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CNN is reporting that Arab news services are reporting that Saddam Hussein has been executed for not being Saudi, Chinese, Sudanese, or North Korean.
He was killed this evening (morning in Iraq) for murdering 148 Shiites and not for wiping out tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Kurds; once again the Bush Administration has prematurely rushed to judgment in regards to Saddam.
But what's worse is, despite this being the Information Age, there was no Team Coverage, no live footage, no embedded journalists, no podcasting, no live blogging, no elderly anchorman on top of a tank, no nothing other than hearsay that was translated and delivered quite simply: Saddam is dead, his execution happened right before dawn, mission accomplished, farewell straw man.
CNN is now reporting that there were photos of Saddam's execution, and perhaps video of the hanging, but tick tock fellas, it's Friday night and we've got shit to do and we have to resort to posting the video of Saddam being killed after the jump even though it's simply an artist's rendition.
LAist is happy that Saddam is no longer around, but at what cost did we get here, and where will we go now? Will the US and its allies use what it learned from this to aggressively remove other murderous dictators? If freedom and human rights are so important to the Bush administration, will they be just as forceful to persuade non-oil rich countries to quit slaughtering their people?
Ding dong the witch is dead but where's the architect of the tragedies of 9/11? Where are those behind the outrageousness in Darfur? Why are we still in bed with the Saudis who execute people in the fucking streets?
If this is the beginning of a new day in world politics where the USA is to officially authorized to be the World Police and Saddam is just one of many on our To Do list then fine, say so and then do it. But if this is just a lame attempt of putting a Band-Aid on sloppy mess that is the so-called War on Terror then please provide a receipt because we would like to exchange it for something far more valuable.
