Strange Days

[H2O Man]

(a) "What we learned firsthand is what the CIA psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called ‘malignant narcissism,’ a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries." --How Saddam Thinks; Joseph Wilson; San Jose Mercury News; 10-13-02

(b) "Saddam Hussein is a murderous sociopath whose departure from this Earth would be welcomed everywhere. ...

"He mocked American will and courage, telling me that my country would run rather than face the prospects of spilling the blood of our soldiers in the Arabian Desert. ....

"Is it a war to liberate the people of Iraq, oppressed all these years? Is it a battle in the war on terrorism? Or is it, as President Bush often says, all about disarmament? Clarity matters, because our goals will determine how Hussein reacts. By all indications, Hussein is clear in his own mind about our intentions: He believes we are going to kill him, whether he disarms or not." – A ‘Big Cat’ With Nothing to Lose; Joseph Wilson; Los Angeles Times; 2-6-03


In the large number of threads on DU that deal with the execution of Saddam Hussein, we find an impressive amount of information and opinions. I think it is important for all of us to recognize that the issues involved are complex, and despite the fact that we are discussing the death of a man in a foreign land, the topic may have a very real impact on us as individuals and as progressive democrats.

In large part, the execution involves an issue that has been debated in the USA – and certainly on DU – which is the death penalty. We see very real differences in values among the DU community on the issues that are part of the debate on capital punishment. It would be an error to assume that those with very different values on capital punishment are not "real" democrats; it would be a far worse mistake not to make note of the fact that republicans have used the differences in values as an emotionally explosive wedge issue.

In a "community" as large as DU, it is important to recognize that a number of members have likely had a family member or friend murdered. That may impact their feelings about capital punishment. They may have very strong feelings for or against the death penalty It is very possible that some people who participate on DU have family ties to Iraq. More, many DUers have either served in the military, possibly in Iraq, or have loved ones who have served in either the first Gulf War or the current Iraqi invasion. These personal situations do not make those people’s opinions of more or less "value" – but they are things that I try to keep in mind when I read and respond to other DUers.

There have been interesting discussions about the "fairness" of Saddam’s trial. This, of course, includes issues about the influence that the US, particularly the Bush administration, had on the legal process in Iraq. A person may believe the process was as fair as possible, or they may feel the trial was seriously flawed. Some may wish Saddam had been tried for the many other brutal crimes against humanity that he was certainly a participant in. Others may believe that Saddam could potentially have provided documentation of the Reagan-Bush1 administration’s providing Iraq with WMD in the 1980s.

No matter what a person believes, there are photos of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, and there are records of President Bush saying, "After all, he’s the guy who tried to kill my Dad." Reasonable people can hold different opinions on the extent that the USA’s support for Saddam "created" the monster, though all rational debate must recognize the USA played a role.

There also apear to be a wide range of opinions on what the results of Saddam’s execution will be. Will it cause further divisions within Iraq? Or will there be a sigh of relief among the many different factions of that violently divided land? Will Iraqis believe that it was their decision to execute Saddam? Or will they conclude that, no matter how much they despised Saddam, that it was a Bush/Cheney decision to kill an Arab in his own land? Will there be an increase in violence aimed at the American military – including, of course, the family and friends of some of the DU community? Will there be consequences in other lands?

There are many, many factors involved in the death of a man who surely ranks among the most evil of "leaders" in current times. I think discussions on DU about the topic are very valuable. Even the heated debates can hold the potential for that same value. Likewise, I recognize that there is a very real potential for the negative force to divide people, at a time when we should be identifying the ways that the DU community can best coordinate efforts to unite Americans against the war in Iraq.

[mzteris]

1. sounds like

Georgie-boy!

"an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called ‘malignant narcissism,’ a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading ... countries"

[H2O Man]

4. I remember

basketball great Bill Russell saying, "Chose your enemies carefully; they are the ones you will come to most closely resemble." I have no idea if he originated the saying, but it has always seemed to make a lot of sense to me.

