The Diplomatic Times Review

The Saddam Execution Video

Mashable! social networking 2.0 says  Saddam’s Execution Video Makes it to Google Video, YouTube, Revver. I watched it. It's not the best quality but somebody captured the event. Rest assured, the official video of the execution will surface on Internet one day.

Saddam Buried In Awja, Near Tikrit, Iraq

Although Aljazeera reported December 30, 2006, that "A source close to the family [of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was executed in Baghdad on December 30, 2006] said his daughter, Raghdad [Hussein], "is asking that his body be buried in Yemen temporarily until Iraq is liberated and it can be reburied in Iraq," he has instead "been buried in a family plot in Awja, close to Tikrit," Iraq, according to Aljazeera. See "Saddam buried in Awja."

The Guardian Surveys Some Arab Blogs For Views On Saddam's Execution

Simon Jeffery  at the Guardian news blog reported December 30, 2006, that "On English language Arab blogs there is little mourning" for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "but plenty of qualms about his execution." See "Arab blogs on the Saddam hanging" for details.

Recommended: 'Top Ten Ways The US Enabled Saddam Hussein'

University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole, who offers his opinions daily at Informed Comment, contends that, "The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers ... has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades."

"Initially," he writes in a December 6, 2006, post, "the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad."

To read more, please see "For Whom the Bell Tolls: Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein." Also see Mr. Cole's article at Salon.com headlined "Saddam: The death of a dictator."

Will Saddam Be Buried In Yemen?

Aljazeera reported December 30, 2006, that "A source close to the family [of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was executed in Baghdad on December 30, 2006] said his daughter, Raghd, "is asking that his body be buried in Yemen temporarily until Iraq is liberated and it can be reburied in Iraq". See "Saddam hanged at dawn."

U.S. President Bush's Statement On Saddam's Execution

(NOTE: President George W. Bush, seen in a June 13, 2006, photo taken at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, issued a December 29, 2006, statement on the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The statement can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is at right).

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to    move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

Saddam Hussein's execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.

We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein's rule - and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.

Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq's young democracy continues to progress.

Saddam's Execution Wasn't 'An Iraqi Operation From A to Z'

In its report on the December 30, 2006, execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, United Press International (UPI) quotes Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, as saying:

He just gave up. We were astonished. It was strange. He just gave up. (See "Saddam 'just gave up' at the end).

What was he expected to do when he was shackled and being led to the gallows by armed men backed by the mightiest army in the world? Make a break for it.

CNN quotes Rubaie as saying the execution was  "an Iraqi operation from A to Z.  The Americans were not present during the hour of the execution. They weren't even in the building."

As for the execution being an "an Iraqi operation from A to Z," that's for the gullible. Sure, the hangman may have been Iraqi, but the execution was carried out with the consent of the Bush Administration. And you can bet U.S. troops were just around the corner, if not across the street.

Father, Sons and Grandsons

The Bush Administration has overseen the deposing a former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the occupation of his country, his trial and execution.

Not only that, the administration is responsible for the deaths of his sons and a grandson. I'm surprised the daughters are still alive.

Will U.S. policy In The Horn of Africa Aid al-Qaida?

Back on December 22, 2006, Jonathan S. Landay and Shashank Bengali noted in a dispatch from Nairobi, Kenya, that:

The Bush administration has publicly denounced the Islamists who control most of southern Somalia as al-Qaida puppets, reinforcing a widespread belief that the United States tacitly supports Christian-ruled Ethiopia's intervention into the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

The outbreak of fighting has focused new attention on U.S. policy in the region, which Western diplomats and regional experts say has been riddled with inconsistencies and missteps. The experts say U.S. handling of Somalia and Ethiopia is a tale of flawed intelligence, inadequate U.S. government attention and overheated rhetoric, with a measure of domestic U.S. politics thrown in.

The reporters said, "Earlier this year, Washington provided covert aid to an alliance of secular Somali warlords in a failed bid to prevent the Islamists from seizing Mogadishu, the capital. U.S. officials confirmed to McClatchy Newspapers that one recipient of the CIA payments was a leader of a Somali militia that killed 18 U.S. troops in 1993 in fighting in Mogadishu, which was portrayed in the film "Black Hawk Down."

To read more, please see "U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa may aid al-Qaida, experts warn.  By the way, don't be surprised by foreign intervention everywhere independent-minded Muslims attempt to come to power during the next decade. 

The Uneasy Political Shift In Somalia: A Christian Science Monitor Analysis

 Christian Science Monitor correspondent Rob Crilly noted  in an article in the December 29, 2006, issue of the Boston-based publication that  Mogadishu, the Somali capital,  "echoed with gunfire as clan-based militias returned to the streets, settling old scores and looting. Residents said they feared a return to 15 years of anarchy that ended with the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts, which took over just six months ago," he wrote in a dispatch datelined Nairobi, Kenya.

Mr. Crilly said, "The quick victory over the Islamists, analysts warn, leaves a dangerous vacuum in a country that has only recently seen calm." 

"Without a political strategy for winning the peace," he added, "they say, Somalia risks becoming a quagmire that sucks in neighboring countries. If the Ethiopians keep their word and withdraw quickly, radical elements within the courts - such as the young fighters of the Shabbab, led by Afghanistan-trained Aden Hashi Ayro - might run a guerrilla campaign, drawing in foreign fighters."

"The risks are that if Ethiopia and Somalia are unable to politically consolidate their military victory, then we are back at square one with the conditions that gave rise to the courts in the first place," Mr. Crilly quotes Matt Bryden, a consultant to the International Crisis Group, as saying.

To read more, please see "Uneasy political shift in Somalia.'