Two Minutes Thirty Six Seconds

The execution of Saddam Hussein, or more specifically, the behavior of the executioners and the release of a video of the dictator's last minutes, continues to be called into question here and abroad. Curiously, the White House has so far refused comment, excepting the comment that George Bush hasn't seen the video. Think about that for a minute. The President of the United States, whose actions are responsible for the death by hanging of Saddam Hussein (or SAD-em, as his dad liked to call him), has chosen not to view the consequences of his actions, even while the rest of the world has. Mr. Bush either doesn't have two minutes and thirty six seconds to spare, doesn't know how to make use of the "internets", or he simply doesn't like to see gruesome images.

Much has been said about the indignity of the method of Saddam's death, as if there is ever a dignified way for humans to kill another human. Would we have been happy if the executioners and the witnesses had all sang out "have a nice day!" rather than "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!"? Would we have been satisfied with justice served if they had said "God bless you" instead of "go to hell!" in the final seconds of Hussein's life?

The strongest human instinct is self-preservation (just ask Messrs. Bush and Cheney about their draft records), so a human facing certain death must suffer emotions we cannot begin to imagine. Perhaps the second strongest human instinct is revenge, although unlike self-preservation, that is an instinct that we can battle. We didn't battle it very well after 9/11, for we wholeheartedly supported a campaign to exact revenge on its perpetrator, even while we knew that the campaign would result in thousands of Afghan babies being killed by our bombs. (Any talk about the greater cause of liberating the Afghan people is nonsense, for the only time we really got our knickers in a twist over the barbarism of the Taliban was when they destroyed the Buddhas of Bamyan.) We didn't battle it very well two years later when we supported a war to depose a dictator who many believed was also responsible for the atrocity of 9/11, or for the skeptics amongst us, at the very least was capable of being responsible for future 9/11s. Call it pre-emptive revenge, if you like. Whatever you call it, it has resulted in the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent Iraqis and now the death of the one person we, and certainly George Bush, wanted to exact revenge from. The Shias who executed Saddam didn't battle the instinct for revenge very well either, it seems, although they may have had many more reasons for losing that battle than we did. But here in the dignified West, we have a problem with that. Have they no dignity?

George doesn't want to see the death of Saddam Hussein , perhaps because it is grotesque, macabre, loathsome, and lacking in dignity. Imagine that.

UPDATE: George Bush has now, as of Friday morning, commented on the method of Saddam's execution. He has, however, not seen the video, despite making the comment that he wished the execution "would have gone in a more dignified way."