What's the big hurry?
Why was Saddam Hussein executed so quickly?
Let's see... here was a guy who murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, who started two wars, one with Iran and one with Kuwait, resulting in the deaths of many hundreds of thousands more (to include at least 148 Americans and maybe more thanks to Gulf War Syndrome), and who provided support and encouragement to Palestinian terrorists responsible for the deaths of.hundreds of Israelis, most frequently targeting children, the elderly, the working poor.
Wouldn't you think it might be worth making him testify publicly about ALL of those crimes? Wouldn't you think ALL of the victims might deserve a day in court? Don't you suppose that those still loyal to Saddam could stand to hear a little more about why so many Iraqis, other Arabs, and people around the world are glad to see him dead?
But no. Instead he was convicted of one his relatively small-scale atrocities and executed days later. No justice for the Kurds. No justice for the Shi'ite marsh Arabs. No justice for the Kuwaitis, Iranians, Israelis, Turks... for the American soliders and their families!
I want to know who really made the decision to execute Saddam when they did. I want to know, did my own government attempt to intervene? Or were they complicit in the decision, possibly even directly responsible, and if so, for what reason? Or is this just another example of White House/State Department incompetence, that they could not see the error in eliminating Saddam prematurely or could not act effectively to stop it.
Heinlein's Razor instructs us never to attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity (or in this case, incompetence). But honestly, at some point, too many incompetencies, one after another almost ad infinitum, lead even those of us with the thickest tinfoil in our hats to wonder: Is there someone (or someones) in the Bush administration who wanted Saddam out of the way as quickly as possible, before he could say something that might embarrass or even indict the people who thought Saddam was just a mighty fine fellow back in the 1980s?
I remember the day that Saddam was pulled out of his spider hole. I was watching the news closely that morning, it was a Sunday, because Wes Clark was at the Hague, preparing to testify against Slobadan Milosevic. Those of us involved in his presidential campaign were hoping for some major publicity for his role in bringing a monster to justice.
I recall that what we got instead was all the news networks interviewing General Clark for his opinions on what should be done with the newly captured monster. I even remember a French newspaper, Le Monde perhaps, going to press without a statement from the White House, so using one from General Clark instead -- one he wrote himself, off the top of his head, since he had no staff on hand to review or research or otherwise vett his words. I remember thinking, gee, what might it be like to have a president with enough knowledge and forethought to pull something like that off?
Mostly I recall how, even then, from his gut perhaps, the General knew that since Iraqis had suffered most, they had to be allowed to mete out justice according to rheir own culture and mores, but with the assistance of the international legal community, coordinated by the US if necessary, to ensure full transparency and an opportunity for all the players in the region to confront Saddam with their own legitimate grievances.
But then, Wesley Clark understands the concept of accountability, whether for tyrants at home or abroad.
