"A Shiite Hanging With No Western Witnesses"

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, execution, Iraq, Shiites, al-Maliki

Steve Soto has followed up on the Burns-Santora piece about the manner in which Saddam Hussein's execution was conducted. Steve notes the prior coverage by Glenn Greenwald and other bloggers; then tells us that he e-mailed Marc Santora to get more information about Santora's sources for his description of the hanging:

One last word on the account in the Marc Santora piece that described the hanging in yesterday's Times:

His executioners wore black ski masks, but Mr. Hussein could still see their deep brown skin and hear their dialects, distinct to the Shiite southern part of the country, where he had so brutally repressed two separate uprisings.

I followed up with Santora by email yesterday, and he has graciously responded to my question about the authenticity of this account, as to whether this was Santora's first-person account of what Saddam could see of his executioners.

I had to rely on what the Iraqi witnesses told me, seeing as how there were no westerners allowed, not even a US military representative.

Therefore, the whole account of Saddam execution was a creation of the al-Maliki government spoon fed to our media and the Bush Administration, an execution carried out under official cover in violation of the law by Muqtada al-Sadr with the religious sanction of the Najaf ayatollahs.

In an update to his earlier post, Glenn adds [emphasis mine]:

Soto accurately describes the event as "an execution carried out under official cover in violation of the law by Muqtada al-Sadr with the religious sanction of the Najaf ayatollahs." And the prohibition on all Western press only serves to underscore further the true nature of this execution.

There are those who profess not to understand why the fairness or legitimacy of the execution is being questioned, because this was Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad. How can people call it a "legal lynching" or a death squad hit carried out by Shiite thugs? Who cares? Saddam was a monster! Why waste tears on him?

Well, for these people, here is the answer: It's not about Saddam. It's about the way justice is carried out in a law-abiding and democratic society. Is a lynching okay if the guy being lynched is really, really, really bad? Think about it for a while.