FRIZ
August 2, 2003, 01:57 PM
The Washington Post
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A19
On Killing the King
By Charles Krauthammer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10956-2003Jul31.html
When the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said,
fleeing disguised as a woman, was caught, castrated and hacked to pieces by
a crowd. When the strongman who took power, Abdul Karim Kassem, was
overthrown five years later, he was shot and his body displayed on
television. When Najibullah, deposed dictator of Afghanistan, was killed by
the Taliban in 1996, he too was castrated, shot and hung, still alive, from
a lamppost.
Given the neighborhood, the complaint about the offense to local
sensitivities by the American treatment of the bodies of Uday and Qusay
Hussein is hard to fathom. Not that the public display of overthrown tyrants
is by any means an exclusively Muslim custom. Think back only to 1989, when
the Ceausescus' summary execution was videotaped and their bodies shown on
Romanian television, or, most famously, to Mussolini being strung upside
down by the partisans.
These shows of public fury are more than just catharsis. They are a form of
preventive politics. You want to show that the king is not only dead but
humiliated, desecrated, so as to strip him posthumously of the awe and aura
he possessed in life.
Which is why the display of the dead Hussein brothers was necessary.
Consider the circumstances under which the Baath regime was overthrown. For
30 years it ruled by torture and fear. Then all of a sudden it disappeared.
It was not decimated. It vanished, literally, into the night.
In that part of the world, people are used to seeing their deposed leaders
in chains -- or worse. In Iraq, however, more than two-thirds of the deck of
cards have been captured, but entirely antiseptically. Not one has been
shown in public or on television.
There is an announcement: The six of spades has been arrested. But no
picture. No proof. Nothing tangible.
It is rather odd that Martha Stewart does a perp walk for trading ImClone,
but Tariq Aziz, complicit in the murder and torture of tens of thousands,
does not. The reason is simple: The Baathist thugs are war prisoners, and
international law does not permit their display.
But there's a loophole. You are not allowed to parade a prisoner on
television, but there is nothing in the Geneva Conventions about displaying
dead bodies. Hence the display of Uday and Qusay. They were not only the
most important torturers. They were the deadest.
That deadness offended the sensibilities of a few, most characteristically,
the supercilious British reporter who confronted Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez,
the U.S. commander in Baghdad (who announced the killing of Uday and Qusay),
with the charge that the United States should have taken them alive, not
just to produce more information but to provide war crimes trials. Why did
you not just wait them out, he asked?
The question was as astounding for its stupidity as for its audacity. The
obvious answer is that waiting would have opened the unacceptable
possibility of escape. One might add: Imagine what would have happened had a
siege been declared, and days spent waiting for the food and ammunition
inside the house to run out. The world media descending on the scene would
have made Camp O.J. look like a Cub Scout barbecue. Mediators representing
everyone from Putin to the pope would have fallen over each other to
negotiate the terms of surrender.
But the most important reason remained unstated: We had no wish to take Uday
and Qusay alive. We did the correct thing in giving them one chance to
surrender. But no more. The moment we captured them we would have been
responsible for their care and feeding forever. They were in their thirties.
It would have meant that for the next 50 years the Hussein dynasty would
have been kept alive -- by us.
For a half-century, Iraqis would live in fear of a restoration. It was not
for nothing that Richard III had his nephews killed in the Tower of London.
We don't do that today. In fact, we leave unmolested Saddam Hussein's other
offspring -- three daughters and a son. But when confronted with his
designated heirs, world-class murderers who refused to surrender, the idea
of waiting them out so that we could forever be custodians of their
restoration is simply insane.
Which suggests a plan for when we finally find Saddam Hussein. We give him,
oh, 30 seconds to contemplate his surrender -- after all, he has had about
five months to mull it over -- and then we kill the monster. And the ghosts
that still surround him.
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A19
On Killing the King
By Charles Krauthammer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10956-2003Jul31.html
When the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, Prime Minister Nuri Said,
fleeing disguised as a woman, was caught, castrated and hacked to pieces by
a crowd. When the strongman who took power, Abdul Karim Kassem, was
overthrown five years later, he was shot and his body displayed on
television. When Najibullah, deposed dictator of Afghanistan, was killed by
the Taliban in 1996, he too was castrated, shot and hung, still alive, from
a lamppost.
Given the neighborhood, the complaint about the offense to local
sensitivities by the American treatment of the bodies of Uday and Qusay
Hussein is hard to fathom. Not that the public display of overthrown tyrants
is by any means an exclusively Muslim custom. Think back only to 1989, when
the Ceausescus' summary execution was videotaped and their bodies shown on
Romanian television, or, most famously, to Mussolini being strung upside
down by the partisans.
These shows of public fury are more than just catharsis. They are a form of
preventive politics. You want to show that the king is not only dead but
humiliated, desecrated, so as to strip him posthumously of the awe and aura
he possessed in life.
Which is why the display of the dead Hussein brothers was necessary.
Consider the circumstances under which the Baath regime was overthrown. For
30 years it ruled by torture and fear. Then all of a sudden it disappeared.
It was not decimated. It vanished, literally, into the night.
In that part of the world, people are used to seeing their deposed leaders
in chains -- or worse. In Iraq, however, more than two-thirds of the deck of
cards have been captured, but entirely antiseptically. Not one has been
shown in public or on television.
There is an announcement: The six of spades has been arrested. But no
picture. No proof. Nothing tangible.
It is rather odd that Martha Stewart does a perp walk for trading ImClone,
but Tariq Aziz, complicit in the murder and torture of tens of thousands,
does not. The reason is simple: The Baathist thugs are war prisoners, and
international law does not permit their display.
But there's a loophole. You are not allowed to parade a prisoner on
television, but there is nothing in the Geneva Conventions about displaying
dead bodies. Hence the display of Uday and Qusay. They were not only the
most important torturers. They were the deadest.
That deadness offended the sensibilities of a few, most characteristically,
the supercilious British reporter who confronted Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez,
the U.S. commander in Baghdad (who announced the killing of Uday and Qusay),
with the charge that the United States should have taken them alive, not
just to produce more information but to provide war crimes trials. Why did
you not just wait them out, he asked?
The question was as astounding for its stupidity as for its audacity. The
obvious answer is that waiting would have opened the unacceptable
possibility of escape. One might add: Imagine what would have happened had a
siege been declared, and days spent waiting for the food and ammunition
inside the house to run out. The world media descending on the scene would
have made Camp O.J. look like a Cub Scout barbecue. Mediators representing
everyone from Putin to the pope would have fallen over each other to
negotiate the terms of surrender.
But the most important reason remained unstated: We had no wish to take Uday
and Qusay alive. We did the correct thing in giving them one chance to
surrender. But no more. The moment we captured them we would have been
responsible for their care and feeding forever. They were in their thirties.
It would have meant that for the next 50 years the Hussein dynasty would
have been kept alive -- by us.
For a half-century, Iraqis would live in fear of a restoration. It was not
for nothing that Richard III had his nephews killed in the Tower of London.
We don't do that today. In fact, we leave unmolested Saddam Hussein's other
offspring -- three daughters and a son. But when confronted with his
designated heirs, world-class murderers who refused to surrender, the idea
of waiting them out so that we could forever be custodians of their
restoration is simply insane.
Which suggests a plan for when we finally find Saddam Hussein. We give him,
oh, 30 seconds to contemplate his surrender -- after all, he has had about
five months to mull it over -- and then we kill the monster. And the ghosts
that still surround him.