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Opinion: Saddam death watch: Leader Principle goes subatomic as Butcher of Baghdad becomes early-morning Eid sacrifice

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Praise Allah for the pre-Copernican Islamic holiday calendar, which by divine accident means we may get a Saddam-free 2007. The imperative to get the ugly business of killing a man over with before the haj really heats up has spared all of us a Mumia-style limbo of pleas and appeals that might have dragged on well into President McCain’s first term. Specifically, Eid-al-Adha (which ironically celebrates Abraham’s narrowly averted sacrifice) is dawning over Iraq right now, and Saddam Hussein’s execution is scheduled to come off in the early morning hours—bad news for Saddam, for those of us who believe the state should use a minimum of force to protect its citizens, and for Jerry Haleva (pictured at right), Hollywood’s Saddam of record. (He’s played the doomed dictator in six films.)

It’s a customary copout at times like these to note that, well, we’re opposed to the death penalty, but in this case we’ll make an exception. Another factor in favor of the copout is that an execution backed by the full faith and fanfare of the state may contribute in some small way to stability in Iraq (or do just the opposite, or most likely have no effect at all). But let’s dispense with the copout: State-sponsored execution is a loathsome, outdated practice that tarnishes everybody connected with it—including the citizens who approve it through their participation in the workings of the state. It would have set a greater example for Iraq and for the world to let him rot in prison, his signal (already grown so faint after just three years) fading into oblivion.

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Is the great za’im of Tikrit even now conferring with some Father Jerry counterpart, an old friend and cleric trying to persuade him to go to the gallows bawling like a yellow coward, so that kids may learn from his example and stick to the straight and narrow path? Unlikely, but tales of Saddam’s behavior in his final moments will almost certainly be with us for many years—even if the Iraqi government makes public its promised snuff videotape. Maybe the most regrettable thing about the execution is that it re-dignifies Saddam Hussein as somebody important enough to kill. For the millions of survivors of Saddam’s victims in the three gulf wars and the bloody maintenance of his 24-year reign, that importance was never in doubt, and I hope they get some comfort from his end. But Iraq has had few enough examples of living former leaders that it’s too bad the courts have ignored the wisdom of James T. Kirk: ‘The problem with the Nazis...wasn’t simply that their leaders were evil, psychotic men—they were!—but the main problem, I think, was the Leader Principle.’

Will the Leader Principle (which for my money is too strong everywhere at all times, but is particularly pronounced in Saddam’s little corner of the world) lose some strength from the spectacle of a bloodthirsty tinpot swinging from a rope? I’d doubt it. People love their strong men—including, as it turns out, many fair-weather supporters of the Iraq war, who now welcome the prospect of building up some new sub-Hussein tyrant to enforce a cold peace in Baghdad. This is the kind of mad logic that results when we measure out our progress in the termination of human lives.

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