[nashville_brook]

14. William Irwin Thompson said "you become what you hate..."

i read these words in one of his books 20+ years ago and no single phrase has served me better.

maybe it works like this: once you indulge the luxury of "hating" something, you've entered it's orbit and one way or another you'll be pulled in.

[nolabels]

44. That is a simplistic explanation of a complexity we spend little time trying to understand

All we have from here to the end of time is an eternity to spend with ourselves with things like these. The understanding we are all born helpless and take from others (learn if you will)what we think will help us to survive. Child psychology is a good place to start. The idea that this very complex thing called our brain takes years learn to separate itself from the world around it.

Almost all emotion is based on a lack of knowledge or a fear of lack of knowledge. Knowing what you are missing in any attempt to go forward in this equation of lack of knowledge or fear always helps. It's okay to hate as long as we learn to accept that that hate is only our lack of understanding. A lack of understanding of how it is that we are in this world and what we are seeing as relates directly to who we are. We all were a once this once born naked child that has borrowed most of what it has now.

I want to hate America because in that way i can become part of it :shrug:


(snip)
Anyway, haven't seen you in a while.
How've you been? Have you changed your style?
And do you think that we've grown up differently?
Don't seem the same since you've lost your feel for me.

So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me and we just disagree.
Ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-oh-oh.

I'm going back to a place that's far away.



How 'bout you? Have you got a place to stay?
Why should I care when I'm just trying to get along?
We were friends, but now's the end of our love song.

So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me and we just disagree.
Ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-oh-oh.

So let's leave it alone 'cause we can't see eye to eye.
There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy,
There's only you and me and we just disagree.
Ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh.



transcribed by Sean Wang
(snip)
http://www.songlyrics.com/song-lyrics/Mason_Dave/Miscellaneous/We_Just_Disagree/118222.html

[orpupilofnature57]

2. All Misanthropes should be hung or Impeached!

[H2O Man]

5. Removing them

from power is very important. I think that impeachment is one of the greatest concepts to be found in the Constitution of the United States of America.

[orpupilofnature57]

9. I wish they realized it's a last resort to checking power ,not a bargaining tool.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Excellent counsel

Thanks for posting H20 Man

Kicked and recommended

[H2O Man]

6. Thank you.

I appreciate it.

[lostnotforgotten]

7. Help Me Understand

Well the right wingers have extracted another pound of
flesh from Iraq with the Hanging.

What troubles me is the denied moral equivalence.

Help Me Understand.

Saddam Hussein executed for gassing some hundreds of
Kurds (in the eyes of the media because that is all
the American people were told for months as a justification
for illegal invasion).

Bush kills 3,000 US troops (maimed some 20,000 or so
more) and has probably killed some 600,000 Iraqis with
his actions - all for lies told to the American
people.

Is there a disconnect here?

The implications are obvious to me.

Ah, but these are questions that our propagandist,
blood thirsty media will never ask or insinuate.

And these are the questions that mom and pop America
will be denied from considering because if it ain't on
American TV then it just does not matter.

I reread the Declaration of Independence from time-to-time
and think these words speak volumes about our present
right wing government.

"When in the Course of human events it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them with another and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the separation."

Snip ....

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for
light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security."

Truer words have never been spoken. And sadly, the
American people have forgotten their American history.

[mod mom]

17. Sadly, they are too busy shopping, as his evilness recommended.

[wildbilln864]

26. great response...

:hi:

K&R!

[countmyvote4real]

55. Since 2000, I tear up on that second snip.

It's astonishing how relevant those words are today.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

8. Thank you

[spanone]

10. Great observations. K&R.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Excellent analysis

thank you for it!

[H2O Man]

13. Thank you.

We appreciate that you contribute a voice of reason and compassion on this forum.

