Saddam Execution Video

As the dictator was hanged, cheers of Moqtada Moqtada filled the room.

Who would have imagined that the Iraqis could make the execution of Saddam Hussein publicly embarrassing? Predictably the anti-death penalty lobby now is using the Butcher of Baghdad as their newest poster-boy. So how did the Iraqis create this situation?

After painstaking negotiations, the American military finally agreed to turn over Saddam to the Iraqis, knowing they would immediately carry out the death sentence and execute the man who murdered so many. What the American military demanded, and the Iraqis agreed to, was a civilized execution. No filming, no taunting ... just a noose and pull the lever. The purpose was not to give Saddam dignity in death, which surely he did not deserve. The purpose was to give the Iraqi government dignity through conduct of the execution.

By now most people who want have seen the film of the execution. Members of the radical Badr Brigade militia, followers of Shiite Islamic cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, infiltrated the hanging as they have infiltrated the Iraqi government. They verbally chanted Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada, as if at a football game. He didn't even show up, but they still were chanting their leader's name.

Then, a couple of reputedly "high ranking" Iraqi officials serving as "witnesses", but also apparently aligned with al Sadr took their cell phone cameras out and were permitted to film the whole thing. Quite fuzzy and unsteady shooting, as if they were nervous. Arab TV stations promptly took all the video and broadcast it repeatedly. Anyone who wants can watch it on dozens of Internet websites.

What does this say about whether other countries should continue supporting this Iraqi government? Well, what option is there really? If the rest of the world pulls support, who is there to move in? Only radicalized Iranian Shiite islamicists or Osama style Sunni islamicists. There is no democratic middle ground other than provided by the rest of the world.