Heads You Lose

UPDATE: change of venue to www.julescrittenden.com. Come check out the new site.


Washington Post headline:

Iraqi Hangings Bring More Denunciations
Head of Hussein's Half Brother Is Severed

Both halves of Saddam's half-brother taken to Auja, the family's bucolic retreat.

I'm beginning to think that if you don't draw denunciations in this world, you're probably not really doing anything worthwhile. Here are some reax:

"We knew that he would be executed and would join a parade of heroes, but Maliki, why did you behead him?" asked Salam al-Tikriti, 41, a relative of Ibrahim. "Why did you insult his body? Are you still afraid of him even after he is dead? We will cut your heads the same way that you are cutting the heads of the heroes of Iraq."

Other reviews:

Alaa Makki, a Sunni legislator, cut the baby in half, as it were: Justice was done but the manner of the execution was disturbing.

"Everybody knows that when you hang people, rarely the head will be decapitated from the body," he said, criticizing what he called a "revenge on the body."

Elsewhere, the Moroccan Human Rights Association said they were a "criminal political assassination masterminded by American imperialism." I'd be curious to know what statements they issued about Saddam during his regime, if anyone out there has been paying attention.

A U.N. spokesman expressed regret that Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's request to spare the two men's lives was not granted. Not about the head-body separation issue, however.

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, said after the hangings that he would back an Italian initiative for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment under U.N. auspices. Also apparently silent on the head thing.