[H2O Man]

12. For Whom the Bell Tolls ....

The title of Hemingway's 1940 novel comes from John Donne's 1620 poem "Meditation XVII," from his "Devotion Upon Emergent Occasions." Donne was a Jacobean poet, familiar with incarceration and capital punishment: his brother died in prison after being convicted of harboring a Catholic priest, and a Jesuit uncle was hanged, drawn and quartered. The lines that Donne is best remembered for are:

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[rosesaylavee]

15. If we could turn the debates to how

justice is best served, these Sadam threads may become productive rather than divisive. He was a very bad man and caused the deaths of countless thousands. We have a leader who is the same and has done the same. Is capital punishment a productive way to bring about positive change? Will it be in this case? I doubt it.

What do we, as American citizens, as voting participants in our country's government, need to do to rectify this situation? How can justice be best served? Impeachment and indictment of those responsible for injustices perpetrated on the American people and those others abroad is my answer. THAT is our one choice if we are to consider ourselves a civilized and moral people.

BTW, the questions above are mostly rhetorical! Thanks for the thoughtful post.

[H2O Man]

18. "mostly rhetorical"

Good. Rhetoric is a good thing. Years ago, someone tried to smear Minister Malcolm X by accusing him of being a rhetorician. Malcolm pointed out that "rhetoric" comes from a word meaning the public speaking of a teacher. And Malcolm was a public speaker who attempted to teach people to think for themselves about even the most controversial topics.

That said, I agree with you 100% that we should make an effort to focus our discussions -- and debates -- on finding ways to advance justice.

[countmyvote4real]

56. The USA is no longer capable of this task.

It is too proud and delusional to ever equate the crimes of George with the crimes of Saddam. Only the World Court can intervene at this point and save us from ourselves. Unfortunately, I believe the rest of the world is only poised to collect on our monetary debt. The collective citizens of the USA will be damned whether or not they ever or however they participated in this charade.

While there is a glimmer of hope from the mid-term election results, I think the Corporations still control the votes and policies.

To the larger issue:
I don't believe in the death penalty for anybody. It corrupts us all when we take a life however justified or rationalized.

[Old and In the Way]

16. Well said, as always, H2O Man!

I wish I could believe that this man's death would justify our actions in Iraq over the past 35 years...

[H2O Man]

20. I wish I could

believe that, somehow, his death would improve the situation in Iraq in the next 35 years. Then, even if we found the circumstances troubling, we would be able to have a very different conversation. But I think that one of the benefits of being "Old" is not being fooled by those people who have dictated US policy in that part of the world in those 35 years.

[Me.]

19. Without Any Inclination Or Desire To Defend The Dictator

in any way, I can't shake the feeling that this particular resolve of the Saddam matter was a mistake. One way or the other there will be a price to pay, let's hope the man who was in bed when it happened is the one who pays the piper.

[wordpix]

46. execution "a mistake:" not to BushCo. Saddam no doubt had a lot of evidence against

Rummy, Poppy, Cheney and other BushCo executives he did business with. Execution= best way of shutting him up. :puke:

No doubt Saddam had a LOT on this maladmin. and their secret energy deals.

[hippiechick]

21. Now that the precedent has been set ...

... and a "ruthless dictator" has been executed for "war crimes" as determined by a "court of law" ... ahem ...

:shrug:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

22. True, But Even In The Face Of All Those Opinions, Perceptions & Passion, One Thing Is Still Certain:

He's dead.

[disndat]

49. Can we be sure?

[bleever]

23. Thank you for this perspective.

One can only hope that this execution does not become, like the Treaty of Versailles, an instrument of perpetuating the wrongs it seeks to redress and prevent.

[Jim Warren]

24. Played like a violin

This is not directed toward you OP, being honest I'm simply looking for a place to register disgust.

DU has become so FUCKING predictable. The board reeks with the manipulated news story of the day, lead by a fucking ring in the nose of corporate media
not telling people what to think only what to think about.

DUers suck it up, with the ever more prevalent population of trolls and wingjob stealth operators who are transparently making a vocation of infiltrating this forum.

The real enemy of freedom is fascism, always has been, and it all begins right here at home, always has.

