historiblogography

bloods do justice to head crip

Others may choose differently, but my favorite detail from the hanging of Saddam Hussein would have to be the guards who chanted Moqtada al-Sadr's name as they prepared to do the deed. Four years in a nutshell.

UPDATED LATER:

The video of the execution is well worth watching, however much it smells like a snuff film. Note the setting, the behavior of the crowd. It's like a cockfight in the basement of a tenement house, strictly a Fight Club affair. And, yes, there are in fact repeated shouts of Moqtada al-Sadr's name.

It sure looks to me like the United States military just handed over a former head of state to be snuffed by a street gang. This was not noticably an affair of the Iraqi state, to the extent that such a thing can be said to exist in reality and in isolation from the Shiite militias.

The really interesting question, though, is this: What do you think Jawad Maliki and Jalal Talabani see when they watch this nasty, shabby little event?

posted by Chris Bray @ 3:04 PM