[Previous entry: "When Bad News Is Actually Good News"] [Next entry: "Eye Candy For A New Year"]

12/29/2006: "Hard To Say I'm Sorry"

Word came down about an hour ago that Saddam Hussein, one-time despot leader of Iraq, has been hanged as punishment for his orchestrating the murder of nearly 150 Iraqis back in 1982. I'm not a big eye-for-an-eye guy, but if anyone ever earned a trip to the gallows, you'd have to figure it's Hussein. Now that the deed is done, the real interesting part begins - the reaction.

Anti-death penalty activists didn't want him hanged on principle; those who believe that America is pulling the strings on an puppet Iraqi government didn't want him hanged because it served America's propaganda interests. Even those who supported hanging Hussein for his crimes didn't want him hanged now - they wanted him to have to face some of the larger crimes awaiting him, like the killing of nearly 200,000 Kurds after the failed overthrow attempts in the wake of the first Gulf War. It's all moot now.

Several points I think are important. First, no matter what you think of the trial or the proceedings, he was tried, convicted and ultimately executed by a sovereign Iraqi government. Unlike the Nurenberg trials, Hussein was forced to face the same people he ruled. I think there is a certain closure that can be gained from this. Second, the death of Hussein represents a final chapter in the "old" Iraq and clears the way for the kind of change that is needed to resurrect the country. Those last holdouts hoping for a return to the "good old days" clearly know now they won't be coming back.

There will doubtless be retribution, most likely by those who see the death of Hussein as a convenient excuse for pre-planned violence. But I suspect there will be many more Iraqis who react as those who witnessed the execution and danced around the body in the aftermath. The last impediment to moving forward has been removed; it is now up to the Iraqis to determine their future and act to make that future reality.