I think it's time for me to find another more serious outlet.

[druidity33]

34. maybe try...

here for some news?

www.earthfirst.org

[5X]

25. The latest breaking news summaries that allow me to keep up with

breaking news from different sources almost in real time
and a few certain posters keep me coming back to du on
a daily basis.

I count you among the few.

Thanks.

[annabanana]

27. As always, thoughtful and edifying. . . . ..n/t

[Octafish]

28. Our Monster has created a bigger Monstrosity.

The beasts include more than Saddam Hussein and Poppy's crew. The monstrously insane ignoramus George Walker Bush has created a monstrosity of the Middle East. Upon "taking" office, the guy's done all he could to derail the Arab-Israeli peace process, enflame the animosities between Shia and Sunni, and destroy any bridges he could find between Christians and Muslims. The only possible reasons for this intentional chaos is the intentional destruction of the fragile world order where each nation has value. The New World Order will have no boundaries, only a certain class of megagangster at its apex. That is why, unlike Hitler or Stalin or their cronies, Bush has so enthusiasticlly worked to critically damage the national security of the United States.

We are in deep, chaotic doo-doo. To get out of it requires unity, as detailed in your excellent essay, Brother H20 Man.

[H2O Man]

30. And the earth's people ask,

"Who has made this beast? And who can do battle with it?"
Rev 13:4

[puebloknot]

36. This is a question that has reverberated through time.

The German people asked it in 1939, and kept asking it until 1945.

Now it's being asked in America. The answer to it is *We*! We the People can and must do battle with the beast that has taken up residence in our house.

[westerebus]

51. The mirror.

" Having looked the beast in the eye and saw only myself". Less biblical, though as appropriate: "something wicked this way comes".
The end of your text asks what do we do now. There may be no other course. Shut the country down.
A national day of "prayer" for the 3000th soldier to die in Bush's war.

[Jcrowley]

29. Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history

Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places; but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. "Since you have preserved my narration," said he, "I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity."

Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts, and every feeling of my soul, have been drunk up by the interest for my guest, which this tale, and his own elevated and gentle manners, have created. I wish to soothe him; yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! the only joy that he can now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium: he believes that, when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.

Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes. On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident, or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.

"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound; but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been oppressed; for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my speculations and hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense; by the union of these qualities I conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Even now I cannot recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! my friend, if you had known me as I once was you would not recognise me in this state of degradation. Despondency rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me on until I fell, never, never again to rise.

http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/chapter-24.html

"I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

"Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?"

"What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?"

"So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation."

[bleever]

32. That's a great contribution to this discussion.

Mary Shelley produced a true work of genius there.

[applegrove]

31. Good points. Would we be just as upset if Milosovich was executed?

I think not..other than being against the death penalty..it was clear he was getting a leisurely trial. But anything that happens in Iraq is very complex because of all our feelings on what the *WH has brought to bear on those Iraqi people with a cheap, incompetent and lied-into purposely-long war.

[H2O Man]

33. Right.

In all important situations, we need to ask not only the questions of "how?," but -- more importantly -- "why?"

[John Q. Citizen]

42. I don't think execution is a possibility for Milosovich. World Court doesn't execute.

And he was turned over by his own country for trial, wasn't he? We never invaded Yugoslavia.

[applegrove]

50. Sure we did. The balkan war. But I was just using it as an example.

Not implying it was in the cards. The point is he had a trial in a purer sense. As Saddam Hussein should have had an ICC trial. So we are left with all the complexity of our feelings on the invasion of Iraq when Saddam is executed. We know there was complicity in his Presidency in the 1980s..and it smells bad as transparency was not the order of the day in his trial. Indeed he was only tried on a few cases of murder. Not the whole enchilada.

[PegDAC]

54. Execution is not a possibility

because Milosevic died of a heart attack during his trial.

[porphyrian]

35. Saddam is the strawman distracting us from the lies that got us into Iraq.

We have to keep this in mind regardless of how we feel about the execution.

