For those of you playing along, here’s a short explanation of how Iraq flocked up a perfectly good hanging.
Some facts:
1. We’ve had custody of Saddam since his capture. We took him back and forth to his trial. He’s been held in an American military detention center.
2. We delivered him to his executioners by Black Hawk helicopter at around 3:30 am on Saturday, Dec 30th.
3. There was apparently much confusion over this sudden, early morning rush to execution.
4. Saddam was Sunni; most everyone in the execution cell was Shiite.
And here’s where the problems arise.
5. There is a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday. In order to expedite the execution, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri Maliki, had to override these constitutional and religious precepts. This would be the NEW constitution that the NEW Iraq government, devised after the elections there.
6. Bush administration adopted a hands-off policy concerning the execution, saying the timing of the execution was Iraq’s to decide. We are now in a catch-22 situation; we don’t agree with the Iraqi governments’ destructive behavior, but won’t do anything about it because God forbid we should do anything to undermine the Iraqi leaders.
7. There is a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id Holiday.
8. We demanded assurances that due process had been followed before we would turn over physical custody of Saddam, which apparently sent PM Miliki and his cronies into a frenzy trying to figure out a way to get around their own Constitution.
9. We demanded a decree from President Talabani, signed jointly by his two vice presidents, upholding the death sentence, and a letter from the chief judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court that tried Saddam, certifying the verdict. Only problem was, Mr. Talabani objected to the death penalty on principle.
10. Maliki had another major problem; a Saddam-era law prohibiting executions during the Id Holiday, which, as I said above, began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.
11. There was a late night meeting with the PM, his officials and American officers. After much debate, Maliki threw down his trump card which was to say, ‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us? This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’ In other words, who’s screwing this cat?
12. Mr. Maliki, at a few minutes before midnight on Friday, then signed a letter to the justice minister, “to carry out the hanging until death.”
13. The rush to execution by PM Miliki is now being described as “an Id gift to the Iraqi people.”
This is our version of the story and we’re sticking to it. Especially since the videos of the execution have hit the airwaves and feigned outrage has ensued.
I’M SORRY AMERICA, but you don’t get to feign outrage that Saddam was taunted and videotaped whilst being hanged. You just don’t. How dare our government officials and the American people fabricate umbrage over the treatment of Saddam during his execution. And how dare they assume they have the right to be offended. They started this war. They’ve sat idly by while 300,000 Iraqis and 3,000 American soldiers have died. They refuse to reign in this maniacal president while he makes plans to send more lambs to the slaughter.
But because America’s delicate sensibilities have been assaulted, our fearless leaders are falling all over themselves to see who can distance themselves from this debacle the fastest. Those who aren’t running away from the issue are putting on Oscar-winning performances of shock and awe that a murderous dictator would be treated in such a degrading fashion. SHUT UP!
This is what you all wanted, and now you just get to suck it up. You wet yourselves when the statue fell. You soiled your pants when we pulled him from his hole. Isn’t this is why our sons and daughters have died? Isn’t this why our country is in trillions of dollars of debt? You get no moral outrage now.
Besides, just think how much safer we are now with Saddam gone...
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