By now we have all watched the macabre theater surrounding the execution of Saddam Hussein. The spectacle resembled a nauseating and well choreographed snuff film which played out endlessly on our TV screens in strange juxtaposition with the dignified and somber farewell to President Gerald Ford. Few in the world, especially Iraqis, are shedding tears for Saddam, a brutal dictator with much blood on his hands. But how concerned should we be about our role in facilitating his grisly end? History is replete with instances of victor's justice and it is futile to question the ways of the mighty. The US is now the unquestionable super power of the world - to cross it, is to invite peril. But how does unfettered power affect the supreme hegemon itself? At what cost do we flex our muscle? What poison seeds do we sow in the process?
We expect and demand that the rest of the world play by established rules of peace and warfare, but we make up our own rules of engagement with imperious whim. Why are we then surprised when our enemies follow the leader? (Elaine Scarry's article via 3 Quarks Daily)
"In 1998, an article by Colonel Charles J. Dunlap Jr. appeared in the United States Air Force Academy’s Journal of Legal Studies warning that a new form of warfare lay ahead. Because our military resources are so far beyond those of any other country, Dunlap argued, no society can today meet us through symmetrical warfare. Therefore, our 21st-century opponents will stop confronting us with weapons and rules that are the mirror counterparts of our own. They will instead use asymmetrical or “neo-absolutist” forms of warfare, resorting to unconventional weapons and to procedures forbidden by international laws.
What Dunlap meant by “unconventional weapons” is clear: the category would include not only outlawed biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons (the last of which, in the view of the United States, only itself and a small number of other countries are legally permitted to have) but also unexpected weapons such as civilian passenger planes loaded with fuel and flown into towering buildings in densely populated cities.
But the term “neo-absolutism,” as used by Dunlap, applies not just to the use of unconventional weapons but to conduct that violates a sacrosanct set of rules—acts that are categorically prohibited by international law and by the regulations of the United States Air Force, Navy, and Army (along with the military forces of many other nations).....
Dunlap’s article, which so accurately predicted the coming era of neo-absolutist enemies, was not recommending that the United States reciprocate by itself succumbing to neo-absolutism. Precisely to the contrary, it urged that the U.S. military begin to prepare for asymmetrical warfare (of the kind we would experience three years later on 9/11) so that it could maintain an unswerving conformity to international law while defeating its neo-absolutist opponent. Using the longstanding idiom of “chivalry”—a technical term by which international and military law pay tribute to an overarching framework of civil law that endures even in the midst of war—the article insisted that the United States must continue to be Sir Galahad even when confronted by Genghis Khan..."
(Scarry's article is long but well worth reading. It sheds light on some familiar aspects of the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan)
Update: Friend, fellow blogger and e-journalist, Nandini has emailed me the following astute comments on Saddam Hussein's execution.
"Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator. The toppling of his regime and his eventual capture from a hole in the ground may have been a victory of sorts.
But, three years later, that victory is dubious at best because his brutal regime has been replaced by a) a weak regime that is unable or unwilling to control a brutal insurgency and b) by an outside occupying force that is also unable or unwilling to sow the seeds of a civil society.
In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road." In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln spoke of extending “malice toward none and charity for all”. The post-WWII reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, and the establishment of the Geneva Conventions are examples of the same values in action.
The burden of the aftermath of an armed conflict lies with the victor.
If the Americans were “winning” the Iraq war as the Administration and its apologists like to claim, not stopping the hanging simply establishes the fact that we are not really winning it. Saddam Hussein may be “the biter bit”, but sadly, we are no less so.
What died at the gallows along with Saddam Hussein was the sense of our own essential morality and civility."
This whole Saddam hanging event was quite distasteful to me, too, well above and beyond my distaste for capital punishment. In case you haven't seen Riverbend's blog, Baghdad Burning, she has a fresh new post on this topic.
Posted by: Shunya | January 02, 2007 at 01:10 PM
I actually saw a portion of her commentary somewhere else yesterday.
After this horrendous spectacle, I was reminded that after Saddam's capture in 2003, a pistol found on his person was presented to Bush by the capturing marines. Bush, the pseudo cowboy, had that mounted and now displays it as a trophy to his visitors. Why doesn't he also display Saddam Hussein's head in the Oval office? After all, this may be the only concrete achievement that he and Sure Shot Cheney will be able to claim for their criminal misadventure in Iraq.
As I said in my comment on your blog, Bush made it possible for Saddam Hussein to exit his life with more dignity than he could muster in life.
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | January 02, 2007 at 03:47 PM