[MasonJar]

37. I definitely think that a leader of a country should be tried by the

international court. This trial, for example. was run by the Shites against their enemy. a Sunni. It is reminiscent of the Catholics and the Protestants over the years in Ireland. This was not a fair trial and never could be. It is also quite convenient for Bushies that Saddam never got to take center stage at the Hague,where what he had to say would have been recorded for posterity.

[Straight Shooter]

38. george w. bush has defined himself by his relationship with Saddam.

How will he deal with himself now that his arch enemy is no more?

I may be wrong, but I think there will be a major shift somewhere within bush's psyche. His sense of purpose is fulfilled. He will learn, as thousands and thousands have before him, that the gratification of seeing your enemy dead soon turns to a sense of discomfit in the knowledge that you were the primary instrument of that person's fate, no matter how many proxies intervened to accomplish your wishes. In this instance, the whole world has watched, and bush will be forever judged by this event.

"Oh who will rid me of this meddlesome Saddam."

Who are you now, george w. bush?

==================

We have crossed the threshold of interesting times. Strange days, indeed, H20 Man.

[H2O Man]

41. Most peculiar.

Some others have compared current events to Shakespeariana. The tragic characters who are viewed as "in charge" while the world stage spins absolutely out of control make for fascinating psychological studies.

[Straight Shooter]

43. No doubt in my mind.

This invasion of Iraq, rather than enlightening the world with American "freedom" and "democracy," has become a grotesque melodrama of epic proportions.

I wondered this morning, as I tried once again to make sense of it all, if george w. bush has arranged the death of a symbolic father, a man who epitomizes an iron will, which bush will never possess, and fealty (albeit under duress), which bush will never attain.

When I consider george w. bush, being first truly aware of him at the time of his indelicate dance (another melodrama) with the Karla Faye Tucker matter, I am always struck by his pathological love/hate relationship with killers and how he inflicts his ambivalence upon the world. Most people are not aware that the only person on death row whom bush granted clemency was the serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.

I wish Joseph Campbell were alive to guide us through the pathological labyrinth of george w. bush's psyche.

[madrchsod]

39. strange days? i just finished reading pages of comments

on saddam`s hanging on the worlds largest (85,000 members) neo nazi website. i`d say 90% of them echoed the same comments that are being made here. the rest were the standard anti jewish shit but that is to be expected. what i did not expect was the comments about their hatred of bush,the illegality of the hanging,and what it means for the future of our troops in iraq. one poster figured out that bush could do the same thing here or anywhere else.
strange days indeed and very frighting

[byronius]

40. I'll bite. What the hell site is that?

Scare the shit out of me with no link, thankyouverymuch.

[wordpix]

47. that is truly weird that neo Nazis have same opinion of Bush as DU

:crazy:

[Black Adder]

45. Well said, H2O Man!

This is the kind of intelligent rational thought and discourse you just don't find on the Freeper MB..
Keep it up.

[Sander]

48. The debate on capital punishment

I am opposed to all forms of capital punishment, but I suppose the world demanded the death of Saadam. And so it had to occur.

But why put him to death? Yes, he deserved it. No doubt in my mind, or anybody else's mind. But does that make us any better by our executing him? Are we just like him, or do we believe in mercy? Yes, Saadam showed no mercy to his enemies. Does that mean that we, who hold ourselves to a better moral standard than Saadam, need also to show no mercy? Do two wrongs make a right? Doesn't the bible quote God as saying, "Vengeance is mine?"

We also argue that since the death penalty itself does not deter tyrants and mass murderers, why have it at all? It certainly has not deterred our own mass-murdering tyrant, George W. Bush. It did not deter Slobodan Milosovic, Joseph Stalin, or Adolph Hitler. So whom does it really deter?

One might argue that keeping Saadam alive in prison might move his supporters to try kidnapping Americans so as to try to bargain for his release. But that isn't going to happen. Instead, we put him to death so he now is a martyr to the Sunni Baathists, spurring them on to further violence and ethnic hatred against the Shia and Americans.

