martyring Saddam

It is practically old news now, but a few nights ago, when i was watching cable news, with shouting pundits, it doesn't seem to have sunk through into the mainstream. Aside from the fact that Shia militia infiltrated the execution, Juan Cole pointed out that the timing of Saddam's hanging could not have been worse:

The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.

Bush's nonsense about Saddam's death, "I wish, obviously, that the proceedings had ... gone in a more dignified way. But nevertheless, he was given justice," and the photos of the execution being "revolting and barbaric" is disgusting. Someone already compared the theater we saw as making the U.S. worse than Pontius Pilate, in pretending to absolve itself of the poor judgement. Kneejerk rightwingers will feign indignation that there is a comparison being drawn between Jesus and Saddam, which is absurd. This is about a leader trying to wash blame from his own hands by using a lynch mob as his proxy.