More on the Execution of Saddam

Yesterday, I spent some time reading some of the details that surrounded the execution of the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. I even watched the video of his hanging, shot by a cellphone from someone in the agitated crowd of observers. The video gives some shocking insights into the true nature of politics in Iraq, and is worth watching if you can stomach it.

I stand by my belief that the world is probably better off without Saddam, and I can't say I'm sad to see him go. However, those are personal beliefs and little more than knee-jerk reactions. Justice systems in liberal democracies are not designed solely to mollify the public's blood lust or a victim's desire for revenge. The institutions in place that render judgement and execute punishments are also intended to preserve law and order and to give citizens the comfort and freedom in which to live their lives as free from fear as the state can possibly allow. For this reason, I am opposed to capital punishment. Since the death penalty does not appear to deter criminal activity, I see no good to society in terminating an individual's life, and I hate to think that we, in Utah for example, commit substantial resources in providing state sanction to the desire of some people to avenge a heinous crime.

But at least in America, the gravity of the penalty demands an almost ritualized solemnity in the execution chamber, and in the time between sentencing and execution. The process of execution is intended to be as dignified as possible (insofar as state-sanctioned killing can be dignified). Since we have been so keen on holding ourselves as the gold standard of democracy and statecraft to the emerging Iraqi government, the manner in which Saddam was disposed was a travesty, and a terrible setback on the road to building a stable, peaceful, and democratic Iraq. The pleadings of people within and without Iraq were ignored by the government, and the Prime Minister summarily swept aside a suite of laws that were intended to ensure that due process was met in the execution of a death sentence.

The video of Saddam's execution reminded me of the grainy, amateurish video of the beheading of Nick Berg in 2004. Saddam and his captors were exchanging taunts as the noose was positioned around his neck. The men in the audience shouted "Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" (Muqtada al-Sadr is the Shi'ite cleric and lightning rod from An Najaf ) and Saddam leered at them. Apparently Saddam and his executioners told each other to "go to Hell." The trap door was pulled, and the men erupted into cheers as the former dictator's neck was broken. It dawned on me that the show trial and subsequent execution wasn't about justice as much as it was about fulfilling a vendetta. Saddam wasn't turned over to Iraqi authorities for the execution of a sentence. He was handed over to a Shi'ite death squad.

Instead of compelling Iraqis to move toward peace and reconciliation, the execution of Saddam Hussein pushed the country closer to dissolution and sectarian genocide. Where two years ago there was broad consensus on the need for Saddam to be punished, his undignified treatment at the hands of masked Shi'ite thugs may make him a martyr in the eyes of Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere. Unfortunately, we are entangled in this mess. The failures of the Iraqi government are ours to bear as well. Saddam's execution is but one more example of how spectacularly mismanaged our efforts have been in Iraq; it affirms my belief that we are no more secure now than we we were before the invasion.