RIWherever Saddam

This is probably going to come as somewhat of a surprise.

I was not pleased with Saddam Hussein's hanging. He deserved it, no question. But the manner in which it was preformed was not, in my opinion, optimal. From the taunts and the jeers behind cowardly masks, to preforming it on a holiday, it was not a carrying out of justice, but a bloodthirsty act of vengeance. There were a few things about it I didn't realize, since I didn't understand the language being spoken. I didn't realize that they didn't allow Saddam to finish his recitation of faith. And I didn't realize that right after the drop, they were shouting Muqtada al Sadr's name. Please read the following post by The Sandmonkey. He completely nailed down my misgivings about the entire event.

If you haven't been following the happenings in that part of the world, Muqtada al Sadr is a radical Shiite cleric. He hated Saddam (a Sunni), but he is also allied with the Iranians who hate the U.S. and are behind most of the sectarian violence in Iraq right now. Their goal is simple. Take advantage of the U.S. removal of Saddam and extend the Islamic revolution to Iraq.

I remember the old argument for not removing Saddam during the first Gulf War: If we had removed Saddam, someone worse would have taken his place.

No truer words were ever spoken if we're talking about al Sadr. Saddam was bad. There was no reason to leave him in power, especially when Iraq is so valuable to us strategically. And he got the death he so richly deserved. But there is no time or reason to revel in his death. al Sadr and the rest of the nuts over there are just a different side to the same evil coin. Al Sadr will be worse than Saddam if he is left unchecked because he will have more followers with the Shiites, plus he will have allies in Iran and Syria.

Knowing the psychosis brewing in Iran, it bothers me to no end that we let al Sadr's people hang him. We shouldn't have done that.