Making a Dictator Look Good

The hanging of Saddam turns out to be an absolutely sordid event. Even the Nazis, who were responsible for the deaths of millions, were given respectful hangings after the Nuremberg trials. They were not hanged by militia thugs chanting the name of a religious leader, and taunting the condemned men. Saddam comes off as heroic, even in many westerners' eyes, by challenging his tormenters' motives and national/ethnic identity--"You call yourself Arabs?" "This is your idea of unifying the country? You have torn it apart." The fact that the U.S. handed Saddam over to the goverment of Iraq without any oversight of how he was going to be treated is outrageous. We have dictated so many other aspects of the Iraqi government's actions, we can't plead "well, it's their country." Saddam should have gone to the Hague, like all other deposed leaders accused of genocide. But instead, he was hanged without the respect you would give a rabid dog. He was terrible man who committed terrible crimes against his people, but he went to the gallows as a martyr for many, and a stark warning of what is to come. The devil you know is always better than the one you don't know. We met the one we didn't know in the shaky cellphone video of an execution.