Hanging Will Haunt Bush

If India is a key barometer of the non-Western world, and it often is, Saddam's hanging will come to haunt George W. Bush. Far from being "an important milestone in Iraq becoming a democracy," as he so brazenly put it, the hanging is widely seen as an occupying power's jungle justice against a tyrant whose worst crimes were committed when he was an American ally but who was condemned only after he went against his benefactors. He was responsible for killing 1 million Iranians in the 1980-'88 war and murdering and gassing tens of thousands of his own Shiite and Kurdish populations – war crimes whose details, and with them the West's complicity, went to the grave with him. The lesson, said an editorial in the Deccan Chronicle, the regional English daily, is that "the U.S. will not tolerate leaders who do not follow its diktat." The hanging has been the topic of conversation in both the public and private spheres. You can't escape it in any gathering. The reaction is all the more remarkable given that, unlike in Europe and Canada, the death penalty is even more acceptable in these parts than in the United States. Muslims, in particular, have historically seen it as the price for maintaining law and order. Burning Bush in effigy, Muslim crowds in several cities have been blaming him for the timing of the hanging, on the day of Eid al-adha, the festival that coincides with the end of the annual Haj pilgrimage and which symbolizes forgiveness and reconciliation. The media here have carried the quote of a pilgrim in Saudi Arabia: "Would it be okay if the president of the United States were to be hanged on Christmas Day?" Protestors noted with admiration that, notwithstanding the secularist Saddam's frequent and brutal persecution of religious activities, he held up a copy of the Qur'an on the way to the gallows and had on his lips the kalima – "God is great," the first testament of Muslim faith, which the believers are also enjoined to repeat just before death. An oft-stated sentiment has been that the wrong man has been hanged, given the tens of thousands killed under Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. Muslims and non-Muslims alike have spoken well of what they saw as Saddam's dignified departure amid the mayhem in the hanging chamber, as captured on videos. His composure and defiance in refusing a hood have been hailed as signs of personal courage. By contrast, his American and Iraqi captors and executors have been characterized as cowards. Noting his 3 a.m. burial, away from public spotlight, Siyasat, a secular Urdu language daily here, headlined: "Now they are afraid of his grave." http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/167592

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