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The treatment he deserves: this prisoner should not be left to Jacques, Kofi, et al
National Review, Dec 31, 2003 by John O'Sullivan
NEVER have so many congratulations been offered through such painfully gritted teeth. European leaders, Democratic politicians, and media Big Feet all felt compelled to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein. After all, as the guardians of the moral conscience of mankind they are supposed to disapprove of dictatorship, torture, and mass murder even more than most people. But welcoming the downfall of Saddam also meant giving aid and comfort to President Bush; that took all the fun out of it.
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Listening to European politicians as they followed up their praise for the skill and bravery of the U.S. soldiers who nabbed Saddam with stern demands for the U.S. to share authority in Iraq with the international community or to hand over Saddam to be tried at The Hague, one was reminded of Muslim clerics condemning September 11. Yes, it was shocking and tragic, of course, but so were racist slurs on American Muslims, and "secret evidence" in terrorism trials, and visa rules that discriminated against Middle Eastern countries, and Western colonialism, and the medieval crusades, and the Spanish Reconquista, and ... In both sets of instances, the qualifications sounded more important and certainly more heartfelt than the condemnations or congratulations they were qualifying.
Tentative, sad, or angry reactions from Arabs to Saddam's capture were generally ascribed in the media to feelings of humiliation. For the umpteenth time a mighty Arab warrior had been defeated and captured by the "arrogant" Americans. Worse, the "new Saladin" had behaved in a shamefully craven way and, rather than dying with a gun in his hand, had submitted weakly to a medical examination and a shave. One sympathizes, naturally. But is there not something wrong or inconsistent about a culture that idolizes an Arab power-holder almost because of his ruthless brutality and then complains when a greater (if less brutal) power defeats and humiliates him?
If Arabs and Muslims are to break out of the vicious circle of humiliation-aggression-defeat-humiliation, then they have to settle for modest improvements in their everyday lives rather than seeking historic victories over imagined enemies by proxy. Their present policy of wagging their collective face in an enemy's fist is paying declining dividends in both Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. If humiliation is to be a useful diagnosis of their problems rather than just another excuse, they should be reforming their culture and political traditions to make them more cooperative, liberal, and practical and less clannish, oppressive, and dreamy.
Arabs and Muslims, however, are not the only peoples suffering from a psychological flaw that manifested itself in their response to Saddam's capture. Both "Europe" (a.k.a. France, Germany, the EU, and Russia) and the "international community" (a.k.a. France, Germany, the EU, Russia, and Kofi Annan) responded with stratagems designed to turn this U.S. gain to America's disadvantage. In ascending order of importance these were: 1) that Saddam should not be subject to the death penalty; 2) that Saddam should be tried not by the U.S. or in Iraq but by an international court, preferably at The Hague; and 3) that the U.S. should take the opportunity of Saddam's capture to broaden and "internationalize" the government of Iraq.
There are very few merits attaching to these proposals. Consider the first: that Saddam be spared any possibility of execution. In the first place, this proposal is morally compromised because its exponents include representatives of at least one country, France, that was an ally of Saddam right up to the invasion of Iraq. It is therefore interceding not for justice but for a client. Even if that were not so, it would still be objectionable because its main political purpose is neither to express compassion for Saddam nor to mount a principled argument against capital punishment but to embarrass the United States. It is a staple of anti-American polemics in Europe that American (and especially Texan) employment of the death penalty is barbaric and stands in shameful contrast to the rejection of capital punishment that is at the heart of civilized "European values." Intervening on Saddam's behalf is intended to remind everyone of this supposed contrast. In fact, large majorities of European voters support capital punishment in virtually every European country. What ensures that the death penalty is "outlawed" is not common values but elite contempt for the democratic rights of European peoples--a contempt that is displayed not only on capital punishment but also on currency reform, European integration, and much else.
The elites themselves are opposed to the death penalty because, among other reasons, they have largely forgotten what political evil is like. Or, to be more precise, they have blinded themselves to the reality of political evil, especially that on the left or "progressive" side of politics, because they did not wish to acknowledge crimes that they would then need to protest and punish. Their recent forefathers were more honest. At the end of the Second World War some countries restored the death penalty that they had abolished back in the late 1800s. They felt they needed such a condign punishment to mark their abhorrence of the crimes committed by Nazis and their collaborators. Saddam's crimes surely fall into the same category of horror requiring the same level of punishment and rejection. If that simple, unsophisticated truth is not obvious to the Quai d'Orsay, it surely is to the people of Iraq.