I believe nobody benefits from capital punishment. Not the victims, not the family of the murderer, not his executioner, not the witnesses to the execution, not his jury, nor his judge at trial. All involved are ultimately made less human by the act of execution itself.

[ewagner]

52. I realize I'm a "late-comer" to this post

but nevertheless, thanks for the post H20man...

Juan Cole had some good discussion today also....to which I "blogged" my brains out.

Here's Prof. Coles words:

When Saddam visited Dujail, Dawa agents attempted to assassinate him. In turn, he wrought a terrible revenge on the town's young men. Current Prime Minister al-Maliki is the leader of the Dawa Party and served for years in exile in its Damascus bureau. For a Dawa-led government to try Saddam, especially for this crackdown on a Dawa stronghold, makes it look to Sunni Arabs more like a sectarian reprisal than a dispassionate trial for crimes against humanity.

The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/index_np.html

I took the opportunity in our Co Party blog to note(based on Cole's article) that the execution was done in much the same way that the Bush Administration does everything else....ham-fisted, botched, or, perhaps, just plain stupid.....I think Bush counts on the division among the American people on things like the death penalty to keep public opinion from coalescing against him to the point where Congress has no choice but to impeach him.... As we used to say in the south..."He may be dumb but he ain't stupid"

Again, sorry for being so late but thanks for the great post....

[H2O Man]

53. Thanks.

Juan Cole is always worth reading.

Our opposition always counts on the power of division to keep Americans from creating a united front based on all that we have in common. And the #1 thing that we have in common today in America is a system that is threatening our Constitutional democracy. I am confident that in 2007, we will witness -- or rather be active participants in -- a unification of people advocating for a wide range of issues, from the grass roots.

[redeemer]

57. Why Saddam treated differently than Misolevic?

One was turned over to the Hague to be tried by an International court. the other was put on trial set up by his enemies and an occupational force engaged in stealing the assets of a Muslim country.

Whatever people feel or comments posted, the USA will pay dearly in terms of lives, economic disorder, social repercussions, and failure to help harmonize the world.

All Americans must share the guilt that we have a congress willing to aid a criminal administration while our country dissolves on the home front.

[chervilant]

58. Hello!?!?!?

After reading all of the posts herein above regarding 'Strange Days' courtesy of H20 Man, I feel compelled to share with my fellow DUers the results of my personal research thus far. After questioning numerous people who CONTINUE to support Bush, I learned the following:

1) Relentless Bush Supporters believe that Bush is a 'Christian' man. This is the primary reason they supported him in the first place.

2) Relentless Bush Supporters believe that Bush has been appointed by God to lead this nation into Armageddon and, consequently, the Rapture. Appointed by GOD!!!!!!!!!!

3) Relentless Bush Supporters--for the most part--accept LaHaye's multiple books as TRUE and UNIMPEACHABLE scenarios of the imminent Rapture. They believe they are among those few who will be lifted up!

4) Relentless Bush Supporters assert that the Iraqi Invasion is THE necessary and logical event that precedes the Biblical events of Revelations (not to mention the scenarios of the LaHaye tomes).

Refuting these 'believers' will be a major task in recovering our nation!!!!! Any suggestions?

[lmarcotty]

59. Saddam ain't the only one

"What we learned firsthand is what the CIA psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called ‘malignant narcissism,’ a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries." --How Saddam Thinks; Joseph Wilson; San Jose Mercury News; 10-13-02

Just substitute "Bush" for "Saddam" - it makes perfect sense either way. Just can't beat those ant-social personality disorders for bad company.

[lmarcotty]

60. ROFL

Excerpt from Wikipedia's article on antisocial personality disorder:

"Mnemonic
A mnemonic that can be used to remember the criteria for antisocial personality disorder is CORRUPT<2><3>:

C - cannot follow law
O - obligations ignored
R - remorselessness
R - recklessness
U - underhandedness
P - planning deficit"

Sound familiar?