webofevil | The ultimate impeachment

First the Turkmenbashi, now this. At this rate in five years’ time we’ll be relying solely on the Saudis for our regular fix of comical megalomania and insane building projects. [Memo to me: come up with punchline involving Prescott and that Thames Gateway flood plain thing. History will thank you.]

For me the problem is not the fact that he was hanged, nor even that he was killed at all; it’s that the entire trial has been precisely the risible sham Saddam was vehemently claiming all along. If you want to avoid screwing up the administration of justice to a known sadistic dictator and killer of thousands, you’ll want to avoid leaving it in the hands of a regime sponsored by a superpower that doesn’t believe in international institutions, under an administration that doesn’t believe in international law.

As with everything else the Bush regime has done in Iraq, the trial was meant to replicate an admirable event in recent history to strike the right chords with both the population in the thick of it and the larger viewing audience:

* Saddam’s trial = Nuremberg

* the toppling of his statue = that stirring footage from post-Soviet Russia

* the 2003 Iraqi invasion = the 1991 Iraqi invasion

* putting Paul Bremer in charge of scattering untold millions of dollars among local warlords = the Marshall Plan, apparently

Every time, however, what they’ve managed to create instead is a hapless shuffling golem with only a passing resemblance to its original. The longer this all drags on with no sign of improvement, the closer they’re getting to perfecting their one decent impression:

* Iraq = Vietnam

This excellent Salon article details the lengths that appear to have been gone to in order to avoid healing a single sectarian divide. By botching such an important trial, one that cut straight to the heart of American claims about spreading democracy—or even about being remotely honest—the US and the regime it sponsors have done so much harm it might even register above Iraq’s already amazing daily background harm levels.

There’s no crowing here. Last thing I want is to be identified with the Galloways of this world, who manage to exude righteous glee whenever they predict further carnage:

“[Saddam] has been killed, but I believe he will be more dangerous to the forces of the occupiers and their allies after his death than when he was alive. I believe a wave of attacks will be carried out against those allied with the occupation.”

Note the “I believes”, there, an attempt to cast himself as some kind of soothsayer, rather than, say, someone who can read. Apart from a few self-servers and troublemakers, though, no observer wants to be saying “I told you so” right now. The only impulse is: “make it stop”.

There is one thing that would be darkly amusing, although by now it would scarcely make a dent in the situation; if it were to turn out that Saddam had indeed not destroyed his remaining WMDs—that is, the biological and chemical weapons that hadn’t already degraded beyond use—but had instead, as is the rumour in military circles, performed the following complex manoeuvre:

The resulting grim spectacle of Tony and George excitedly explaining to their respective disinterested publics why this made everything all right would surely not fail to raise a tight-lipped smile among inhabitants of the region.

I originally posted this several days ago. Then, early on Saturday morning, I managed to delete it by accident, along with the comments it had attracted. All apologies to people who had contributed, especially

amuchmoreexotic, to whom I was mid-riposte when I ballsed up. Basically, he was all, “No way Syria”, and I was all, “I’m just saying”, and he was all, “But Saddam wouldn’t do that”, and I was all, “He so would, bitch”. It was going down.

Also,

slackhack was about to tell us about the time her dad met Osama bin Laden.

slackhack, you have the floor.