{"id":4677,"date":"2003-07-25T10:08:17","date_gmt":"2003-07-25T17:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4677"},"modified":"2003-07-25T10:08:17","modified_gmt":"2003-07-25T17:08:17","slug":"dead_and_not_ye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/25\/dead_and_not_ye.html","title":{"rendered":"Dead and Not-Yet-Buried"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being sick, I missed out on the crest of the Saddam’s Boys Get Nailed <\/i>story. I still haven’t caught up with the details (and quite possibly won’t), but it sounds like someone dropped a dime on them, the troops moved in, much shooting and exploding ensued, and when the dust settled, Uday and Qusay (or however they’re being spelled these days) were dead.<\/p>\n

A few thoughts.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Good riddance. No need for any nil nisi bonum <\/i>here. The boys were murderous thugs. Killing them was probably a mercy, compared to what the mob would have done to them. Or not, given what their Final Reward is likely to be.\n
  2. I find it amusing that some folks who seemed to be shouting, “See, the US is a bunch of blundering idiots because they haven’t managed to take out Saddam and his sons!” are now shouting, “See, the US is a bunch of murderous brutes because they killed Saddam’s sons!”<\/p>\n
  3. Again, I haven’t read the details of the story, just skimmed a quick AP report on it early on (Katherine was playing with my keyboard — “Katherine, don’t touch — hey!”<\/i> — while we were going out the door), but it doesn’t sound like the boys were tapped at long distance by a black ops sniper, or even were caught in a hail of bullets as the stormtroopers kicked open the door and riddled their sitting-in-front-of-the-TV-in-their-boxers bodies. There was a firefight involved, and a lengthy one. So the whole “They were assassinated!” meme I keep hearing seems to be off-base.\n

    Even if, though, I really have to say that I don’t have a problem with it. It’s not like we’re talking about an a local campesino <\/i>protesting against Exxon’s depredations in the Amazon being snuffed by hired goons — we’re talking about fugitive leadership of a regime that we were at war with. I’d rather <\/i>that they were brought before some sort of trial or tribunal or the like, but we are enough still in the middle of conflict that taking these folks out (yes, “killing them”) seems to be a reasonable action if necessary.<\/p>\n

    And when they find Saddam, I’ll feel the same way. I’m less concerned about due process than effective process. The best reason to capture Saddam, rather than killing him, is, to my mind, to avoid the sort of “No, it isn’t him!” rumors that persist.<\/p>\n

  4. Should photos of the bodies be circulated, widely? Ideally, no. But this is hardly an ideal situation. I do think that there is a substantive difference between showing the bodies of U&Q and showing the bodies of nameless grunts (on either side). (Were displaying the hanging bodies of Nazis at Nuremburg war crimes?) And if it helps convince a few folks that the Old Regime is dead and buried (or rapidly lurching that way), or if convinces one ex-Baathist to hang up their RPG as a lost cause, the net effect is more than worth it.\n

    Of course, there will always be some folks who refuse to believe in the deaths, even if we’d captured U&Q and paraded them in the streets, alive and kicking. Heck, we’ve plenty of conspiracy theorists here in the US who are willing to raise doubts about it (Is it them? Are they really dead? Isn’t the timing just too convenient?)<\/i>, let along those folks in Iraq used to a regime of lies and betrayal and body doubles. Still, that militates more for letting anyone who wants to see the bodies see them than not.<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n

    Anyhow, that’s my (relatively uninformed) take on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Being sick, I missed out on the crest of the Saddam’s Boys Get Nailed story. I still haven’t caught up with the details (and quite possibly won’t), but it sounds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3970,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/05\/trust_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":0},"title":"Trust","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Mar-03 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"So some general who was, until about three months ago, in charge of Iraq's mobile Scud missiles, has turned up dead. Gen Muhammad Sa'id al-Darraj, who was in charge of...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":164,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/04\/what_im_not_blo.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":1},"title":"What I’m not blogging about","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Jun-03 3:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't been blogging about Iraq, or WMDs, or anything being attributed to Paul Wolfowitz, or mass graves of children, or other legacies of Saddam's government, or how the occupation\/liberation...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1693,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/23\/food_fight.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":2},"title":"Food Fight","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 23-Nov-01 2:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"People are starving in Iraq. But the evidence is good, according to this New Republic article, that it's actually Saddam's fault. Why should we be surprised? (Via LGF)...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3798,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/27\/the_ussr_is_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":3},"title":"“The USSR is the crack brigade of the world proletariat!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 27-Mar-03 10:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a sucker for propaganda posters and fliers. Heck, I even have a fascination for the ubiquity of Saddam's face all over Iraq (enjoy those images while they last). This...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":369,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/26\/to_the_rescue.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":4},"title":"To the rescue!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Apr-03 10:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"Thank heavens we have the UN Human Rights Commission on the job, as this article details that body's quick and appropriate responses to ever-growing reports of human rights violations within...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":429,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/15\/ars_gratia_arti.html","url_meta":{"origin":4677,"position":5},"title":"Ars gratia artis","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 15-Apr-03 8:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Fantasy artist Rowena is torqued that some of her original oils were hanging in Saddam's love nest. Rowena said she still can't believe something in her artwork might have touched...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"Savage me, O Mighty Wyrm of Tikrit!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/rowena_king-dragon.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}