Two Very Different Deaths

One former leader who died last week laid in state and was given an ex President's funeral. Another was taunted and hanged and his body only released to his family and tribe after pressure from the US. Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein couldn't have been buried under more different circumstances.

I have read with interest much of what has been written in the days after Saddam's execution. Some of it regarding the trial and how it was conducted, some of it about the death penalty generally, some about the timing. It's clearly an issue that fascinates people as much as it divides them. The Italian prime minister suggested yesterday that they'd push for a global ban on the death penalty, though it's difficult to see much support for that on the security council.

Anyone that was in any doubt about whether this was "victors' justice" should by now be sure that this was exactly that. The taunting of Saddam and the evocation of Moqtada al-Sadr's name say it all. We already knew the Iraqi government was fizzing at the clopper to get him hanged by the end of last year. Now they have extended the Eid holiday from 4 to 7 days because of the hanging. If that all doesn't add up to victor's justice, I don't know what does. This government has no interest in reconciliation. Maliki depends on Sadr and others' militias for support and the notion of national unity is a sick joke.

Looks like, contrary to the ISG Report recommendation, there will be no chatting to Syria or Iran, at least not publicly. I thought initially that they'd need to do that to get anywhere. More recently I started to think that Maliki and his corrupt bunch were the root of the problem and now that seems pretty clear.

So, the US will send in 30,00 more troops and try to get the Iraqi security services trained properly. Trained to do what exactly? Kill more of their countrymen? Run more criminal rackets? Until you root out the core of the problem the whole army and police will be rotten, from the top down.

The Democrats resume control of Congress in the US tomorrow and Bush will be under a lot more scrutiny in terms of his strategy for Iraq (if there ever was one). During this year I think they'll start handing over checkpoints (the legitimate ones, that is) to the Iraqis. As soon as they start that, I'm getting the hell out of here. The country is carving itself into pieces, and the people that live in it too. I don't fancy being part of that process.