

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Sat Dec-30-06 03:13 PM
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Casual Friday for Saddam's hangmen: Two legacies in one image.

  This image shows two legacies. One of them may not be apparent. The obvious one is Saddam's legacy. He bequeaths to the world, albeit unintentionally, the image of his own execution. A grim punctuation mark but not necessarily an unsurprising one given his career. He was a cruel tyrant to his people.

  However, the less-apparent legacy is that of George Bush's Iraq which is symbolized by executioners dressed in street clothes. Four men, each in a coat, shirt and comfortable slacks. Reminiscent of "casual Fridays" in the office. None in uniform except the two military officials who briefly hover in the background, the only one without a ski mask has his face blurred to conceal his identity. Two telling things, I think, in that scene:

:bluebox: The military officials either have their face blurred or are wearing a black ski-mask like everyone else in the room. I can understand why the executioners might wear the ski-masks but why the officials? It seems to me like a kind of "insurance" against retribution once the government falls and things descend further into chaos. These are Iraqi military officials. They are soldiers. To blur the faces of military officals/soldiers present at an execution is to say, in some capacity, that the soldiers or officials do not want to be associated with the event. Which I find strange and, as I said before, telling.

:bluebox: The other "telling" thing is the dress of the executioners themselves. No uniforms: street clothes, ski masks as well. They likely look little different than the other executioners who roam Iraq who do not bother with the pretense of a court's, even an arguably kangaroo-court's, verdict. Outside of anyone's feelings about the death penalty, it would seem appropriate that deaths carried out by the state have some rind, at least, of formality. There doesn't appear to be any.

  And so, Saddam has been executed for his crimes. But it will not be missed, especially by viewers in Iraq, that when he was executed it had no more an air of officiality than one of the many street executions which already take place in that troubled country. It's like they found the first four guys who said they'd do it, gave them ski-masks, brought in the nervous Baghdad chief of police (or whomever) and his aid (who also got a ski-mask) and then quickly got it over with before anyone decided to chicken out and leave.

  I'm reminded of the execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu, leader of Communist Romania, who was captured with his fleeing wife after their government had fallen. Video of the execution (or at least parts of it) were widely circulated at the time and shown on U.S. TV. It was obviously a "rush job". They had been given a quick informal sentencing and executed soon after. The "trial", and this is not to say they were innocent of the crimes they were accused of, but the "trial" was a complete sham. They were then lined up against a wall, and variously singing and telling everyone to "Go to hell!" were riddled with submachine-gun fire.

  Even their executioners seemed to possess more conviction than what I see on the video.

  That we have been in Iraq, supposedly created a government (remember all those purple fingers?), etc. etc...is a joke when you see that this hugely symbolic act was, in fact, executed nervously, amateurishly, and with no formality associated with a government execution.

PB