A Different Drummer

Executing him on the first day of Eid Al-Adha was stupid and provocative, but what can you expect. Eid Al-Adha is the Islamic holiday celebrating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son Ishmael if God commanded him to, and on the first day of Eid Muslim families will symbolically slaughter a sheep as Abraham did. I wrote about this in more depth on my blog back in 2004...

Seems a funny day to execute Saddam. If it was meant to be a symbolic sacrifice, then first, I think they have their symbolism all screwy, and second, what a terrible idea. If it was meant to be some kind of secular "up yours" to Muslims (2.5 million of whom were gathered together in Mecca for the Hajj on the same day), then the asshole who thought of doing it should be next in the gallows. If it was just a coincedence (which is pretty much impossible) then it was just bad, bad management from Iraqi and coalition authorities to let it happen on the Islamic equivelant of Good Friday.

Regardless, the Middle East now has one less asshole, and the worst people in Iraq have one less person to look toward for leadership. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, mate.

For a long, detailed, excellent read, check out his obituary in the New York Times:

"Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937, in a mud hut on stilts near the banks of the Tigris River near the village of Tikrit, 100 miles northwest of Baghdad. He was raised by a clan of landless peasants, his father apparently deserting his mother before his birth. (Government accounts said the father died.) “His birth was not a joyful occasion, and no roses or aromatic plants bedecked his cradle,” his official biographer, Amir Iskander, wrote in “Saddam Hussein, the Fighter, the Thinker and the Man,” published in 1981.

Mr. Hussein told his biographer that he did not miss his father growing up in an extended clan. But persistent stories suggest that Saddam’s stepfather delighted in humiliating the boy and forced him to tend sheep. Eventually he ran away to live with relatives who would let him go to school.

Mr. Hussein’s first role in the rough world of Iraqi politics came in 1959, at age 22, when the Baath Party assigned him and nine others to assassinate Abdul Karim Kassem, the despotic general ruling Iraq. Violence was a quick way for a young man who grew up fatherless in an impoverished village to get ahead; bloodshed became the major theme of his life.

During the failed assassination, Mr. Hussein suffered a bullet wound to the leg. The official version portrayed him as a hero who dug the bullet out with a penknife, while the other version suggests that the plot failed because he opened fire prematurely.

He sought asylum in Egypt, where President Gamal Abdel Nasser nurtured the region’s revolutionary movements. Mr. Hussein recalled studying law and ignoring Cairo’s attractions. Others remember differently.

“He was what we call a troublemaker,” said Hussein Abdel Meguid, the owner of the Andiana cafe that Mr. Hussein frequented, recalling years later in an interview with The New York Times that the Iraqi once turned a brawl into a knife fight."

Read the whole obit for much, much more, on one of the worst people of the 2oth Century.

UPDATE: The times they are a changing - you can watch Saddams execution, shot on mobile phone cam, online:

(obvious warning: video of a person getting executed ahead...)


Saddam Hussein Execution (Amateur Footage) - video powered by Metacafe